Hi Swistle!
I’m recently engaged and have been thinking a lot about baby names and more specifically “honor’ names for the middle name spot. My fiance and I agree that the two people/sides of the family we would be honored to honor would be my mom and/or fiance’s father who is divorced from fiance’s mother.
I’ve been thinking a lot about how I know future MIL will be hurt over this. She’s shown a pattern of being hurt over things that I believe are unhealthy for her to be hurt over in the first place but then on top of FEELING hurt she takes it a step further by needing/wanting her son to make her feel better about it rather talking to a friend, or therapist, or her long time partner (i.e. a peer and not her child).
My question is – is it ever appropriate or ok for grandparents to express that they are hurt or offended that their name was not used as an honor name? If not, can you think of any situation where it would be okay to express it?
Also a disclaimer, I understand FEELING hurt (that can’t be helped sometimes) but to actually express that hurt to the new parents feels out of bounds to me, especially if there is a history of enmeshment.
Oh, I am so interested in this question, and I am enjoying your careful laying-out of the issue: that is, we don’t need to waste time discussing whether someone might have legitimate reason to feel hurt by a baby’s name, or under what circumstances we might choose to spare them that pain; we are ONLY discussing if there are ANY circumstances in which it would be appropriate for someone to EXPRESS hurt TO THE BABY-NAMERS. A lovely careful filleting.
But here is my question, before we answer: Why do you ask?
That is: how will the answer (which I think we all know is “no,” though it will be fun to see what exceptions we can think of) be of use? Our answer won’t prevent your future mother-in-law from doing whatever it is she’s going to do—and my take-away is that she’s likely to Do Something.
Something about this letter is troubling me, and it may be that I am reading FAR too much into it (sometimes by the time I’ve read and re-read a letter half a dozen times and let it simmer for awhile, I have filled in blanks with inaccurate imagination). But I think it’s that I’m picking up a feeling that you suspect your future husband won’t agree that his mother is out of line, and that he will indulge her; and that if/when that happens you may wish to feel bolstered by the stabilizing opinions of others. It feels as if you’re attempting to do preventative emotional labor: trying to protect him from (and/or coach him through, and/or bolster yourself for) an upcoming conflict you expect him to have with his mother (or that you expect to have with him and his mother), after you get married and get pregnant and have the baby and name the baby. I am wondering if this is not actually a baby-naming question, but more of an engagement question.
It’s not this site’s area of expertise (I wouldn’t just be out my lane, I’d be completely off my highway)—but speaking here just as Auntie Swistle for a minute, I’d say the engagement period is ABSOLUTELY the time to be thinking through all these things: is this what you want? can you tolerate being married to someone who has this sort of dynamic with his mother? can you tolerate decades of dealing with his mother, and also dealing with him dealing with his mother? do you want to do so much work on this? are you going to end up feeling as if you are repeatedly thwacking your head against a wall, and/or feeling as if you’d like to thwack someone else’s head against a wall? and so on. It feels to me (based just on one single, shortish letter, which is likely not a fair or representative sample) as if your potential/future mother-in-law is already taking up a fair amount of mental energy—and that is a valuable thing to note and consider before she becomes your actual/current mother-in-law (and, much more irrevocably, grandmother to your children, children who will have names she may find personally hurtful). An engagement is like a no-obligation free trial period, and it feels to me as if your mind is trying out what it thinks it can expect from this product if you decide to keep it.
It’s common on this site for me to mention that a name is “a package deal”: maybe someone wants a name unusual enough that it is not shared by anyone they’ve ever known, and part of the package deal of that name is that it will require regular spelling/pronunciation/explanation; or maybe someone wants a name that is well-liked and easy to spell and pronounce, and part of the package deal of that name is that their child may sometimes have someone in their classroom with the same name; or maybe someone wants a name that honors someone important to them, and part of the package deal of that name is that it will cause family drama. That sort of thing. The concept is that the name is BUNDLED with its accessories, and can’t be separated from it, and that’s okay—unless it’s NOT okay. And it’s the same with spouses: they’re a package deal. This spouse option you’re considering is packaged with this mother-in-law. Buy, or no?
Well, but that’s not what you asked us.
Let’s turn our minds to what you DID ask, though I’m going to broaden the question a little to allow for more exceptions. Because no, it is never appropriate for a grandparent (or anyone else) to express hurt to the baby-namers that the baby was NOT named after them. (And PROBABLY it is never appropriate for someone to express hurt to the baby-namers that the baby was named after their ex-spouse—though I definitely would expect the person to express that hurt to friends, other relatives, a therapist, etc., as mentioned, because it would be such an understandably hard pill for most people to swallow. And it would perhaps be kind to give the person in question a gentle warning ahead of the birth, so that they would have space/time to process that decision beforehand, rather than having it sprung upon them at the hospital with everyone there, perhaps including their ex, to view their unpleasantly-surprised reaction. Unless of course they are the sort of person who would take that gentle lead-time as an opportunity to vigorously lobby to have the decision changed, in which case on their own head be it, and perhaps have an in-the-know nurse or family member on hand to gently escort them from the hospital room for a little time-out if necessary.)
But a broader and more interesting question is if there are ANY circumstances in which it would be appropriate for ANYONE to express hurt/offense/objections about ANY baby name to the baby-namers. And actually, I can think of one, but it’s a pretty strict one, and I’m not sure it evan falls into the category of reaction we’re considering: if the person knows something that the baby-namers didn’t know, and it’s something serious enough that the person thinks the baby-namers might actually want to consider changing the baby’s name. It seems like this would be pretty rare—but on the other hand, families do keep secrets, and families do try to protect children, and sometimes those children grow up and use honor names they wouldn’t have used if they’d been let in on the secret, and sometimes that’s when other members of the family realize something probably should have been said earlier.
I can’t think of any other situations off the top of my head. Can anyone else think of any?
