DP's nephew - what would you expect him to call me?

[SarahAndQuack]

This is probably really petty but I'm wondering what others think.

My DP and I got together when nephew had just turned four; he's now nine and so has known me more than half his life. He didn't really know my DP's ex well, as they'd been split up for a while.

I've noticed that he never calls me 'Auntie Sarah'. He occasionally uses my first name but mostly simply doesn't address me. He's also quite rude on occasion. He is having a rough time at the moment - his parents split up a bit over a year ago and it's hard on him. So a bit of rudeness is something I'd expect to see and not worry about. But the kinds of things he says and does ruffle me up a bit - for example he'll totally ignore me when I speak to him/if I ask him something, but will do it if my partner or his mother asks. Occasionally I get a reply like 'I don't need to do that' or 'no I don't have to,' and often he'll tell me what my DD (who's three) can and can't do. I don't think this last thing is intended to be cheeky at all, but I've noticed he doesn't do it with my partner.

It crossed both mine and my partner's minds that this may have something to do with us being woman, and him not having any other exposure to same-sex couples (though, as I say, he has known me for years ...).

I feel awkward asking him to call me 'Auntie Sarah' as he calls my partner 'Auntie Firstname,' but I find it kind of weird he doesn't. What would you think? For the record my own DD calls both of us by our first names on occasion; I don't find first names from children rude, it's just the way he seems not to see me as having that role at all.

I would never refer to my aunts /uncles partners as auntie/uncle because they aren't. And these are people they have been married to from before I was born. I call them by their first name. I love them all so it's not meant as disrespect, it's just, technically, they aren't my aunt or uncle. But maybe I'm weird

My family are probably not the best example of this, as there seems to be an unspoken rule that to be called Aunty X or Uncle Z you must have been married to the actual aunt or uncle at the time the child was born! It's bonkers really. So my brother has been with his partner since the week before my oldest DS was born, but when he was little it was a brand new relationship so it felt odd to refer to her as Aunty Danielle, so she has always been just Danielle. However, we do refer to her as the children's aunt - but they just don't use Aunty as part of her name.
Likewise, my uncle met his wife when I was 14 and they married when I was 16. She's never been Aunty X to me, but I do think of her as an aunt.
On the other hand, my children have plenty of people who they do call Aunty/Uncle XYZ - mine and DH's close friends are all known this way to my children, so whilst they oddly have 2 biological uncles, plus their partners - they actually have about 8 people who they call Aunty or Uncle XYZ, but then they know they aren't actuallyb their aunts or uncles. Madness!

You’re giving this way too much headspace OP. Does it really, really matter what he calls you? You’re not technically his aunt as you aren’t married. I certainly wouldn’t refer (and I don’t) to unmarried partners as my child’s aunt/uncle.

I would say leave the poor kid alone. Don’t have a sit down meeting with all the family to announce thou shall henceforth be referred to as “aunt xxx”.

It’s very self absorbed, not to mention entitled.

The child probably doesn’t know how to negotiate your same sex relationship. Rather than the family bad mouthing you, he probably just doesn’t have a clue what’s going on and he may be a little bit confused by it.

As a side note, how likely is it do you think the C of E would eventually allow same sex marriages? Can you not just have a quiet ceremony and get married in church in the future if it’s ever allowed?

I would not call it demanding but more of letting him know she would love him to address her as auntie and she sees him as family. Sitting down with the family is to see what the rest of the family think. Maybe he does not know she sees him as her nephew. But the disrespect does have to be addressed. She already said she will leave him alone about it too

Oh and without him(but later let him know she likes to refer as auntie but it is still up to him) she need to see how his mother feel about it. If his mother is fine with it, she probably start saying "auntie Sarah is coming over today"

i have never force my DC to call my siblings (or their partners) auntie or uncle. we address them as such but if DC didnt want to use it they were never pulled up on it. I think it depends on how much interaction they have with the person and their own personal relationship with them. So I wouldnt expect an "auntie". However the ignoring thing would definitely be addressed. There is no excuse for being rude and it sounds like hes being horrible to be honest. This isnt ok and needs to be addressed by his mother or your partner privately to see why he feels like this. maybe once he knows its not acceptable and has been noticed things will change.

[quote SarahAndQuack]@cardswapping - DP hasn't 'made' me DW for the same reason I haven't made DP DW. We want to want until the Church allows same-sex marriage.[/quote]
but that is so risky, esp with a child in the picture.
if anything happened to either of you, the remaining one would be hit with IHT.
why not get legally married in the registrars', and then later you could have a CofE ceremony, hopefully.

i also think you may be projecting your own issues on to this little boy. he sounds fine. just accept him as he is. you can't mandate how someone else regards you. just let him be. don't analyse what is a non-issue. your relationship with your partner is nothing to do with him. try to relax about things.

@FloraButterCookie

I would never refer to my aunts /uncles partners as auntie/uncle because they aren't. And these are people they have been married to from before I was born. I call them by their first name. I love them all so it's not meant as disrespect, it's just, technically, they aren't my aunt or uncle. But maybe I'm weird

not weird. when i was growing up this was the norm around me. when i later heard people speaking of their aunt and uncle's bedroom, i was shocked and puzzled, as i thought that meant they were brother and sister ! or that strangely their father's brother had happened to marry their mother's sister. thus making any issue their double cousin!

You said that you don’t imagine that anyone has talked to him about your relationship. Assuming his Mum is supportive of you being with her sister, it’s a real shame that she hasn’t just chatted to him about how his cousin has two Mums. My close friend is in a same sex female marriage with a son and I have always made sure that my son (now 4) is reminded that some children may have two mummies or two Daddies (or a single parent) and that people can love or marry whoever they want. It sort of crops up naturally in conversation, I don’t preach or anything. Is DP’a sister fully on board with your relationship do you think?

Are you married?

I wouldn’t want my children to call my sibling’s partners Auntie or Uncle unless they were married. It’s implies a permanence in their lives. However, they don’t have any same-sex pairings among their aunts/uncles. I can see how that requires different thinking...

My mother is from a large family. I call her older siblings Auntie/Uncle, but the younger ones - the ones who weren’t married when I was little I called by their first-names and still do. Odd maybe, but my siblings and I have decided that was the logic behind it!

Anyway, does it need to bother you so much, how this child addresses you?

In my family we would call people by first name only. Like I consider whoever my aunts and uncles are with to be equally my aunts and uncles and my grandparents are remarried and I consider both their partners to be part of the family as grandparents figures also but I call every body by name.

Rarely would we say Auntie X or Grandma B, sometimes but most of the time it would be easier to call them by nicknames (shortened versions of their names) regardless of bloodline.

It seems like the issue is more with him being disrespectful towards you and it needing addressing. It’s possible that he is uncomfortable with the same-sex relationship and doesn’t know how to express it.

I came out when my youngest brother was 9, he was uncomfortable with it at first and so we had a big chat about it. I told him he was entitled to his feelings and I would never ask him to support homosexuality or anything but I will ALWAYS ask him to be respectful. He doesn’t have to like or support someone/or things that make him uncomfortable but he does have to be respectful to people who are respectful to him and that his discomfort doesn’t ever give him room or an excuse to be hateful or harmful to others either through words and actions and he got/realized that.

And it was very interesting actually to hear what made him uncomfortable etc... he is totally over it now but I think he genuinely needed the talk and the room to express his feelings about it without being made to feel bad for it and I always look back at this conversation as a very nice one despite the content not necessarily being pleasant as I believe it was a bonding one for us, so maybe talk to him one in one or with the support of your partner, see why he reacts that way.

@SarahAndQuack

Thanks all!

@VettiyaIruken, yes, that worries me a bit too.

@FlitterMouse - in my family, we'd say anyone who's the sister or sister-in-law of your parents is your auntie. So my partner is auntie to my brother's children. Do you mean we're not blood related?

It's not the first names on its own that I find strange, it's that DP is 'Auntie' and I'm not.

I'm pretty sure he calls his dad's sister and her husband 'auntie' and 'uncle'. The difference is that they're married and he's known them since he was born.

Well there you go, you're not married to his aunt so you're not his aunt.

You're just his aunts girlfriend.

You are his aunts girlfriend, I want a child to call me what they choose too, what does it bother you yes I am going to use a must over used expression but yes I find it precious.

thinking more I don't think it is any of my business what a child calls me it is their business only

I would bet that the parents are dissing you and the same sex relationship behind your backs.

I agree.

I find the glee with which people on the thread are telling OP she is just a girlfriend quite malicious.

@switswooo

I find the glee with which people on the thread are telling OP she is just a girlfriend quite malicious.

Is it incorrect?

Well, I think you sound like a lovely aunt, @SarahAndQuack, and as if you’re really attuned to his current struggles because of his parents’ break-up, and that he’s lucky to have you.

Obviously, it’s possible he’s absorbing implicitly homophobic stuff at home (or not even same-sex stuff, just plain old ‘girls are no good’ sexism), or it could be from his peers. But my son is the same age and I honestly don’t think we’ve ever done any specific modelling of positive attitudes towards same-sex relationships (it’s really not come up, as we’d been living in a corner of High Tory rural England from which any self-respecting gay person had left at a run, and our only longterm gay friends were in distant London, and then we were living in remote rural Ireland during lockdown, so we saw no one) — and he’s absorbed without apparently registering any significant difference the fact that a new classmate has two Dads. His chief distinction between said dads is that one buys them snacks at the bakery after school and the other doesn’t.

I know a lot of people who only use Auntie/Uncle if you are legally married.
Surely, seeing that you’ve been in his life so long, it’s more that his parents haven’t chosen to call you Auntie for him in all these years?

Christ on a bike. Op is not a girlfriend. She is a life partner and legal mother to their joint child. Glad to see homophobia is not dead.

My kids tend to say “auntie/uncle x” for the spouse of blood or honorary “auntie” close friends of my and DH’s or for partners that have “always” been there as far as the kids are concerned - so relationships that started before they were born. “New” relationships (that started within the kids’ memories) are tricky. They and we are I guess not sure when a new partner becomes an established “enough“ presence, but sometimes that leads to a situation where someone clearly is an established fixture (like you - you and DP have been together longer term and have a child) but the transition to “auntie” never happened as there wasn’t a “trigger” like a wedding.

The rudeness is a separate issue that I think you are being very nice about.

I'm utterly baffled by the idea that people only use Auntie/Uncle for married partners but not long-term unmarried ones 😂 I get not using it for a new relationship, but... well, divorce is both possible and common. Marriage isn't a guarantee of permanence.

I thnk it definitely comes from the parents doesn't it? So the child calls the adult the thing that they hear their parents refer to them as eg "we're going to see aunty x tomorrow ". My blood related nephews and my dcs do not call anyone aunt or uncle, i imagine because me and my sister don't use the term in that way. My dh's nephews call me aunty x and i've heard their parents call me that. Then some close family friends call us aunty and uncle because their parents call us that to them.

I don't think it's your nephew consciously deciding to treat you differently

@whatswithtodaytoday

I'm utterly baffled by the idea that people only use Auntie/Uncle for married partners but not long-term unmarried ones 😂 I get not using it for a new relationship, but... well, divorce is both possible and common. Marriage isn't a guarantee of permanence.

I've met people like this though. As far as they are concerned, if a couple is not married it's not that serious relationship however long they've been together.

or that strangely their father's brother had happened to marry their mother's sister. thus making any issue their double cousin!

A friend of mine had 'double' aunts, uncles and cousins as her father's sister married her mother's brother. I think the family found it quite difficult to explain and got a lot of 'is that even legal?' comments!

I've been with DP 7 years. They were 2-6 when I first met them. His DNs and DN don't call me Auntie Oksana but would say thats my Auntie. Just the same as they would my DP.

I find the concept that you only call parents siblings aunt or uncle baffling and not something I've heard outside if mumsnet.