Gran Name Drama

[GrannyNameDrama]

AIBU to not want my mum to use a granny-name that I really don’t like? I’m 12 weeks pregnant with first baby. This will be my mum’s first grandchild. I assumed she would want to be known as granny or nanny - both very common where I live. She announced on Saturday, “I’ve decided I’ll be X (granny-name). It is not a common way to refer to a granny here and I really don’t like it.
She isn’t used to me telling her no very often. When I told her I didn’t want her to be called X she got very cross & tried to manipulate & guilt-trip me into getting her own way, including bringing up my dad who has passed away, saying he would have wanted to be called the male equivalent of the uncommon granny-name. But I know he wouldn’t, because I spoke to him about it on his deathbed. I feel so guilty he never got to meet his grandchild and I’ve been struggling with that throughout my pregnancy.
It got very heated and I left her house in tears. She hasn’t spoken to me since then and I have my 12 week scan tomorrow. I am wondering am I making a mountain out of a molehill or should I stand my ground considering how much she upset me. Is it common for grandparents to decide how they’ll be referred as or do the parents normally decide that?

YABU she can choose
YANBU you should be happy with the name your child calls her

I've got much older children and plenty of nieces and nephews... in my experience, the kids decide! At home we referred to them as 'Nanny' but the kids made up which Nan was which: e.g. Nanny Banana as they always have a banana in their handbag etc.
I wouldn't encourage anything so close to 'Mum/Mummy/Mama' as my kids used those interchangeably.
You'll be around your child 24/7 and they'll use what you do, so I wouldn't worry too much. It would be different if your Mum was actually an Irish speaker.

I'd leave her to simmer, she'll come around as she won't want to miss out on her grandchild.

My mum doesn’t speak Irish and is pronouncing it incorrectly as mam

very unlikely he will because as I said…. he is dead

I think grandparents should choose what they want to be called

You are right to not want her to be called Mamo . Because isn't that Irish for mother ? Correct me please any Irish speakers. I have heard kids calling their actual mothers this .

On a different note I can't believe she is arguing over this at only 12 weeks . I'd advise any other suggestions about prams , etc to just say oh that's an idea . It's a happy thing for her to think about and then just do what you want .

Your child will know who his mum is. Let your mother choose. It really doesn’t need a drama.

I suggest you read up on emotional immaturity in parents and the guilt-tripping tactics they use. I’ve heard them all over the years. I’ve not called my mum immature to her face, but her behaviour fits these patterns consistently. I often feel like our roles are reversed in many ways

I grew up calling a grandparent an unusual name(never met anyone else who used this name, though I have heard similar in TV and films). It was a source of ridicule from other children. As a child, I cared what other people thought of me, but I also couldn’t bear any ridicule of my very dear grandparent. At a certain age, my elder brother started calling my grandmother a more common name and I followed suit. At the time I found this very awkward and I didn’t want to hurt my grandmother, though she accepted the change very kindly and without hesitation.
So when my own mother chose a unique name for herself as a grandparent, I (rightly or wrongly) vetoed it. I did not want my children to have to go through similar experiences. We went with a traditional name that was similar to what my mum had made up. My mum was a little hurt by this, but she accepted my decision.
OP, Your mum’s reaction is unreasonable. You have your reasons and you are doing what you feel is best for your child.

But mama isnt a name. Its a sound a baby makes when learning to talk. Once they can speak its mum, mom or mammy or ma. Thats the name they will call you forever. No 20 year old is calling their mother mama. But would call granny mamo

I'm french so to my children I'm "maman" and my mum is "mamie"...no issue 🤷🏼‍♀️...well apart from the fact that we live in Switzerland and that Mami ist what children call their mum 🤣 but when talking about her they use Oma and the world is fine 😉. I find mamó lovely personally. 😊

That’s unnecessarily harsh. OP’s mum’s the one who needs to grow up, going on about what she wants to be called when the OP’s barely 12 weeks.

My DM was like this, also insisted on throwing my DS1’s first birthday party, which I gave into for the sake of peace. When his second birthday rolled around she announced that of course she’d do the party again, but by this time he was at playgroup and had friends, so I politely said nope, not happening. Then she rang up to say she’d do the food and send my dad up with it - a 200 mile round trip. Again I said no - kids’ party food is easy (and I was a professional cook).

These things have a way of working themselves out, OP, as others have said, so don’t let the name thing bother you now. But imo, YANBU.

Your mother sounds a bit of a nightmare, @GrannyNameDrama, and she definitely isn’t pronouncing the word correctly! As other posters said, it’s pronounced “Mom-oh”, just as the word for “Mammy” (Mamaí) is pronounced “Mom-ee”. I’ve been teaching Irish for over 37years, so should know by now!😉 As for the first birthday thing-she certainly needs to cop herself on. I hope you don’t have brothers, because if she’s acting like this with her daughter, I think she’d be an absolute nightmare as mother-in-law! I’m a grandmother (Granny-though my four year old grandson sometimes calls me by my Christian name 😂) and think that the way your mother is acting is absolutely ridiculous. She needs to start acting her age and grow up. You’ve enough to be doing besides putting up with her nonsense. Perhaps if she is told the correct pronunciation of “Mamó” she may not be so keen on using it!😉

She can call herself what she likes but the baby might call her something different. Our first grand daughter, trying to pronounce her great grandmother’s name came up with a diminutive which we all adopted and used. Is this really worth falling out over?

Are you from Ulster? As listening to the link, it is pronounced very differently in Ulster Irish, and sounds much more like mammo. I have very basic Irish but I don’t think the fada elongates the vowel in the same way up North.

I mean the link shared up thread.

I agree with this.

My MIL wanted to be called Nanou as when she was an au pair in France 50 years ago, that’s what her charges called their grandmother and she thought it was cute 🙄. We are not French and have no connections to France!

We thought it was ridiculous but just said fine. However, my kids have always called both their grandmothers Nanna. Completely chosen by them and no amount of MIL requesting Nanou changed it.

At 12 weeks pregnant, this is not something you need to worry about. By the time they are old enough to start calling her by a name, they will likely pick their own.

I agree ;)
What is PFB please?

PFB means Precious First Born. A pretty snotty Mumsnet term. And maybe I am being overly precious, but I have been through years of fertility struggles to get here. This will likely be our only child now due to our age and struggles. @WaryHiker I hope my mum can also look back on this as an unnecessarily tainted memory.

Your feelings are your feelings, OP, but I don't think it matters if the name isn't one that's usually heard where you are. Both my grandmothers had gran-names that no one else has probably ever heard of. And my own mum was called 'Precious' by her grandkids. They started it themselves, probably because when they were little, Mum called them 'precious' so often. 🤣

She hated it. But the name stuck.

My mother tried that as well. Wanted to be called 'Mummy Carol'.

No.

I do think your reasons are perfectly valid. I ended up making a creative excuse as to why I didn't like it (My mother likes to get her own way) and she is now known as the word for grandmother in a language she doesn't speak and has no connection to. I got used to it though because it was better than Mummy Carol.

I don’t think it’s always snotty. We all have our PFB moments. Like when you decide before they are even born that they are not going to have a dummy, they will not have plastic toys, they will absolutely never have an iPad or iPhone until they are 18, and 100% never any unrefined sugar or McDonalds!

And then as you reach those stages you learn that some things are less important than others and it all goes out of the window.

I think you’ll find that this will be one of the things that goes out the window along with location of child’s first bday party.

If I can give you 1 piece of advice it would be to not worry about tomorrows problems as they likely won’t be there by the time you get there.

Good luck with your scan, if it puts your mind at rest Mama isn’t usually easy for a baby to say at first when first learning to speak all my babies (and nieces/nephews) plus the babies I work with say MumMum And DadDad at first, the ‘a’ sound is quite tricky at the end.
For all of mine they went from MumMum to Mummy then back to Mum when they were older. The youngest occasionally calls me Mama usually when he has spent time with one his friends that calls his Mum by that title.
Just thought I’d mention it as it seems to be the reason you don’t like the name your Mum chose, obviously if you want to be called Mama then that’s different but if it’s because you’re assuming baby will naturally say Mama/Dada they tend to do the short repetitive first sound first.

Respectfully OP, it’s six of one and half a dozen of the other. You might reflect on that as you’re about to become a mother yourself.

I grew up in an area that calls the mother of a child Mum/mummy .
I live in an area that says Mam / mammy so that's what I am .
I always loved the idea of being a mum , but mam it is .