Baby Name, Mother in Law Very Religious

Loughview

This is a clear opportunity to lay boundaries. I completely agree with other posters- in that if you are influenced by this woman on such a private and personal decision be prepared for constant intrusive behaviour in other areas of parenting.
Keep your name choices to yourselves.

ShaShaBear

I'll just butt in on your wife's point of view about her mum joking. My mum was utterly outraged when we told her we weren't getting our kids christened. We believed that religion (or lack thereof) is a deeply personal choice, and it should be entered into with a clear mind and understanding of the person. We felt it would be utterly hypocritical, as atheists, to make those promises on behalf of a newborn. After a few months, she calmed down a tad and by the time our eldest was 2, she had seen that forgoing it had absolutely NO effect whatsoever on our kids lives. In fact, many people in the family that my mother was very surprised at (and some who were deeply religious) praised us for the respect to their religion and taking it seriously.

That does not stop my mother from making a huge joke out of it at every given opportunity We all have a good laugh because we know she is joking. Perhaps your wife is the same?

On a side note, I agree with everyone regarding the names. Don't tell people your choices until its down on the form in the hospital - someone will complain. My MIL insisted our names were too "British". My mother said they were too "plain". OH's sister said she didn't mind one, but the other was just "disgusting" and "who would give a kid such a horrible name???". One person even suggested that they would call the child by a different name in their presence to avoid using the one we picked.
You'd think they were odd names right?
Abigail and Claire.
Seriously, tell people to eff off!

jacksn

I would love for us to not have a christening but it ain't going to happen, I don't mind it too much as I feel when the child is old enough he/she can make their own decision around religion, that's another debate.

Regarding the name, the MIL has taken a step back, I told my wife that it was annoying me and in turn she became annoyed and told her to stop suggesting names which she has. We have decided on a few names, no saints or prophets!

scarepanda

jacksn wrote:

I would love for us to not have a christening but it ain't going to happen, I don't mind it too much as I feel when the child is old enough he/she can make their own decision around religion, that's another debate.

Personally I think this needs to be treated in the same way as choosing the name - no one else's decision but the parents.

We decided not to christen my lo, to much objection from family, grandparents in particular. But neither of us are religious, attend mass, believe in the Catholic church and either way we wouldn't rear our children in line with the beliefs of the Catholic church so we decided not to christen her.

sunny2004

JESUS !

Romantic Rose

Lay your boundaries NOW! My MIL is so interfering, I actually can't even be bothered visiting her anymore. She thinks it's her God given right to tell us how to live every aspect of our life. Do not accept it because once you have children it will get a lot worse. Whatever you have to do to get her to butt out, do it now!

boardsuser1

We had the reverse experience, when our son was born, me and my O/H were the ones disagreeing on the first name, in the end the child was named after me, my first name is of Scottish decent I think.

The O/H asked her parents advice, both said as it's the first son K****** would be lovely.

Yes the name is dying out but hey, a lot of old names are making a comeback.

As mentioned, the in laws said, your child only the 2 of you can decide the name and nobody else.

Yakuza

The Mulk wrote: »

If she's into religion you could tell her you're thinking of
Moses or Mohammed , Mo for short.
or Santiago or Jesus( pronounced the Spanish way) if she's insisting on a Catholic name.
Keep everything else between you are your wife

The missus is Spanish, I have a brother in law called Jesus. No hang-ups there about using Jesus as a name.

fussyonion

What kind of mother would ever be so intrusive/rude towards their daughter on the possible name choice for their child?
My mother wouldn't dream of being so nasty.
Tell your MIL it's none of her business!

happyoutscan

Clashmore wrote: »

I'm sorry if this comes across as harsh but you need to sit down with ur wife and come up with a plan and then sit down with ur MIL and explain to her that this is your child and you will be picking names and how much religion your child is involved in. My MIL regularly comments on my parenting and I just remind her of how I will be parenting my child. She may complain about me behind my back I don't know and I'm not bothered. She has had her chance to raise her children and needs to allow me to raise mine.
Again sorry if it comes across as harsh.

Clashmore

This is an exceptional post and very similar to what we did, with the exception that I had no problem doing it. It was more difficult for my missus but she is delighted with the choices we made with our little ones.

Of course my in-laws are great people which made it easier. Almost too easy as they are extremely religious but they let us get on with it without any bother. My mother - who wouldn't be particularly religious - was slightly more difficult but that may have been more of a 'what will the neighbours think' motive.

Remember, this is your child so you do what you think best. If you are not religious then man up (or woman up) and don't go through the nonsense of forcing baptism on your child that so many non-religious couples go through, just to keep their parents happy.

Best of luck with the new arrival, hope all goes well.

jacksn

scarepanda wrote: »

Personally I think this needs to be treated in the same way as choosing the name - no one else's decision but the parents.

We decided not to christen my lo, to much objection from family, grandparents in particular. But neither of us are religious, attend mass, believe in the Catholic church and either way we wouldn't rear our children in line with the beliefs of the Catholic church so we decided not to christen her.

Totally agree and we are not in anyway religious, we spoke about it and decided to go along with it anyway, It doesn't bother me too much to me as it's all fairy stories like Father Christmas, and they will not growing up religious because we certainly won't be taking them to mass.

I reckon that the MIL would be reciting scripture to him/her if she was baby sitting or staying over anyway so I don't want them confused.

I have a younger brother in law and his wife are complete holy joes, they have their 2 year old saying prayers every night, recording it and sending it to the MIL via whatsapp, cringe galore.

spurious

Give the child a middle name - the mother's name, or the male version of it, not one of her choices. Choose your own first name.

'Oh we wanted her to be called after you'.

Bicycle

On our first - a long time ago - I was persuaded to change the name I had picked for our daughter (one I loved and still love). Hubby didn't like it, MIL didn't like it, my Mother didn't like it. However I didn't like the name hubby picked for our daughter.

A couple of weeks later I was in a shop and there was this bratty obnoxious kid whose parents were shouting at her - and yes - her name was the same as the one given to our daughter. I was hormonal and inconsolable. For a while hubby and I called her by her fabulous and unusual but religious themed second name. But she reverted to the first name eventually.

Fast forward over a quarter of a century and our daughter loves her name - and that is the most important thing.

HOWEVER, on the second, I picked a name, told hubby I was naming the child that name and he had no say in the matter as he had decided the first name. And no, I didn't tell anyone else. The second daughter's name is very unusual but had a lot of significance for me in its meaning. She loves her name, we love her name. Everyone loves her name. But she also has a fabulous and unusual religious themed second name.

On our son, we had picked a name and ran it by the girls. D1 objected for valid reasons I won't go into. And so the girls chose their brother's name. Ironically the meaning of the name the girls picked out really suits our son. He has both his grandfather's names as second and third names.

All three first names are Irish names but run well because their surname is Irish. Names such as Guiseppe O'Gara don't always run that well lol!!

Romantic Rose

fussyonion wrote: »

What kind of mother would ever be so intrusive/rude towards their daughter on the possible name choice for their child?
My mother wouldn't dream of being so nasty.
Tell your MIL it's none of her business!

My mother would never be nasty, at least I'd hope not but unfortunately not everyone was born with a nice mother. I sometimes wonder how the hell my MIL bore such a nice son but his grandmother basically raised him.

rawn

OP your wife is probably right! I know you looking in at the situation it might seem serious but I'm sure your wife is used to her! My husband and I had our baby's name chosen from day 1 (Alexander) and my mother would say in conversation "No no what about Cecil... Or Cedric... Or Cornelius"! She was dead serious in wanting us to call him that but she wasn't trying to convince us exactly. Listen to your wife and relax! No matter what, it'll be your decision and she can't do anything about it! Good luck!

m5ex9oqjawdg2i

Judging names... :rolleyes:

I thought one Katie Hopkins was enough in the universe.

Name your child what you both agree to.

Delphinium

My son and daughter in law announced birth of their son and name together. My husband wasn't impressed but kept it to himself but in just a few days the baby had charmed him into loving him and the name was of no consequence. Turns out his name suits him perfectly.

As an aside, you need to be very strong in taking charge of all things related to baby. You are it's parents and decisions are yours only. My son and daughter in law are excellent parents and I will follow their guidelines to the letter when minding their children.

Their methods are often different to mine but it is a new generation, and I can't say I was was the perfect parent. It is a pleasure to be part of their lives and enjoy seeing them grow into beautiful people, but then I am biased.

scarepanda

Make sure they know this because it is invaluable and will build their trust in you even more.
I trust my parents to look after my lo, in that she won't come to any major physical harm. But I won't leave her with them because I don't trust them to follow some of the ways we have decided to parent her. I don't think we're that strict, but have reasons behind our choices that they know about but i know they won't follow them. And when my lo is old enough to tell us they will have a 'dont tell mammy or daddy' approach to stuff.

California Dreamer

jacksn wrote: »

Hi All,

Myself and my wife are have not found out the sex of our child yet but for fun we are casually thinking about names for him or her.

My mother in law who is a lovely woman is very, very deeply religious.. at dinner the other night she asked us what names we were thinking off, we gave her some names, nothing wild but each one she was like "no i dont like that", "no that wont do.."

when we asked her for suggestions, of course she gave the names of every saint, apostle and prophet.. something that i'm not into at all, I like Patrick as a name maybe.

Thing is she has gone crazy and is now texting my wife all these random names: Francis, Jeremiah, Peter, Sylvester, Raphael, all the usual saints

My wife seems to think its a joke but I know deep down its not and she can be very imposing with her beliefs, im always afraid of saying anything when religion is involved for fear of upsetting her

Was wondering how did this end up? What did you name your child?

jacksn

California Dreamer wrote: »

Was wondering how did this end up? What did you name your child?

Hi thanks for the message!

It went fine, she butted out and my wife took control.

We went with Alexander a name we both really liked (and hes a saint too!)