She's not my mom but, calls herself Nana

[MomtoOneMarvelousBubba]

My Dad recently married the woman he has been seeing since my mom died 10 years ago.
The relationship between me and my dad collapsed after my mom died so I only met his wife 3 or so times over the years before they were married. Like most people i love my mom to bits, i was fotunate as she was a really good mother and I know i wouldnt be the woman I am today without her.

Since the marriage and falling pregnant and then having my LO (shes 4 months), I have made an effort to be inclusive but, still now even though it's been so long every time I see my dads wife I feel so sad it's not my mom stood there and I just can't help it. I should add she's a perfectly nice lady im happy for my dad - losing my mom was a tragedy but, I was in my twenties when this happened so not in need of a stepmother and I will never develop this kind of relationship with her which makes me feel a bit funny that shes just snatched up the title of grandmother so thoughtlessly. I want to bring my daughter up knowing as much as she can of my mom (home vids, pics and funny stories etc) So my question is AIBU to ask her to stop calling herself nana...

Any suggestions on how to go about the convo or, actual experience of this kind of situation. I would be most grateful xx

From another perspective.

My friend who is in her 50s is doing her family tree. She discovered that the person she knew as her maternal grandmother was in fact her step gran.

She asked her mother why she had never told her this. Her mother said " we were worried that you wouldn't love her if you knew she wasn't a blood relative " .

My friend was very hurt. She loved her Gm very much and said she didn't care about blood, only that she had been kind and loving.

Your SM can't replace your mother . But she can play a grand parent role in your child's life if she and you are both willing.

As long as she is kind and loving, why would you want to exclude her? It doesn't take anything away from your mother or the love you had for each other. Honouring your mothers memory means learning from her, not living in the past.

Choose another name for your mothers such as granny. Tell your baby all about granny so they will know that she loved you and would have loved them very much.

I think you should consider you father's feelings. Yes you, as an adult ,lost your mum but he lost his wife, his life partner! Are you not pleased to see your father has found happiness again? Don't you think that is what your dm would have wanted? Poor nan gas list his first wife and you are being less than welcoming to his second.she IS your step mother, and the baby's stepgrandmother, however much you wish otherwise.It is a done deal

'Poor man has lost' not ' poor nan gas list' ! Jeez!!

So sorry you lost your mum and this must bring up so many feelings for you about your mum not having the opportunity to be the fantastic grandmum she would surely have been.

However I do think you are being a bit unreasonable to this lady, who appears to be v nice and has now been with your Dad for 10 years so is not a fly-by-night relationship. And your DC who will have a relationship with her - and she seems keen to do it well.

Is there a name you would have picked your Mum to use as a Grandparent? Can you make sure she doesn't use that?

It would probably help you a lot to just tell her you are finding it hard that your mum never got to be a grandmum. You might want to think about some counselling now as well to deal with your feelings about you the DCs are never going to have the same live relationship with her as you do.

As others have said, there is a lot of love in the world and the more love your DCs have the better.

It sounds like from the OP's post that she neither wants nor needs her DF's partner - who she sees very sporadically - to play a key role in her daughter's life. That's absolutely fine. It's her choice. As PP have said, just keep using her first name in conversations/correspondence related to your daughter and they'll pick up on it. If not, a quiet word with your Dad will sort it out.

She isn't being thoughtless.

I truly feel she should have asked you first what your preferences are for her 'title' she barely knows you and as you are an adult when she came into your life she is definitely not a stepmother she is your dads wife and you are her husbands daughter.

I'd speak to her and explain she is not to be referred to as nana. She can have a long and involved relationship if that's your wish but she can do that without being called nana.

I don't know about you, but when I had my first child, it threw up all sorts of feelings around my mum, my childhood, my in laws. I really wanted my mum there and involved in my life much more than I had before the baby was born (she's still alive and lovely, but she lives 200 miles away, and I was very aware of that distance.)

I can quite imagine that if I'd lost my mum, having a new baby would bring up all that sadness again, and to have a near-stranger cheerfully refer to herself as 'Nana' would be like rubbing salt in the wounds.

YANBU. But I agree with everyone else that it will be good for this baby - and you - to have loving adults in your lives, and you need to be as tactful and thoughtful about this as possible.

If you think you can, I'd try and talk to this woman yourself. Say something like, "I'm so happy and grateful that you want to be in my LO's life. That really means a lot to me. But I'm finding it really hard at the moment not having my mum around. I miss her so much, and I'm so sad that LO won't know her grandmother, and that my mum never got to meet her granddaughter. I'm really sorry - it's nothing personal - but every time you call yourself Nana, it just reminds me of my mum and I miss her all over again.
I'd love LO to have a special name she calls you - could we think of something together that makes me happy to think of you being in her life, not sad about my mum?"

she is definitely not a stepmother she is your dads wife and you are her husbands daughter

..which would be the definition of stepmother!

My dad's mum remarried several years after his dad's death. Dad was upset that she remarried. Some years later, when my sister and I were born, we were always taught to call his mum Grandma Riley, which was her first husband's name! And her husband we called Uncle Jack, although our cousins called him Grandad. He was a lovely kind man, and my sister and I often wish we could have called him Grandad, especially as we didn't have another one!

Thanks again everyone. @cheerfulmuddler I think I might give that a go... although, im thinking I may go via my dad, just to check, as although this is how I feel, I don't want there to be any hard feelings and the relationship will develop with time.

I guess what im feeling is a little rushed and put upon. It was an adjustment being pregnant and not having my mom. Now LO's here ive had to readjust myself again. Perhaps counselling would help but I don't feel weighted with grief anymore just a little sad when I see him without her - he used to be so sparky. I do think it's nice of her to want to be so involved I guess I just feel shes being a little presumptive and teensy bit careless, considering we're not close at all. Ill chat to my dad.

My parents are divorced and both then remarried.
When DS came along I always referred to Grandma and SF'sname and Grandad and SM'sname.
I confess this was totally because I found my SF to be a very difficult man with strange views and I wanted to be totally clear that he WASN'T my DC's 'grand' anything......
My SM has become Granx since my SF's death but never in DM's hearing.......

OP, she is your stepmother. I suggest you refer to your stepmum as whatever you call her (not read whole thred yet) e.g. Rachel. LO will follow your lead.

Maybe Nana is her tactful way of not calling herself a grandparent sort of name? (Granny etc

On what planet is Nana not a grandparent sort of name?

Of course YANBU, and anyone who thinks you are clearly hasn't a clue. The woman is not a grandparent (not your childs anyway) and has no right to call herself one.

Sorry for the loss of your mum. I can see where you're coming from but can you not take comfort in the fact that she thinks enough of your child to want to be their nana? I had a step grandmother and step grandfather when I was growing up - both referred to themselves as a nanny and grandad. Granted it's not quite the same, but if she is trying to build a relationship with you and your child then why not take the olive branch and accept the kindness. There's no taking away from the relationship that your child would have have had with your own mum, but if it were me (and I'm in a similar situation with my mums new partner after I lost my dad 15 years ago) I would accept the kindness and have always spoken to my ds about his grandad he never met.

I've been thinking of you since I posted OP and realised I'd omitted something. Whilst I would still urge you to consider grief counselling (it won't weight you with grief but it would allow you to properly process your grief so that in turn you can be freed from that place of sadness), I'd also advise that you take a child-centric view when you consider what to do.

That is, what is the very best thing for your LO? IME, being surrounded by loving relatives - even if from a distance - is a good thing for a child so I echo all the PPs who have posted variants of this.

One thing that I suspect may be true though is that if your grief is not yet properly processed and gone through, then that may make it difficult to separate your own needs from those of your LO IYSWIM? That's not a judgement call but just a thought based on all I recall from the horrors of my Mum dying and all of the adjustments one then has to go through and make

Children can never be too 'loved' IMHO and if this women, whom you describe as a nice person, can be a grandparent type figure then surely that can only benefit your LO. My Mum was remarried for many years before she died and her DH was called 'Pappa [insert first name]' which both distinguished him from blood grandparents but also gifted both my DC and him with a 'title' that recognised their relationships. As I said, if you start from a child centric place then you're unlikely to go wrong.

@Italiangreyhound TY, that's very kind of you

My kids asked to call my mums fella grandad because they don't have one in their lives and they felt sad about that. Me and dp have little family so the more people to love them the better. I did have a bit of a wobble about this because my own dad died 10 years ago and it was his title but the kids feelings trumped mine in my situation anyway. My mums fella is a nice man, he's never had kids of his own so he's really chuffed but never over steps the mark and my kids talk about thei'r 'grandad' all the time which is nice. I have made sure they know all about my dad and he's known as grandad bob and mums fella is grandad tom so they know who's who

It is a hard one and a sensitive one. Sorry for your loss though

Dear OP, my heart goes out to you. My DM also passed away when I was in my early twenties, and did not meet my DH or see us get married or meet our two children. I miss my mum terribly, and have a lot of feelings to suppress whenever I see my Dad and his new wife. My stepmother is a wonderful woman who has no previous family and treats me better than I could ever ask for. When DD1 was born we discussed what she would call each grandparent, and we decided she would call my stepmother "grandma" because that's essentially what the relationship is. When DD1 sees photos of my own mother, I tell her that this is "mummy's mummy" and that she actually has three grandmas, and that the one mummy loves most is in heaven. When she's older I'll tell her more, but at this age (2) it's in her best interests to keep things straightforward.

She obviously wants to be involved with them as she is married to their gf she is likely to see them as much as him, excluding her may be detrimental to your children as it may cause friction even with your df, think about what would make for the best atmosphere for your child long term when they go to visit grandad try not to put your needs first. I know it's hard, different regions use different terms for grandparents, do you know what your mum would have called herself gran, nan etc, if so it would be more than acceptable for you to say my mum is nanny so you can be nana, or vice versa.

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..which would be the definition of stepmother

Not when there is no parenting involved and the op isn't a child. My dads partner is exactly that and not a step mother, she recognises this as do all of us.

Not when there is no parenting involved and the op isn't a child. My dads partner is exactly that and not a step mother, she recognises this as do all of us.

That's what you might want to believe -doesn't make it true.A step mother is some one who marries your dad.That is it.The standard or quantity of parenting doesn't come in to it.

It seems to me that it has really hit you that your beloved mum isn't here any more, now that you have so recently become a mum yourself. A new layer of loss has been exposed.

Sometimes grief can express itself as anger or as negative feelings or hurt. I do urge you to seek grief counselling rather than acting on the feelings of hurt or resentment you are experiencing.

I also urge you to examine what caused the falling out with your dad all those years ago, and to ask yourself if the issues were ever really resolved.

Divorcing and ending up with multiple grandparents is absolutely not the same situation. My mum died when I was 32 and my Dad remarried. When my daughter was born I knew that no one else could have the official title, no one could be that role except for my mum. And she still was Grandma, just not with us anymore. My children called my Dad's wife by her first name and it was never odd to them, they just accepted it. Sadly my Dad died this year, and his wife has completely turned on us all and has become monstrous in her grief. She has show she doesn't care about any of us which is devastating as now my children have lost her too. I'm glad she never got the official title. You absolutely aren't being unreasonable. It's your choice.

Refer to her by her name & tell your dad & her that you'd prefer it that way. She shouldn't be referring to herself as nana, at least not without checking first with you. Difficult one.