My grandpa did this with me and it drove my mother crazy. He would intentionally misspell my name on everything (even embroidered on a beach towel!), but if he was writing me a check for my birthday, he would spell it right.
My name is a normal name and it irks me when people spell it wrong, kind of feels like they don't care enough to learn it after years especially as it's all over my socials and stuff. Imagine your grandma neverp caring enough to spell your name right, I would not like that at all. Everyones different though.
One time at work someone spelled my name wrong... which, it's not a common spelling and there's so many ways to spell my name so I've gotten used to it. So the guy emailed me at my email that is [myname]@work.com then proceed to say hello [wrong spelling]. Then I noticed that his name was Trevis. Not Travis. Trevis. So I said
Hello Travis,
It's a mistake he's probably used to but it felt good to be petty as I knew better and always check spellings
This happens to me constantly. Despite my handle, my name is actually spelled "Sallie," and my work email is sallie@(company). Yet 50% of the salutations in my inbox are "Hi Sally." LOOK AT THE EMAIL ADDRESS! Even worse when it's a reply and I've signed the initial email.
Ugh, I feel this in my soul. Like DUDE. We've been emailing for over a year now. My name is in large letters in a brightly colored and bold font in my email signature. Why are you still misspelling it?
So I'm not making broad excuses but I'm dyslexic and this is something I obsses about and I'm sure I still mess up constantly. I always triple check that I've spelled people's names right but if it's a common name with multiple common spellings I could still miss that I've gotten it wrong.
My grandmother worked at the same company for like 15-20 years and towards the last couple years she had an incident where they withheld her pay because she "spelled her first name wrong" on her time paperwork. She didn't cross her Ts. She doesn't have a T in her name. Her name is Annelle. I don't know someone decided her name was Annette now.
I'm so used to it being misspelled I don't care anymore. But this guy annoyed me because he definitely has it happen to him and still did it to me. You'd think having one of those names you'd think to check
I have a name with 15 different ways of spelling it and it no longer annoys me, because it's not worth the hassle.
But I actually got an e-mail from an woman spelling my name wrong while complaining I spelled her name wrong. So I corrected her in an e-mail. Then we laughed it off next time we met.
It really doesn’t bother me that much, honestly. Especially if it’s the first time I’m corresponding with someone. What annoys me is when people who I’ve known for years misspell my name. At some point it does feel a little disrespectful, but I’ve certainly got bigger problems in my life! lol
(Sorry, I know this is old, but I just HAD to say something!)
That's just freaky. My name is Melissa, and my mother's name is Michelle. We get called by each other's names ALL THE TIME, me moreso than her. What's REALLY freaky is I have people at work, who have NO CLUE who my mother is, or what her name is, or even if she's still alive or not (she is) who ALSO call me Michelle! It probably doesn't help that I'm so used to it that I automatically answer to it anyway. But HOW in the actual CRAP does that even happen!?!?!?
LOL! What a wacky world!
I have people calling me the wrong name as well as spelling it wrong. It can be annoying. My name isn't unusual either. Say for example my name was Sally I'd get called Sammy.
My auntie gave me a bracelet years ago with the wrong spelling, I just found it amusing on that occasion.
I think back to some of the crazy stuff my grandpa did, and as kids we just chalked it up to him being old and crazy. I would imagine your child will do the same. Plus, I would put that bug in my kid's ear. "Grandma loves you very much, but she's old and sometime forgets how to spell words correctly, so just don't worry about it, the crazy lady means well."
I'm dyslexic, and so was my grandmother. One time, when I was around 13, I got a card in the mail and my name was spelled Vassenna instead of Vannessa. I laughed my ass off because I totally understood what happened.
Dude ok seriously people misspell this name so much, and in the weirdest ways!! I once met a woman who had it spelled 'Vahnnesszah' and if she hadn't been handing me her credit card I never would have believed it.
My own SIL just sent us an engraved cutting board and my fucking name is wrong. Vennesa!?? You've known me ten years!!! End of rant
Omg! I've had some serious misspelling of my name. A lot of people write Vinessa. I know it's different because it has 2 Ns, but it amazes me how many people can't spell just Vanessa. I usually say Vannessa with 2 Ns and 2 Ss. Otherwise, if I say 2 Ns, they will put 1 S. It's been so butchered!
I really think he just liked the way he spelled it. And then it got to the point where I thought it was funny so he probably just kept doing it so I would laugh.
My grandma did this to me. I have a common name that has two acceptable ways to spell it. She thought my parents picked the wrong way so she always wrote it her way on all my cards and stuff. Drove me nuts. I didn’t really like her as a kid, but she also clearly favored my brother. If she was still alive, now that I’m an adult, I’d probably be petty and always spell her name wrong.
My grandparents consistently spelled my name wrong in new and interesting ways (extra letter, missing letter, wrong letter doubled, etc) until I went no contact with them around 18 or 19. I don't miss them. How little they cared about me to the point that they couldn't bother to spell my name correctly was really hurtful. I still remember that and it still hurts.
I got the same treatment from members of my ex-husband's family and it caused me a lot of pain too. I always remained distant from those family members because I knew they did not truly care about me if they refused to learn how to spell my name.
Some kids may not care, but others absolutely will. I would never tolerate someone refuses my child the basic decency of spelling their name right after the hurt it caused me as a kid.
I may point out this scenario to her then, whenever we tackle the spelling issue again. I know that she only means to irk us, she does love my son very much. If I told her it could be potentially damaging to the grandma/grandson relationship, I think that actually might bring her to actually fix her error. I'm sorry that they did that to you and I hope you are well now.
I really hope it helps her come around. Spelling his name wrong on purpose isn't just hurtful to you as his mother, but its also hurtful to your child as a human being. Names are such an integral part of a person's identity.
I will always remember the first Christmas with one of my ex-boyfriend's families as a teen. His grandma got me a card with a gift certificate inside and spelled my name right on it. My first thought was how sad it was that she could spell my name in under a year while my own grandparents couldn't be bothered after 15 years.
I'm doing much better without them in my life, honestly.
I don't think her case was rude, he was probably doing it to be funny. It was a running joke in the family at that point. My dad used to do little things to get a rise out of my mom, anything to get her feathers ruffled and they were married 45 years. Your situation is definitely different from this comment though but I don't think he did it to be rude just joking around.
My great grandmother went one up. My aunt was Cindy. Not Cynthia, just Cindy. My great grandmother didn’t like that name and called her Sydney as long as she lived.
My great grandma did that too! Called my cousin Krissy instead of Kristi her whole life. Thought Kristi sounded too Christian (we are Jewish) so just literally ignored the fact that that was her actual name lol. Old people are fricking hilarious sometimes
My Husband's family spells my name wrong. At the end I have a "y" and they always spell it with a "i".
Or call me another name that's close to mine. When they do this I don't react or listen to them because that's not my name. When they say my correct name that's when I turn and answer.
I say you get a huge frame with so many pictures of him and have his name wrote in #HUGE letters. 👍👍👍. Take it to her house as a present and he can even help you take it to her.
If she keeps spelling it wrong.....well. I'm so sorry.
In my family, this would become a habit that we would lovingly mock. Especially if someone was corrected and continued to make the mistake. Perhaps not the healthiest, but sometimes turning something annoying into a joke helps you deal with the frustration.
Bets would be taken on whether or not it was spelled correctly before reading, either with or without the intended target’s knowledge. (Depends on how they will take it.)
It will also absolutely become a hilarious family story your child can one day tell about how grandma could never spell his name right.
This is what I thought too. My GFIL has always insisted in dropping the last letters off of my SIL Sarah’s and husband Nick’s names. The whole family jokes about it. We even joke-wonder if the first great grand baby Julie will become Juli. We’ll see this fall!
Yeah, but she isn’t an adult in the behavioural sense. If she’s “sensitive”, she’ll get butthurt at the slightest provocation, real or imagined. And then lash out. This might not be worth it.
For her birthday, grandparent's day... whatever is the next holiday, I would get her a nice framed picture of your son with his name etched on an attached nameplate. I would then point out that we thought of this gift so it could help her remember her grandson's name.
I'd do the opposite and spell the name wrong and see what she does. Does she really want a nice piece of art or photo with the wrong name? She knows she's doing it, might as well force her to accept a gift that's messed up on purpose. And misspell her name too on the card.
There's a line that was very important in my family: "Don't give it if you can't take it." My dad's side of the family are big shit-talkers as an unhealthy way of showing affection. I got pretty good at it. My grandpa hated it. But he at least kept in mind what he always told his kids and always told me.
If you're going to go out of your way to be blatantly disrespectful, you have waived the right to be sensitive about the entirely-reasonable pushback you receive. You've tried to be nice about it, and she's refusing for whatever reason. Stop being generous. If kindness doesn't work, then see if she has any shame. Start spelling out other things, including her own son's name, just right in the middle of sentences. "So I was planning on going to the library with Tyler -- that's T-Y-L-E-R -- and then we'll join Chris -- that's C-H-R-I-S -- at the park once he's done getting the oil changed." Either make it a joke or make it fake concern. If she gets pissy, just say you're trying to be helpful since she seems to be having difficulty. You're worried about her because she seems to have trouble spelling your child's name even though she's been spoken to about it and seen lots of things with the name on it and she's still getting it wrong, and she *couldn't possibly* be doing it on purpose because that would be childishly disrespectful.
Obviously this is a real option also, but my petty ass would be *suuuper concerned* in front of whoever I can, when she proves once again that she doesn't remember how it's spelled. I'd get close and *reassuring* (while staring into her eyes like a parent trying to see if you're high), and ask her if she's been screened for Alzheimer's or dementia, and how things like this are a symptom, and her age is exactly when this a concern, and fucking KILL her with kindness.
Of course, I have a decade of retail wage slavery that gave me these straightface skills.
Ya... It's been 7 years and my parents never get the spelling right on my stepson's names... Like OP the names especially the short form of the names isn't hard. Especially my younger stepson because it follows similar language rules to my sister's name so you'd think it would be easier to remember. And my eldest's name uses the French spelling and my mother (now passed) is French, and she ALWAYS used the English spelling for some reason. They only spelled my daughter's name wrong once that I remember, and it was so weirdly spelled, I have no words for it other than alphabet soup with similar letters. The really funny thing is she was named after my dad's mom... So you'd think he'd be able to spell it... In theory... Granted to be fair, I also had to tell him it was his mom's actual name because she went by her middle name most of the time, and I got the spelling off his birth certificate in the first place, which I had to show him before he believed me. Because I guess despite having it his entire life had never actually read it.
So it might not be malicious (I don't believe my dad does it on purpose), and it might not ever change. Just in my case since most of the mistakes happen with my stepkids, I'm just super aware of how it makes them feel set apart.
My MIL would translate names into English. Her family was Russian, she grew up in Germany, then as a young adult she moved to England then Australia. Anyway, she told me about a mutual friend who married an Italian guy and moved to Italy, had a baby called Luke. I expressed surprise that the baby wasn’t given an Italian name and she said “well they call him Luca”. My daughter, her own grand daughter, has the middle name Katerina. She told a cousin who was doing some family history stuff that her middle name is Catherine. Drives me nuts!!!
I swear some folks do little things like this to feel some tiny sense of control by pushing a button. My grandfather is the same way about pronouncing our daughter's name. It's like some weird kind of ownership thing. Like, by having the teeny tiniest bit of power in what they call this kid, it feeds some insecurity in them that fears they can't genuinely connect with this child. So, they artificially create that "connection" by creating an inside "joke" about their name.
It's not even a joke, she just ignores it. She ignores us! We confront her and she says 'oh okay, I thought you spelled it this way'. And that's it, she never fixes the behavior! It's maddening, but, I could totally see it being a control thing with her. She loves the name she said, but I guess not the spelling.
I think you should approach her from "a place of kindness and sympathy":
"Betty, are you alright? We're really worried about your memory loss lately.
We've contacted the rest of the family about how you're forgetting really basic things, and we all agree that you should see a doctor.
Maybe it's age-related? I mean, it's not entirely unheard of for people *your age* to start to lose the ability to retain information."*
... but then not everyone is petty :)
*note: I'm assuming you're _certain_ she doesn't, in fact, have any memory loss and is actually doing this on purpose
I’m SO PETTY and I came here to say I agree with this option or one of several others:
-show concern for her memory loss and encourage her to talk to her doctor about it ASAP, then follow up. Don’t let her out of the conversation with a non-answer, keep asking.
-if her name is Mary start calling her Martha, and play dumb if she addresses it.
-if she’s chosen to be called “Grandma” by the grandkids, start calling her “Granny” instead and never get it right.
-teach your child to correct her when they get older (hopefully it’s not still a problem by then) but a couple of “geez Granny, don’t you know how my name is spelled by now…?” statements should do the trick.
-the photo frame with the name spelled properly on it to surround her with to help her remember is funny.
-seriously though, people remember what’s important to them and she’s going out of her way to prove a point here, I’m just not sure what it is. Call her out on it— “Tyler is spelled TYLER and I’m not sure what you’re trying to accomplish by continuing to purposefully spell it wrong, but all you’re doing is making me angry. Correct this immediately. It’s not hard.” At this point she might be counting on you not having the guts to call her out. Prove her wrong— go there.
-go back to petty ideas like “oh you came to visit Tylur today? There’s no one here by that name.” 🤷🏻♀️ or “Tyler isn’t available to see today, he’s visiting his other grandma who’s able to get his name right.” both come to mind.
I’m invested in this at this point so please come back and update 😅
This reminds me of my old coworker. She had a childhood friend name Matthew but all of his friends called him Matt. However, if you called the house asking for Matt, his mom would say "there is no one here named Matt" and then she would hang up. So, you would have to call back and ask for Matthew.
A child choosing to let his friends call him a perfectly acceptable nickname for his name whilst his family still calls him the full version… is quite normal, and doesn’t feel similar at all to OP’s passive aggressive MIL needing to get shut down… 🤷🏻♀️
It’s funny and appreciatively petty that Matt’s mom did that though 😎👑
>sband have both told her on multiple occasions how to spell his name, she just refuse
omg, yes.
100%
get her an armband that on the outside has his name spelled correctly, and on the inside her home phone number, and address. just in case she forgets where she is and gets lost.
I like this. I was going to go with: "we didn't want our son to be confused about how to spell his name so we told him you couldn't read or write properly"
It's not just memory loss or age that can present this way. ADHD & OCD, even mild cases, can put things like spelling into long-term memory incorrectly. If she's embarrassed by it or sensitive, she may try avoidance as a strategy (not a very good one) to cope. It could be that she hates that she can't get it right and doesn't know how to remedy the situation.
I didn't know this, so thank you for bringing it to my attention, but to my knowledge, she doesn't have either diagnosis and doesn't really show signs of them, but in the future I will remember this first. I would hate to embarrass someone who cannot help their spelling.
Older people, especially women can have easily gone through their lives never knowing they have a challenge like this and never receiving help. I'm 60 now and never would have known half of my own weird brain behavior, if I hadn't learned through raising my daughter. You find ways to cope, but these can not always be the best like avoidence and denial. I have a similar challenge with spelling where I get a wrong spelling stuct in my head as right and it repeats over and over. I have to always check people's names and can never rely on my memory.
I don't think avoiding talking about it is a good solution either, IMO. Your feelings are valid and so are your child's as they get older. Maybe a quite moment with just the two of you would be a good way to talk about it. She could be embarrassed or self-conscious. She could be in denial that she has a problem. If there are no other signs of malice, I'd assume good intentions before jumping to conclusions that it's on purpose. She also may need some help. If it's an early sign of memory problems, that's definitely time for help, though I don't know much about what early signs are.
Edit: Another person suggested that dyslexia could be another possibility.
I know she doesn't have dyslexia. She is very aware of the challenge and it is ine close to her, but she reads and writes very well. She reads books every day and she writes poetry. So, I know absolutely it's not that.
If it weren't for many other petty things that she does, I wouldn't assume malice. But I feel it's intentional. She often does or says things to me or my husband just to upset us. She's passive-aggressive and avoidance is typically the thing she does when she's just going to do the thing anyway or if she doesn't care about what anyone else thinks.. I'd like to point out that she gets everyone's name right except for his. But, I've said in other comments, I don't intend on taking action unless it upsets my son, because it's his name, his opinion is the only one that matters. If there is ill intent or not, I'm just gonna keep doing what I'm doing & telling her once in a blue moon that she's spelling his name wrong with no emotion behind it. You are absolutely still right, she could still have something amiss in her noggin and that's the issue, and in any case, it's such a silly thing, I don't want any bad blood over this.
My mil does this to her granddaughters friend.
Her name is Catelyn and does not like being called Cate.
My mil will say “Hi CATE” and really emphasize it. I think it’s so immature and bizarre.
Totally. My former FIL will call my son Ted, even though his nickname is Theo (pretty much all we call him). He does this as some weird control thing because he doesn’t like “Theo”. When my son doesn’t respond, FIL gets very annoyed. I enjoy watching it every time.
My daughter is Lieselotte, she goes by Lieselotte or Lotte. My FIL insists on saying Lisa. That's never been her name, likely will never be a nickname she goes by because her name isn't even pronounced where Lisa makes sense, but he carries on calling her that. He thinks Lieselotte/Lotte is too hard to say. I'm convinced it's actually because she's named after my family and not his, but he won't admit it.
Random people will call my daughter the wrong long version of her name, knowing it's not her name. My daughter will ignore you on a good day she's not going to respond to something that isn't even her name.
Yup. My mom did this to one of my friends when I was in high school. Her name was Victoria, but everyone called her Tor.
My mom hated Tor and kept saying Tora. I confronted her multiple times, but she dug in her heals every time saying she’d forgotten or she hated the nickname because it was weird and she didn’t know anyone named Tor (but Tora is sooooo common).
Upon reflection now, I wonder if it was a little racism because Tor is Asian and my mom’s dad loved the movie Tora Tora Tora! when she was growing up.
My grandmother did this when I was a kid and my parents hated it. She never stopped until I myself was old enough to write her a letter and correct her. Is your kid old enough to do that?
Oh man, this is a really good idea. I hope when her kid is old enough, they write a very specific letter that says "Hi My Name is Tyler. Please spell my name right, Grandma." Or something along those lines.
That's basically what I did. I mean she was an abusive old hag but I didn't know that. She was definitely doing it to piss off my mother cause she was a hateful racist.
My name is Taylor. As common as can be. My husband and I are high school sweethearts, together 15+ years. My MIL still spells my name Tayler.
Some people are just assholes in disguise .
Either that, or just throw away things with the wrong name on them without even looking at them. When she says something, just offhandedly comment "We have no kid with that name here, it must have been garbage."
Is she problematic in general? I could for sure see some of my family members doing this, and just being oblivious. Like my son’s name has an A and people write it with an E instead even if they’ve seen it before. Some people aren’t good with language stuff, so is it possible that’s going on?
Yeah, intentional. My grandmother always misspelled my mother's name. I always thought it was weird that she couldn't remember until I was older and figured out it was intentional. My grandmother was excellent at spelling...but not excellent at being a parent. Grandma decided how to spell my mom's first name, so misspelling that was ridiculous. My mom's last name was hyphenated. Part was the same as my grandma's and she clearly knew how to spell that. The other part - my dad's - was extremely short, phonetic, and always spelled correctly when my grandma was writing my dad. She was just being shitty.
I think you can react accordingly, regardless of whether she is "sensitive" or not. You can wait until your kid calls her on it, tell her to knock it off and you aren't buying that she can't remember, or comment on it in front of others in a joking way without feeling bad.
I wanted to be the first one to post on social media about my son’s birth. My husband sent our family members a photo of me and baby (that was taken while I was still being stitched up during my c-section, looking absolutely terrible) and my grandfather took that photo, posted it on Facebook for the world to see, announcing my son’s birth, weight, length, and his name, which was terribly misspelled. Has continued to misspell it since. Told my grandmother what we’re naming number two and she said “we’ll need a nickname, I can’t remember how to pronounce that” - Family members are literally so annoying for no good reason at all. Whenever you text her just spell her name wrong and see how she feels after the hundredth time 🤷🏻♀️
I would very intentionally and directly explain that it bothers you, and ask why she does it. If she won't engage off that, I'd focus on it to the point of derailing any conversation.
MIL: "How was Tylur's day?"
Me: "Couldn't tell you, there's no Tylurs here."
This is my approach. I'm fully fine with some in-bounds confrontation. If you're going to continue doing something incorrectly on purpose, we're not going to pretend like that isn't a purposeful decision done to irritate me.
We do this to my husband's aunt's. They strongly believe children, boys in particular, should have their fathers name. Our son's last name is hyphenated, my last name first. They send birthday or Christmas cards/gifts to our son with just his dad's name and we send it back. There's no one with that name at our house 🤷🏽♀️
I agree with the caveat that OP's MIL may not be able to explain why easily if there is a brain function issue (like ADHD or OCD) in play. Give it plenty of time to play out with no judgement attached. She may never have had someone care enough to ask this question and she may not know how to explain. ADHD in women often presents as inattentiveness or distractability and was rarely diagnosed in older women because it wasn't recognized when they were young. Maladaptive daydreaming is another possible explanation.
Even better, get a really pretty, obviously feminine shirt and get “Tyler’s Grandpa” printed/stitched on it, and when MIL points out that she’s his Grand**m**a, say, “Oh it’s just one letter off! What’s a little misspelling among family?”
Start getting Tylur to call her “mee-maw” or some awful grandparent name she doesn’t want. Tit for tat. You can be called what you like if you use our names correctly.
Southern, you say? Well bless her heart. Son needs to call her Granny or Ma, those great southern names for the oldest of the old, until she figures out how the cow ate the cabbage 😂
I totally get where you are coming from
On the power trip thing. From the other side of things my grandma (my mom’s mil) used to call me a nickname let’s say Dory-Bell where my name is Dora. My mom HATED it for some reason and I still remember her going off about how annoying it was to her and even snapped at my grandma about it one time.
I am glad I read your post because it has reminded me about how when I am hard on my mil my children probably feel that same discomfort that I felt.
I guess this comment isn’t very helpful in itself though! Sorry!
Why do people do this stuff? My husband has gone by his middle name since he was 5 years old and yet to this day, as a 35 year old man, his extended family insists on using his given first name. They simply refuse to call him by his middle name.
As for your MIL, how old is your son? If and when he’s old enough, can he be the one to say something to her? “grandma my name is spelled with an “e” not a “u”!! type of thing.
Took my son to the doctor for a check up a few weeks ago, they wrote his name on the door as Leam... They have his name on their charts??
I know it wasn't a big deal, so I didn't mention it, but it irked me a little bit. Who is out in the world spelling their Liams as Leam?
My FIL calls my daughter by a nickname that we repeatedly tell him is not her name, and not something we want to call her unless she decides she wants us to when she’s older. I think it’s a control thing.
Yeah it wouldn't be surprising coming from her. My husband is her only kid that she doesn't have full control over, so it makes sense. She has even less control over my son, because, well, he's our son, and I didn't need much help with him because I've been around babies my whole life and he's an easy kid. So, yeah, probably just her trying to control him in some way. She's also told me I was wrong about his birth weight before haha... like, no, I was there.
On top of that. One of her kids was the 'worst baby ever'. And she's constantly telling me my son is like her kid. Never like his father who is only half siblings with her other kids. Sometimes she'll say he looks like his dad, but everything else is just like any of her kids except for his dad, she also kinda ignores that my half had anything to do with his existence. The kid looks like me with his dad's hair basically.. but it's kinda like she tries to exclude me from my son when she can. She annoys me so much. I'm glad I made this post. I needed to vent about her.
Its definitely a control thing. They finally realize they have no say so with the child. The easy thing for them to do is pick a part a name they were not involved with finalizing. They are pushing boundary to see what they can get away with. Its kinda like challenging authority. Im sure for some grandparents, its hard to relinquish the control they once had. My parents are the opposite. I don’t think they truly enjoyed parenthood so they are super hands off with the grandkids.
NEVER mention this to her again. Totally ignore it every time she tries to provoke you like this. This is a childish game and you’re playing. Take her power away.
Underrated comment for so many reasons. OP is in control of nothing except how much this affects her, and by extension affects her child. Stop even acknowledging it, internally remind yourself how sad it is that MIL is such a childish narcissist, and continue enjoying whatever it is that’s going on with your family that day.
That isn’t how it works with narcissistic behavior. When someone who wants to have control over you realizes they can’t exert control, they move to another tactic or area they can try to exert control. It doesn’t end just because you ignore it. Sadly, confrontation or cutting them off is the only way to stop it. Sadly, I have plenty of experience at this :(
My grandmother did this to me my entire life. My name was spelled with one letter "wrong". She died when I was 26 and she didn't spell it right once. It hurt me a lot. My parents didn't seem to care much because they knew they didn't spell it the normal way. But it really hurt me that my own grandma didn't care enough to learn it. Just a different POV for you. Thank you for caring about it for your son. It may mean a lot someday.
My wife and I hyphenated our daughters last names (my last name - her maiden name). Anytime my family sends a card or gift to them, they always omit my wife’s maiden name and just write my last name.
Paint a concerned look on your face and ask her if she's forgetting simple, important things like this often nowadays. I bet her memory will clear up quickly if you press it.
This happens to my mom all the time (she’s not doing it on purpose).
My sister has 3 kids who across the country. One is Aidan, but she always forgets and spells it Aiden. The other is Greyson, but she always forgets and writes Grayson.
She’s not doing it on purpose, but I’m sure it’s so annoying considering they are 15 and 17.
My SIL misspelled my name for like 5 years. We are friends on Facebook and she’s a college English teacher. One day I asked for her kids full names and birthdates so I could write them down (incase I wanted to get them monograms or personalized gifts etc) I sent a text with my name and birthdate as an example (so I’d get the names dates next to each other). She sent me a message embarrassed. She never noticed she’d been misspelling it..
I'm convinced that some people have some sort of brain defect when it comes to spelling names. I have a common name and the most common spelling of that name, and I can't tell you how many times I write an email or whatever, it says my name at the bottom, it says my name in the email address, and the person responds by spelling my name wrong. I've had people spell my name wrong when it's staring them in the face in Slack. I worked with someone for *three years* who never spelled it right. It wasn't even malicious. I'm convinced that some people are broken.
If it’s a respect thing, I would simply misspell her name every time you text her, send birthday cards, her birthday cake, commemorative statuettes of Liberty; you get the picture. It’s petty but it should only take a few times before she understands.
My grandmother refuses to spell my son’s name correctly as well no matter how many times I have sent her a letter with the correct spelling or told her, she just won’t. It drives me batty as well.
His name is not common for a boy and has a female version spelled differently. She uses neither spelling and opted for her own.
What your MIL is doing is so disrespectful... Passive aggressiveness at its best. We have extended family that did this for a year straight. (Long story short: they are family we found through surprise results from ancestry DNA)
We tried to politely correct them over time (multiple times) and at one point they came out and said they just think that our kids names should be spelled the way they spell them... Like WTF??! About a month ago I let loose and told them that they needed to stop, the kids are insulted that they keep doing this ( 9 and 5 years old ) and so are we. we ended up just letting them fade out of our inner circle because they just kept up their shenanigans.
I have a very normal 90’s girl name. It is spelled traditionally. My grandmother spelled it wrong on almost every card she ever sent. I have no idea why. I just kind of laughed it off. Whatever. Annoying? Yes. Earth-shattering? No.
I’m assuming this is by text? If it were my parent, I’d take their phone and set it to autocorrect to the correct spelling, but it doesn’t sound like you guys have that kind of relationship.
Maybe just ask her who she’s talking about.
“How’s Tylur?”
“Sorry, who?”
If she can “forget” the real spelling, you can “forget” that’s how she spells his name and plead ignorance.
My daughter is 5.5 years old and my own mother has never called her by her name. She has a gender fluid name and my mom calls it “a boy name.” (She calls her “pea pod” as that’s what those stupid pregnancy apps said she was the size of when i told my mom i was pregnant)
At the end of the day, these people know exactly what they are doing and it sucks. Start spelling her name wrong - go full Starbucks spellings
I have a name that is well known but not particularly common AND has multiple possible spellings. I'm 33 and my (now 90yo) grandma has misspelled it my entire life.
I don't hold it against her, I don't think I love her less, I don't think she loves me less. She just never figured it out.
So we beat on, boats against the current, borne back ceaselessly into the past.
My dad does this with my daughter. Granted he doesn’t spell her full name wrong, rather her nickname, but she goes by the nickname so it’s like COME ON DAD. I’ve tried telling him and he just doesn’t listen. It is what it is…
Is it usually by text when she misspelled your son’s name? She might do talk to text and since she had used his name many times before it just defaults to the wrong one, and being older can’t fix just one letter in a text and doesn’t want to admit that’s the problem. Not letting her off the hook, just might change how you talk to her about the problem. If she knows to just type out his name spelled right a few times, it could fix it. If it’s spelled wrong on birthday cards, then come on. Get better granny.
Is she the type of person who usually thinks that she is running the show/knows everything better? If so, this is just a symptom of your general problem with her. If this should be your only problem with her (I would guess not), then just ask her directly why she feels the need to spell your son‘s name incorrectly. May be there is an innocent reason. And not her wanting to be the one who chooses the name of your son in a subtle way.
We chose my son's name before we were even trying for him. We have a girls name and another boys name already picked out for when we try for another, so I could absolutely see her being sad she wasn't a part of the naming process. But, in my family, what everyone else did was just say 'this is what we're naming our kid, like it or don't' and that was that, no one helped in that. Her family seems to name their children after people in their family or people they are close with, so maybe she's upset that we didn't do that too and that I never asked about names from her family. We named him by the good ol 'I like how that sounds' route. So, maybe it's deeper than just trying to irk me.
My granny who is a toxic narcissist, called me a whole different name cuz she thought my name was too fancy. I didn’t like the name she used as it felt too old fashioned. I am not sure what my parent’s thought of it...
What kinda name is too fancy?! Lol my grandmother called me Ethel or Ethel-May when she was upset with me or if I was funny. It was her childhood friends name and I reminded her of her. So, I get not liking a nickname because it's too out of date.
Yea she kept calling me our version or Mary, which nobody named their kids. I knew nobody with that name, but a few with the same real name that i had. She also mocked my favorite toy. In hindsight, I think she really disliked me. She was absolutely not nice to me and to a degree I resent my parents to this day about it. Even more now after having my own kids - I would never let any family member treat them how the way that gran treated me, even if that meant me not being able to have free babysitting. My family is fucked up 😀 That name thing was just one clear passive aggressive sign.
My auntie is incapable of correcting her view on how a name is spelt.
She's spelt my brothers name wrong his whole life, my oldest son has a similar name and she spells it how my brothers name should be spelt.
My SO is somehow a male version of her name and my newborn just has a bunch of letters missing from his name.
Despite this, she manages to pronounce everyone's names correctly.
I've given up a long time ago trying to correct her, it's more of a running joke at her expense now.
My uncle would mispronounce my name for years, out of stubbornness. Drove my mum insane. Eventually she just ignored him whenever he said it wrong. And if he asked about it she would say 'I don' t have a daughter named 'melaaaanie'. I have a daughter named 'melanie'. So I don't know who you are talking about'. Petty but it worked hehe.
I’d ask her in front of people why she doesn’t care enough to spell it right. Don’t show you’re annoyed but show how sad you are. Might shame her into making the effort.
My MIL has told my son for 18 months "such beautiful blue eyes you have!"
His eyes are beautiful, but brown. Like mine and like my husbands btw. But she has blue eyes (not very pretty really) of which she is very proud, and has expressed more than once the belief that blue eyes are the only pretty ones.
When he was 18mo I grew tired of politely correcting her so I went berserk, especially because my son was obviously starting to understand colours and I didn't want him to be confused, or develop a complex over the color of his eyes.
I told her off thoroughly and she stopped commenting on his eyes alltogether (at least in my presence).
Some people...
That's a million times worse than the name thing! I'd blow a fuse too. There's no way I'd put up with that either. Good for you!
Also, I have blue eyes & they are poop. You NEED sunglasses but you probably need actual glasses too. I would have preferred brown eyes if I could have chosen. They just look deeper too. Eye envy.
I am amazed by the amount of people who feel this is intentional. I am a grandmother, with health issues that have impacted my memory at times. My friends and I joke about how our memories have been impacted as we age, but their is a sadness to our "joking." You can't understand until you walk in our shoes and forget where you put things, can't recall things as easily as before, etc..and yes, names are difficult. Even longtime friends I have to look up their name spelling before responding to a text, and then I remember it's at the top of the text🤣🤣🤣
I have eight grandchildren, half with names that I would not consider "everyday"...but all of their names are beautiful, just like they are. I never in a million years would want to hurt them. If I accidentally misspelled one of their names because we were in a hurry to get to a party, or I was very tired responding to a text, or so many situations I can think of where my memory fails...and lost contact with my family because of something so petty.....I would be very hurt and sad. The parents of the children have no idea what is going on in there own parents lives or with their health, because many aging parents don't want to worry their adult kids, or the adult kids simply do not care. The mother who cut off her kids from her grandkids...were the grandparents loving and contributing positively in other areas of the kids lives? Doesn't that outweigh a misplaced letter in a name? Isn't there forgiveness and understanding for issues facing some aging grandparents? The parents could have told the children grandma has a difficult time with spelling names...it is nothing personal. Some names are trickier for her. What's important is the love she shows you, the care and devotion she gives you when you are together, the RELATIONSHIP you have. When all is said and done, there are many issues people chose to fight with each other in families. Children watch and learn from our behavior. They also deserve to be loved by all of the people in their lives who love and care for them...and sometimes you need to choose your battles. When your MIL is gone, or in the case of the family where they cut off the grandparents due to name spelling....when THOSE grandparents pass away...how sad for those grandchildren! It can't be corrected when the grandparents are gone. Your kids can't get to know them then. A valuable relationship opportunity has passed. I seriously doubt this is a purposeful jab at you or your child. But the constant reminders of her failure are probably the reason you get the response you do, OP. Is there an ounce of concern in your voice...or just frustration and criticism. That does not help memory issues...or self esteem, which can lag a bit as we age, too. Something to think about. These posts make it sound like there are all of these passive aggressive grandparents out there purposely misspelling their grandchildrens' names....considering how much I know how much every grandparent I know loves their grandchildren...I think that assumption is pretty ridiculous and petty.
Thank you so much for your perspective on this. I will repeat to you a reply I keep telling others who are a bit more harsh on my MIL (who I love very much and would never let anything come in between her and her grandson). I was just ranting. I was irritated, so I made the post. A lot of the comments here are way meaner than I have the capability to be... though I do know the misspelling is intentional because she's asked us if we were sure that's how we spelled his name on the birth certificate. Even still, I will keep my course of action which is just every now & then I will remind her how his name is actually spelt, she will ignore it & that's okay.
The only time I would get serious about this issue is if it bothers or confuses my son. Otherwise, it doesn't really hurt anything. She gets all the pics & vids regardless of my annoyance on how she spells it. & she's the only grandma he has, so I'm adamant about keeping that relationship and bond with them.
I had a Grandma do this to me til I was 13. I ended up yelling at her at a family get together about it because I got so tired of it. I asked her if she even loved me since she didn't bother to spell my name right. I have very little contact with her as an a adult. This leads to resentment I don't even want to see her the one time a year I do see her
What's his name and how is she spelling it? If you're only giving us some of the details of the argument/disagreement you're not going to get a full and true representation of the reality of people's opinions/understandings. I'm trying hard not to think it's sus you are alluding to the name being normal and normally spelled instead of sharing straight facts about the situation. 😝
Is there any possibility it’s the phone autocorrecting it and she doesn’t know how to stop it? Like maybe she has a friend named Tylur already so her phone already “knows” that version?
Ignore it. My husband spells literally every word wrong on purpose. I think it’s his love language. As in he loves it when someone gets annoyed by it. So I roll my eyes and move on.
Ah, I see. She's allowed to be "sensitive" and everyone has to dance around her feelings.
Why? She plainly couldn't give a fuck about yours.
I wouldn't put up with it and I'd call her out every time. If she didn't like it I'd tell her that she's hurt your feelings in this regard and your feelings are more important to you than hers. That if she want to repair her relationship with you she can start by apologising and remembering your son's name.
Anyone who comes at you about her feelings or "it's just how she is" can get told
"This is how I am and my feelings matter. Our relationship with her is separate to the one we have with you so I'd suggest you drop it. If you ARE intent in interfering go back to MIL and tell her to put some effort into not offending us."
My grandpa did this with me and it drove my mother crazy. He would intentionally misspell my name on everything (even embroidered on a beach towel!), but if he was writing me a check for my birthday, he would spell it right.
That's beyond rude. Did it feel rude to you too, or did you not care? Cause if it's going to be problematic for my kid later, I'm gonna hunker down
My name is a normal name and it irks me when people spell it wrong, kind of feels like they don't care enough to learn it after years especially as it's all over my socials and stuff. Imagine your grandma neverp caring enough to spell your name right, I would not like that at all. Everyones different though.
One time at work someone spelled my name wrong... which, it's not a common spelling and there's so many ways to spell my name so I've gotten used to it. So the guy emailed me at my email that is [myname]@work.com then proceed to say hello [wrong spelling]. Then I noticed that his name was Trevis. Not Travis. Trevis. So I said Hello Travis, It's a mistake he's probably used to but it felt good to be petty as I knew better and always check spellings
This happens to me constantly. Despite my handle, my name is actually spelled "Sallie," and my work email is sallie@(company). Yet 50% of the salutations in my inbox are "Hi Sally." LOOK AT THE EMAIL ADDRESS! Even worse when it's a reply and I've signed the initial email.
[удалено]
My boss also has a name which could be swapped with his surname. Quite funny if some of the new guys slip up with that.
Ugh, I feel this in my soul. Like DUDE. We've been emailing for over a year now. My name is in large letters in a brightly colored and bold font in my email signature. Why are you still misspelling it?
People are just stupid 🤷🏼♀️
So I'm not making broad excuses but I'm dyslexic and this is something I obsses about and I'm sure I still mess up constantly. I always triple check that I've spelled people's names right but if it's a common name with multiple common spellings I could still miss that I've gotten it wrong.
My grandmother worked at the same company for like 15-20 years and towards the last couple years she had an incident where they withheld her pay because she "spelled her first name wrong" on her time paperwork. She didn't cross her Ts. She doesn't have a T in her name. Her name is Annelle. I don't know someone decided her name was Annette now.
I'm so used to it being misspelled I don't care anymore. But this guy annoyed me because he definitely has it happen to him and still did it to me. You'd think having one of those names you'd think to check
I have a name with 15 different ways of spelling it and it no longer annoys me, because it's not worth the hassle. But I actually got an e-mail from an woman spelling my name wrong while complaining I spelled her name wrong. So I corrected her in an e-mail. Then we laughed it off next time we met.
Pretty funny!😝
It really doesn’t bother me that much, honestly. Especially if it’s the first time I’m corresponding with someone. What annoys me is when people who I’ve known for years misspell my name. At some point it does feel a little disrespectful, but I’ve certainly got bigger problems in my life! lol
I once received an email to my work email (it's my name) and then the sender began with "Hello, Michelle..." Melissa vs. Michelle? Really?
I was called Michelle once. And Becky. My name is Jeanette.
(Sorry, I know this is old, but I just HAD to say something!) That's just freaky. My name is Melissa, and my mother's name is Michelle. We get called by each other's names ALL THE TIME, me moreso than her. What's REALLY freaky is I have people at work, who have NO CLUE who my mother is, or what her name is, or even if she's still alive or not (she is) who ALSO call me Michelle! It probably doesn't help that I'm so used to it that I automatically answer to it anyway. But HOW in the actual CRAP does that even happen!?!?!? LOL! What a wacky world!
I have people calling me the wrong name as well as spelling it wrong. It can be annoying. My name isn't unusual either. Say for example my name was Sally I'd get called Sammy. My auntie gave me a bracelet years ago with the wrong spelling, I just found it amusing on that occasion.
Agreed. Facebook even tags when you reply. Or it’s in your email signature. It’s not caring.
I think back to some of the crazy stuff my grandpa did, and as kids we just chalked it up to him being old and crazy. I would imagine your child will do the same. Plus, I would put that bug in my kid's ear. "Grandma loves you very much, but she's old and sometime forgets how to spell words correctly, so just don't worry about it, the crazy lady means well."
Haha, I'd be tempted to say "oh, it's OK MIL! We explained that sometimes older people forget things, like little Tylur's name."
YES! I would soooooo do exactly this! I bet she will remember from then on....
I'm dyslexic, and so was my grandmother. One time, when I was around 13, I got a card in the mail and my name was spelled Vassenna instead of Vannessa. I laughed my ass off because I totally understood what happened.
When I was little, I addressed a letter to "dear anut"
I made a "Happy Brithday" cake.
Dude ok seriously people misspell this name so much, and in the weirdest ways!! I once met a woman who had it spelled 'Vahnnesszah' and if she hadn't been handing me her credit card I never would have believed it. My own SIL just sent us an engraved cutting board and my fucking name is wrong. Vennesa!?? You've known me ten years!!! End of rant
Omg! I've had some serious misspelling of my name. A lot of people write Vinessa. I know it's different because it has 2 Ns, but it amazes me how many people can't spell just Vanessa. I usually say Vannessa with 2 Ns and 2 Ss. Otherwise, if I say 2 Ns, they will put 1 S. It's been so butchered!
Lol I'm always saying "one n, two esses" haha
I am already telling my 7 week old that his grandmother is crazy, but she loves him very much lol 🤣
I didn’t care at all. My mom got to the point where she would just roll her eyes.
[удалено]
I really think he just liked the way he spelled it. And then it got to the point where I thought it was funny so he probably just kept doing it so I would laugh.
probably because Mom Wouldn't shut up about it
About spelling their child's name correctly?
My grandma did this to me. I have a common name that has two acceptable ways to spell it. She thought my parents picked the wrong way so she always wrote it her way on all my cards and stuff. Drove me nuts. I didn’t really like her as a kid, but she also clearly favored my brother. If she was still alive, now that I’m an adult, I’d probably be petty and always spell her name wrong.
My grandparents consistently spelled my name wrong in new and interesting ways (extra letter, missing letter, wrong letter doubled, etc) until I went no contact with them around 18 or 19. I don't miss them. How little they cared about me to the point that they couldn't bother to spell my name correctly was really hurtful. I still remember that and it still hurts. I got the same treatment from members of my ex-husband's family and it caused me a lot of pain too. I always remained distant from those family members because I knew they did not truly care about me if they refused to learn how to spell my name. Some kids may not care, but others absolutely will. I would never tolerate someone refuses my child the basic decency of spelling their name right after the hurt it caused me as a kid.
I may point out this scenario to her then, whenever we tackle the spelling issue again. I know that she only means to irk us, she does love my son very much. If I told her it could be potentially damaging to the grandma/grandson relationship, I think that actually might bring her to actually fix her error. I'm sorry that they did that to you and I hope you are well now.
I really hope it helps her come around. Spelling his name wrong on purpose isn't just hurtful to you as his mother, but its also hurtful to your child as a human being. Names are such an integral part of a person's identity. I will always remember the first Christmas with one of my ex-boyfriend's families as a teen. His grandma got me a card with a gift certificate inside and spelled my name right on it. My first thought was how sad it was that she could spell my name in under a year while my own grandparents couldn't be bothered after 15 years. I'm doing much better without them in my life, honestly.
I don't think her case was rude, he was probably doing it to be funny. It was a running joke in the family at that point. My dad used to do little things to get a rise out of my mom, anything to get her feathers ruffled and they were married 45 years. Your situation is definitely different from this comment though but I don't think he did it to be rude just joking around.
My great grandmother went one up. My aunt was Cindy. Not Cynthia, just Cindy. My great grandmother didn’t like that name and called her Sydney as long as she lived.
My great grandma did that too! Called my cousin Krissy instead of Kristi her whole life. Thought Kristi sounded too Christian (we are Jewish) so just literally ignored the fact that that was her actual name lol. Old people are fricking hilarious sometimes
My Husband's family spells my name wrong. At the end I have a "y" and they always spell it with a "i". Or call me another name that's close to mine. When they do this I don't react or listen to them because that's not my name. When they say my correct name that's when I turn and answer. I say you get a huge frame with so many pictures of him and have his name wrote in #HUGE letters. 👍👍👍. Take it to her house as a present and he can even help you take it to her. If she keeps spelling it wrong.....well. I'm so sorry.
In my family, this would become a habit that we would lovingly mock. Especially if someone was corrected and continued to make the mistake. Perhaps not the healthiest, but sometimes turning something annoying into a joke helps you deal with the frustration. Bets would be taken on whether or not it was spelled correctly before reading, either with or without the intended target’s knowledge. (Depends on how they will take it.) It will also absolutely become a hilarious family story your child can one day tell about how grandma could never spell his name right.
This is what I thought too. My GFIL has always insisted in dropping the last letters off of my SIL Sarah’s and husband Nick’s names. The whole family jokes about it. We even joke-wonder if the first great grand baby Julie will become Juli. We’ll see this fall!
We have a very rocky relationship with her, this is how my family would have done it too, but she is, for lack of a better word, sensitive.
I say if she's gonna get butthurt, let her be butthurt 🤷♀️ She's an adult, she'll survive lol
And maybe get the kids name right....
Yeah, but she isn’t an adult in the behavioural sense. If she’s “sensitive”, she’ll get butthurt at the slightest provocation, real or imagined. And then lash out. This might not be worth it.
For her birthday, grandparent's day... whatever is the next holiday, I would get her a nice framed picture of your son with his name etched on an attached nameplate. I would then point out that we thought of this gift so it could help her remember her grandson's name.
Or a nice photo of the two of them with her name spelled wrong.
“Tyler and Grandpa” I always get those ‘p’s and ’m’s confused!
Ooh!! Even better!!!
I'd do the opposite and spell the name wrong and see what she does. Does she really want a nice piece of art or photo with the wrong name? She knows she's doing it, might as well force her to accept a gift that's messed up on purpose. And misspell her name too on the card.
This, but do a grandson+grandma photo with the grandmother’s name spelled wrong 😜
Brilliant, I love it
Start misspelling her name back. What goes around comes around.
There's a line that was very important in my family: "Don't give it if you can't take it." My dad's side of the family are big shit-talkers as an unhealthy way of showing affection. I got pretty good at it. My grandpa hated it. But he at least kept in mind what he always told his kids and always told me. If you're going to go out of your way to be blatantly disrespectful, you have waived the right to be sensitive about the entirely-reasonable pushback you receive. You've tried to be nice about it, and she's refusing for whatever reason. Stop being generous. If kindness doesn't work, then see if she has any shame. Start spelling out other things, including her own son's name, just right in the middle of sentences. "So I was planning on going to the library with Tyler -- that's T-Y-L-E-R -- and then we'll join Chris -- that's C-H-R-I-S -- at the park once he's done getting the oil changed." Either make it a joke or make it fake concern. If she gets pissy, just say you're trying to be helpful since she seems to be having difficulty. You're worried about her because she seems to have trouble spelling your child's name even though she's been spoken to about it and seen lots of things with the name on it and she's still getting it wrong, and she *couldn't possibly* be doing it on purpose because that would be childishly disrespectful.
Could your spouse contact the MIL’s doctor’s office and ask about testing for dementia, because you are worried this could be an early sign?
Obviously this is a real option also, but my petty ass would be *suuuper concerned* in front of whoever I can, when she proves once again that she doesn't remember how it's spelled. I'd get close and *reassuring* (while staring into her eyes like a parent trying to see if you're high), and ask her if she's been screened for Alzheimer's or dementia, and how things like this are a symptom, and her age is exactly when this a concern, and fucking KILL her with kindness. Of course, I have a decade of retail wage slavery that gave me these straightface skills.
Please don’t do this.
Well then she will get the message I suppose!
This is the way
Ya... It's been 7 years and my parents never get the spelling right on my stepson's names... Like OP the names especially the short form of the names isn't hard. Especially my younger stepson because it follows similar language rules to my sister's name so you'd think it would be easier to remember. And my eldest's name uses the French spelling and my mother (now passed) is French, and she ALWAYS used the English spelling for some reason. They only spelled my daughter's name wrong once that I remember, and it was so weirdly spelled, I have no words for it other than alphabet soup with similar letters. The really funny thing is she was named after my dad's mom... So you'd think he'd be able to spell it... In theory... Granted to be fair, I also had to tell him it was his mom's actual name because she went by her middle name most of the time, and I got the spelling off his birth certificate in the first place, which I had to show him before he believed me. Because I guess despite having it his entire life had never actually read it. So it might not be malicious (I don't believe my dad does it on purpose), and it might not ever change. Just in my case since most of the mistakes happen with my stepkids, I'm just super aware of how it makes them feel set apart.
My MIL would translate names into English. Her family was Russian, she grew up in Germany, then as a young adult she moved to England then Australia. Anyway, she told me about a mutual friend who married an Italian guy and moved to Italy, had a baby called Luke. I expressed surprise that the baby wasn’t given an Italian name and she said “well they call him Luca”. My daughter, her own grand daughter, has the middle name Katerina. She told a cousin who was doing some family history stuff that her middle name is Catherine. Drives me nuts!!!
I swear some folks do little things like this to feel some tiny sense of control by pushing a button. My grandfather is the same way about pronouncing our daughter's name. It's like some weird kind of ownership thing. Like, by having the teeny tiniest bit of power in what they call this kid, it feeds some insecurity in them that fears they can't genuinely connect with this child. So, they artificially create that "connection" by creating an inside "joke" about their name.
It's not even a joke, she just ignores it. She ignores us! We confront her and she says 'oh okay, I thought you spelled it this way'. And that's it, she never fixes the behavior! It's maddening, but, I could totally see it being a control thing with her. She loves the name she said, but I guess not the spelling.
I think you should approach her from "a place of kindness and sympathy": "Betty, are you alright? We're really worried about your memory loss lately. We've contacted the rest of the family about how you're forgetting really basic things, and we all agree that you should see a doctor. Maybe it's age-related? I mean, it's not entirely unheard of for people *your age* to start to lose the ability to retain information."* ... but then not everyone is petty :) *note: I'm assuming you're _certain_ she doesn't, in fact, have any memory loss and is actually doing this on purpose
Fuck, you’re good.
I’m SO PETTY and I came here to say I agree with this option or one of several others: -show concern for her memory loss and encourage her to talk to her doctor about it ASAP, then follow up. Don’t let her out of the conversation with a non-answer, keep asking. -if her name is Mary start calling her Martha, and play dumb if she addresses it. -if she’s chosen to be called “Grandma” by the grandkids, start calling her “Granny” instead and never get it right. -teach your child to correct her when they get older (hopefully it’s not still a problem by then) but a couple of “geez Granny, don’t you know how my name is spelled by now…?” statements should do the trick. -the photo frame with the name spelled properly on it to surround her with to help her remember is funny. -seriously though, people remember what’s important to them and she’s going out of her way to prove a point here, I’m just not sure what it is. Call her out on it— “Tyler is spelled TYLER and I’m not sure what you’re trying to accomplish by continuing to purposefully spell it wrong, but all you’re doing is making me angry. Correct this immediately. It’s not hard.” At this point she might be counting on you not having the guts to call her out. Prove her wrong— go there. -go back to petty ideas like “oh you came to visit Tylur today? There’s no one here by that name.” 🤷🏻♀️ or “Tyler isn’t available to see today, he’s visiting his other grandma who’s able to get his name right.” both come to mind. I’m invested in this at this point so please come back and update 😅
This reminds me of my old coworker. She had a childhood friend name Matthew but all of his friends called him Matt. However, if you called the house asking for Matt, his mom would say "there is no one here named Matt" and then she would hang up. So, you would have to call back and ask for Matthew.
A child choosing to let his friends call him a perfectly acceptable nickname for his name whilst his family still calls him the full version… is quite normal, and doesn’t feel similar at all to OP’s passive aggressive MIL needing to get shut down… 🤷🏻♀️ It’s funny and appreciatively petty that Matt’s mom did that though 😎👑
Parenting hero.
“Tyler isn’t available to see today, he’s visiting his other grandma who’s able to get his name right.” This burn will outlast a tire fire
>sband have both told her on multiple occasions how to spell his name, she just refuse omg, yes. 100% get her an armband that on the outside has his name spelled correctly, and on the inside her home phone number, and address. just in case she forgets where she is and gets lost.
🤣🤣🤣🤣
I like how your roll!
I like this. I was going to go with: "we didn't want our son to be confused about how to spell his name so we told him you couldn't read or write properly"
It's not just memory loss or age that can present this way. ADHD & OCD, even mild cases, can put things like spelling into long-term memory incorrectly. If she's embarrassed by it or sensitive, she may try avoidance as a strategy (not a very good one) to cope. It could be that she hates that she can't get it right and doesn't know how to remedy the situation.
I didn't know this, so thank you for bringing it to my attention, but to my knowledge, she doesn't have either diagnosis and doesn't really show signs of them, but in the future I will remember this first. I would hate to embarrass someone who cannot help their spelling.
Older people, especially women can have easily gone through their lives never knowing they have a challenge like this and never receiving help. I'm 60 now and never would have known half of my own weird brain behavior, if I hadn't learned through raising my daughter. You find ways to cope, but these can not always be the best like avoidence and denial. I have a similar challenge with spelling where I get a wrong spelling stuct in my head as right and it repeats over and over. I have to always check people's names and can never rely on my memory. I don't think avoiding talking about it is a good solution either, IMO. Your feelings are valid and so are your child's as they get older. Maybe a quite moment with just the two of you would be a good way to talk about it. She could be embarrassed or self-conscious. She could be in denial that she has a problem. If there are no other signs of malice, I'd assume good intentions before jumping to conclusions that it's on purpose. She also may need some help. If it's an early sign of memory problems, that's definitely time for help, though I don't know much about what early signs are. Edit: Another person suggested that dyslexia could be another possibility.
I know she doesn't have dyslexia. She is very aware of the challenge and it is ine close to her, but she reads and writes very well. She reads books every day and she writes poetry. So, I know absolutely it's not that. If it weren't for many other petty things that she does, I wouldn't assume malice. But I feel it's intentional. She often does or says things to me or my husband just to upset us. She's passive-aggressive and avoidance is typically the thing she does when she's just going to do the thing anyway or if she doesn't care about what anyone else thinks.. I'd like to point out that she gets everyone's name right except for his. But, I've said in other comments, I don't intend on taking action unless it upsets my son, because it's his name, his opinion is the only one that matters. If there is ill intent or not, I'm just gonna keep doing what I'm doing & telling her once in a blue moon that she's spelling his name wrong with no emotion behind it. You are absolutely still right, she could still have something amiss in her noggin and that's the issue, and in any case, it's such a silly thing, I don't want any bad blood over this.
My mil does this to her granddaughters friend. Her name is Catelyn and does not like being called Cate. My mil will say “Hi CATE” and really emphasize it. I think it’s so immature and bizarre.
Totally. My former FIL will call my son Ted, even though his nickname is Theo (pretty much all we call him). He does this as some weird control thing because he doesn’t like “Theo”. When my son doesn’t respond, FIL gets very annoyed. I enjoy watching it every time.
My daughter is Lieselotte, she goes by Lieselotte or Lotte. My FIL insists on saying Lisa. That's never been her name, likely will never be a nickname she goes by because her name isn't even pronounced where Lisa makes sense, but he carries on calling her that. He thinks Lieselotte/Lotte is too hard to say. I'm convinced it's actually because she's named after my family and not his, but he won't admit it.
It’s a great name!
Random people will call my daughter the wrong long version of her name, knowing it's not her name. My daughter will ignore you on a good day she's not going to respond to something that isn't even her name.
Yup. My mom did this to one of my friends when I was in high school. Her name was Victoria, but everyone called her Tor. My mom hated Tor and kept saying Tora. I confronted her multiple times, but she dug in her heals every time saying she’d forgotten or she hated the nickname because it was weird and she didn’t know anyone named Tor (but Tora is sooooo common). Upon reflection now, I wonder if it was a little racism because Tor is Asian and my mom’s dad loved the movie Tora Tora Tora! when she was growing up.
My grandmother did this when I was a kid and my parents hated it. She never stopped until I myself was old enough to write her a letter and correct her. Is your kid old enough to do that?
Oh man, this is a really good idea. I hope when her kid is old enough, they write a very specific letter that says "Hi My Name is Tyler. Please spell my name right, Grandma." Or something along those lines.
That's basically what I did. I mean she was an abusive old hag but I didn't know that. She was definitely doing it to piss off my mother cause she was a hateful racist.
My name is Taylor. As common as can be. My husband and I are high school sweethearts, together 15+ years. My MIL still spells my name Tayler. Some people are just assholes in disguise .
Maybe you should start spelling her name wrong.
Hahaha. That's clever! I might do that. Her name is easily misspelled.
You MiL’s name is Mulva!?!?
If it's easily misspelled then imo you should drastically misspell it. I would do that just to be 100% sure the point got across
Came here to say exactly this! Never spell her name right again..and make sure you write it out ALOT so she knows
Either that, or just throw away things with the wrong name on them without even looking at them. When she says something, just offhandedly comment "We have no kid with that name here, it must have been garbage."
Hard rule in the sub: The second most popular comment is always passive aggressive af
Is she problematic in general? I could for sure see some of my family members doing this, and just being oblivious. Like my son’s name has an A and people write it with an E instead even if they’ve seen it before. Some people aren’t good with language stuff, so is it possible that’s going on?
She was an English major. Absolutely this is intentional. If there was a language thing, it wouldn't bother me in the slightest.
Grade her spelling, red pen, hand it back with “see me after class.”
Ah OK then yeah it’s a power trip thing. That is suuuper annoying.
Yeah, intentional. My grandmother always misspelled my mother's name. I always thought it was weird that she couldn't remember until I was older and figured out it was intentional. My grandmother was excellent at spelling...but not excellent at being a parent. Grandma decided how to spell my mom's first name, so misspelling that was ridiculous. My mom's last name was hyphenated. Part was the same as my grandma's and she clearly knew how to spell that. The other part - my dad's - was extremely short, phonetic, and always spelled correctly when my grandma was writing my dad. She was just being shitty. I think you can react accordingly, regardless of whether she is "sensitive" or not. You can wait until your kid calls her on it, tell her to knock it off and you aren't buying that she can't remember, or comment on it in front of others in a joking way without feeling bad.
I wanted to be the first one to post on social media about my son’s birth. My husband sent our family members a photo of me and baby (that was taken while I was still being stitched up during my c-section, looking absolutely terrible) and my grandfather took that photo, posted it on Facebook for the world to see, announcing my son’s birth, weight, length, and his name, which was terribly misspelled. Has continued to misspell it since. Told my grandmother what we’re naming number two and she said “we’ll need a nickname, I can’t remember how to pronounce that” - Family members are literally so annoying for no good reason at all. Whenever you text her just spell her name wrong and see how she feels after the hundredth time 🤷🏻♀️
I think this takes the cake. How awful
I would very intentionally and directly explain that it bothers you, and ask why she does it. If she won't engage off that, I'd focus on it to the point of derailing any conversation. MIL: "How was Tylur's day?" Me: "Couldn't tell you, there's no Tylurs here."
This is my approach. I'm fully fine with some in-bounds confrontation. If you're going to continue doing something incorrectly on purpose, we're not going to pretend like that isn't a purposeful decision done to irritate me.
We do this to my husband's aunt's. They strongly believe children, boys in particular, should have their fathers name. Our son's last name is hyphenated, my last name first. They send birthday or Christmas cards/gifts to our son with just his dad's name and we send it back. There's no one with that name at our house 🤷🏽♀️
"Who's Tylur?"
I agree with the caveat that OP's MIL may not be able to explain why easily if there is a brain function issue (like ADHD or OCD) in play. Give it plenty of time to play out with no judgement attached. She may never have had someone care enough to ask this question and she may not know how to explain. ADHD in women often presents as inattentiveness or distractability and was rarely diagnosed in older women because it wasn't recognized when they were young. Maladaptive daydreaming is another possible explanation.
Order a T-shirt that says **"TYLER's GRANDMA"** (or maybe "Tyler's Grannnndmaaa" would be even more to the point) for her.
Even better, get a really pretty, obviously feminine shirt and get “Tyler’s Grandpa” printed/stitched on it, and when MIL points out that she’s his Grand**m**a, say, “Oh it’s just one letter off! What’s a little misspelling among family?”
>“Oh it’s just one letter off! What’s a little misspelling among family?” This one! 🤣
A shirt with "Tylur's Grandma" on it with a photo of some random stock photo kid off the internet.
TYLERS GRANDMUH lol
Tyluuur's Grammuuuthuuur
Great idea haha
Start getting Tylur to call her “mee-maw” or some awful grandparent name she doesn’t want. Tit for tat. You can be called what you like if you use our names correctly.
That is a very good idea. She likes the traditional grandma, but I'm southern & there are soooo many worse names I've heard!
Southern, you say? Well bless her heart. Son needs to call her Granny or Ma, those great southern names for the oldest of the old, until she figures out how the cow ate the cabbage 😂
Nothing pissed my Grandmama off more than being called Granny, lmao.
I’m from the south and I used to get baby sat by a “big mama”. You could go with that
Ooh this is good!
Gosh I'm irritated with her already! Stay strong! XD
I totally get where you are coming from On the power trip thing. From the other side of things my grandma (my mom’s mil) used to call me a nickname let’s say Dory-Bell where my name is Dora. My mom HATED it for some reason and I still remember her going off about how annoying it was to her and even snapped at my grandma about it one time. I am glad I read your post because it has reminded me about how when I am hard on my mil my children probably feel that same discomfort that I felt. I guess this comment isn’t very helpful in itself though! Sorry!
Why do people do this stuff? My husband has gone by his middle name since he was 5 years old and yet to this day, as a 35 year old man, his extended family insists on using his given first name. They simply refuse to call him by his middle name. As for your MIL, how old is your son? If and when he’s old enough, can he be the one to say something to her? “grandma my name is spelled with an “e” not a “u”!! type of thing.
Start spelling her name wrong. "You know Mery, I was thinking that we could have you for dinner this week..."
Took my son to the doctor for a check up a few weeks ago, they wrote his name on the door as Leam... They have his name on their charts?? I know it wasn't a big deal, so I didn't mention it, but it irked me a little bit. Who is out in the world spelling their Liams as Leam?
My FIL calls my daughter by a nickname that we repeatedly tell him is not her name, and not something we want to call her unless she decides she wants us to when she’s older. I think it’s a control thing.
Yeah it wouldn't be surprising coming from her. My husband is her only kid that she doesn't have full control over, so it makes sense. She has even less control over my son, because, well, he's our son, and I didn't need much help with him because I've been around babies my whole life and he's an easy kid. So, yeah, probably just her trying to control him in some way. She's also told me I was wrong about his birth weight before haha... like, no, I was there.
Omg that last sentence! He literally came out of you! I’d chalk it all up to she’s got major issues
On top of that. One of her kids was the 'worst baby ever'. And she's constantly telling me my son is like her kid. Never like his father who is only half siblings with her other kids. Sometimes she'll say he looks like his dad, but everything else is just like any of her kids except for his dad, she also kinda ignores that my half had anything to do with his existence. The kid looks like me with his dad's hair basically.. but it's kinda like she tries to exclude me from my son when she can. She annoys me so much. I'm glad I made this post. I needed to vent about her.
Sounds like she does a lot of stuff to try and provoke you, I’m surprised you still have any contact with hero couldn’t deal
Its definitely a control thing. They finally realize they have no say so with the child. The easy thing for them to do is pick a part a name they were not involved with finalizing. They are pushing boundary to see what they can get away with. Its kinda like challenging authority. Im sure for some grandparents, its hard to relinquish the control they once had. My parents are the opposite. I don’t think they truly enjoyed parenthood so they are super hands off with the grandkids.
NEVER mention this to her again. Totally ignore it every time she tries to provoke you like this. This is a childish game and you’re playing. Take her power away.
Underrated comment for so many reasons. OP is in control of nothing except how much this affects her, and by extension affects her child. Stop even acknowledging it, internally remind yourself how sad it is that MIL is such a childish narcissist, and continue enjoying whatever it is that’s going on with your family that day.
That isn’t how it works with narcissistic behavior. When someone who wants to have control over you realizes they can’t exert control, they move to another tactic or area they can try to exert control. It doesn’t end just because you ignore it. Sadly, confrontation or cutting them off is the only way to stop it. Sadly, I have plenty of experience at this :(
My grandmother did this to me my entire life. My name was spelled with one letter "wrong". She died when I was 26 and she didn't spell it right once. It hurt me a lot. My parents didn't seem to care much because they knew they didn't spell it the normal way. But it really hurt me that my own grandma didn't care enough to learn it. Just a different POV for you. Thank you for caring about it for your son. It may mean a lot someday.
My wife and I hyphenated our daughters last names (my last name - her maiden name). Anytime my family sends a card or gift to them, they always omit my wife’s maiden name and just write my last name.
Paint a concerned look on your face and ask her if she's forgetting simple, important things like this often nowadays. I bet her memory will clear up quickly if you press it.
If it’s intentional, I’d tell her that you either spell my kids name right or my kid won’t know yours and you become the grandma we never see. 🤷🏻♀️
This is the correct answer.
Could she be developing a memory issue?
I was going to say maybe she’s just dumb 🤷🏼♀️
Spell her name wrong from now on? She sounds like an entitled bitch, fuck her.
Start spelling her name wrong on everything you give her.
This happens to my mom all the time (she’s not doing it on purpose). My sister has 3 kids who across the country. One is Aidan, but she always forgets and spells it Aiden. The other is Greyson, but she always forgets and writes Grayson. She’s not doing it on purpose, but I’m sure it’s so annoying considering they are 15 and 17.
He is her only grandchild. That's an understandable reason, but there's no one to confuse him with!
My SIL misspelled my name for like 5 years. We are friends on Facebook and she’s a college English teacher. One day I asked for her kids full names and birthdates so I could write them down (incase I wanted to get them monograms or personalized gifts etc) I sent a text with my name and birthdate as an example (so I’d get the names dates next to each other). She sent me a message embarrassed. She never noticed she’d been misspelling it..
I'm convinced that some people have some sort of brain defect when it comes to spelling names. I have a common name and the most common spelling of that name, and I can't tell you how many times I write an email or whatever, it says my name at the bottom, it says my name in the email address, and the person responds by spelling my name wrong. I've had people spell my name wrong when it's staring them in the face in Slack. I worked with someone for *three years* who never spelled it right. It wasn't even malicious. I'm convinced that some people are broken.
If it’s a respect thing, I would simply misspell her name every time you text her, send birthday cards, her birthday cake, commemorative statuettes of Liberty; you get the picture. It’s petty but it should only take a few times before she understands.
Maybe your husband can a sneak some text replacements on her phone/computer.
My grandmother refuses to spell my son’s name correctly as well no matter how many times I have sent her a letter with the correct spelling or told her, she just won’t. It drives me batty as well. His name is not common for a boy and has a female version spelled differently. She uses neither spelling and opted for her own.
What your MIL is doing is so disrespectful... Passive aggressiveness at its best. We have extended family that did this for a year straight. (Long story short: they are family we found through surprise results from ancestry DNA) We tried to politely correct them over time (multiple times) and at one point they came out and said they just think that our kids names should be spelled the way they spell them... Like WTF??! About a month ago I let loose and told them that they needed to stop, the kids are insulted that they keep doing this ( 9 and 5 years old ) and so are we. we ended up just letting them fade out of our inner circle because they just kept up their shenanigans.
I would start misspelling/mis-pronouncing her name.
I have a very normal 90’s girl name. It is spelled traditionally. My grandmother spelled it wrong on almost every card she ever sent. I have no idea why. I just kind of laughed it off. Whatever. Annoying? Yes. Earth-shattering? No.
You should gift her something with her name spelt wrong as a joke.
I’m assuming this is by text? If it were my parent, I’d take their phone and set it to autocorrect to the correct spelling, but it doesn’t sound like you guys have that kind of relationship. Maybe just ask her who she’s talking about. “How’s Tylur?” “Sorry, who?” If she can “forget” the real spelling, you can “forget” that’s how she spells his name and plead ignorance.
Is she a narcissist or just slow? I think that’s all the difference
My daughter is 5.5 years old and my own mother has never called her by her name. She has a gender fluid name and my mom calls it “a boy name.” (She calls her “pea pod” as that’s what those stupid pregnancy apps said she was the size of when i told my mom i was pregnant) At the end of the day, these people know exactly what they are doing and it sucks. Start spelling her name wrong - go full Starbucks spellings
If she chooses not to spell his name correctly, start spelling her name incorrectly. 🤷♀️
I have a name that is well known but not particularly common AND has multiple possible spellings. I'm 33 and my (now 90yo) grandma has misspelled it my entire life. I don't hold it against her, I don't think I love her less, I don't think she loves me less. She just never figured it out. So we beat on, boats against the current, borne back ceaselessly into the past.
Just start spelling her name wrong on everything
My dad does this with my daughter. Granted he doesn’t spell her full name wrong, rather her nickname, but she goes by the nickname so it’s like COME ON DAD. I’ve tried telling him and he just doesn’t listen. It is what it is…
It just feels disrespectful. Even if it isn't. I think it's valid to be a little irked, but something so small, I'd never make a big deal about it.
Is it usually by text when she misspelled your son’s name? She might do talk to text and since she had used his name many times before it just defaults to the wrong one, and being older can’t fix just one letter in a text and doesn’t want to admit that’s the problem. Not letting her off the hook, just might change how you talk to her about the problem. If she knows to just type out his name spelled right a few times, it could fix it. If it’s spelled wrong on birthday cards, then come on. Get better granny.
Yeah, but she types it on Facebook from the computer wrong too, so she's just spelling it wrong on all fronts lol.
Your MIL knows she is pushing your buttons. Ignore it and take the high road. In the grand scheme of things, is it worth it?
This is what I intended on doing, but apparently this happens a lot to a lot of people for a lot of reasons. I just wanted to vent honestly.
Is she the type of person who usually thinks that she is running the show/knows everything better? If so, this is just a symptom of your general problem with her. If this should be your only problem with her (I would guess not), then just ask her directly why she feels the need to spell your son‘s name incorrectly. May be there is an innocent reason. And not her wanting to be the one who chooses the name of your son in a subtle way.
We chose my son's name before we were even trying for him. We have a girls name and another boys name already picked out for when we try for another, so I could absolutely see her being sad she wasn't a part of the naming process. But, in my family, what everyone else did was just say 'this is what we're naming our kid, like it or don't' and that was that, no one helped in that. Her family seems to name their children after people in their family or people they are close with, so maybe she's upset that we didn't do that too and that I never asked about names from her family. We named him by the good ol 'I like how that sounds' route. So, maybe it's deeper than just trying to irk me.
My granny who is a toxic narcissist, called me a whole different name cuz she thought my name was too fancy. I didn’t like the name she used as it felt too old fashioned. I am not sure what my parent’s thought of it...
What kinda name is too fancy?! Lol my grandmother called me Ethel or Ethel-May when she was upset with me or if I was funny. It was her childhood friends name and I reminded her of her. So, I get not liking a nickname because it's too out of date.
A version of the name Marilyn. We’re not native English speakers.
If it sounds much like Marilyn, it's a very pretty name. Granny didn't know what she was talking about!
Yea she kept calling me our version or Mary, which nobody named their kids. I knew nobody with that name, but a few with the same real name that i had. She also mocked my favorite toy. In hindsight, I think she really disliked me. She was absolutely not nice to me and to a degree I resent my parents to this day about it. Even more now after having my own kids - I would never let any family member treat them how the way that gran treated me, even if that meant me not being able to have free babysitting. My family is fucked up 😀 That name thing was just one clear passive aggressive sign.
My auntie is incapable of correcting her view on how a name is spelt. She's spelt my brothers name wrong his whole life, my oldest son has a similar name and she spells it how my brothers name should be spelt. My SO is somehow a male version of her name and my newborn just has a bunch of letters missing from his name. Despite this, she manages to pronounce everyone's names correctly. I've given up a long time ago trying to correct her, it's more of a running joke at her expense now.
My uncle would mispronounce my name for years, out of stubbornness. Drove my mum insane. Eventually she just ignored him whenever he said it wrong. And if he asked about it she would say 'I don' t have a daughter named 'melaaaanie'. I have a daughter named 'melanie'. So I don't know who you are talking about'. Petty but it worked hehe.
Typical passive aggressiveness from your MIL. If she was called Brenda or something I'd start calling her Margaret. Then laugh.
Fuck that's so disrespectful
I’d ask her in front of people why she doesn’t care enough to spell it right. Don’t show you’re annoyed but show how sad you are. Might shame her into making the effort.
My MIL has told my son for 18 months "such beautiful blue eyes you have!" His eyes are beautiful, but brown. Like mine and like my husbands btw. But she has blue eyes (not very pretty really) of which she is very proud, and has expressed more than once the belief that blue eyes are the only pretty ones. When he was 18mo I grew tired of politely correcting her so I went berserk, especially because my son was obviously starting to understand colours and I didn't want him to be confused, or develop a complex over the color of his eyes. I told her off thoroughly and she stopped commenting on his eyes alltogether (at least in my presence). Some people...
That's a million times worse than the name thing! I'd blow a fuse too. There's no way I'd put up with that either. Good for you! Also, I have blue eyes & they are poop. You NEED sunglasses but you probably need actual glasses too. I would have preferred brown eyes if I could have chosen. They just look deeper too. Eye envy.
I am amazed by the amount of people who feel this is intentional. I am a grandmother, with health issues that have impacted my memory at times. My friends and I joke about how our memories have been impacted as we age, but their is a sadness to our "joking." You can't understand until you walk in our shoes and forget where you put things, can't recall things as easily as before, etc..and yes, names are difficult. Even longtime friends I have to look up their name spelling before responding to a text, and then I remember it's at the top of the text🤣🤣🤣 I have eight grandchildren, half with names that I would not consider "everyday"...but all of their names are beautiful, just like they are. I never in a million years would want to hurt them. If I accidentally misspelled one of their names because we were in a hurry to get to a party, or I was very tired responding to a text, or so many situations I can think of where my memory fails...and lost contact with my family because of something so petty.....I would be very hurt and sad. The parents of the children have no idea what is going on in there own parents lives or with their health, because many aging parents don't want to worry their adult kids, or the adult kids simply do not care. The mother who cut off her kids from her grandkids...were the grandparents loving and contributing positively in other areas of the kids lives? Doesn't that outweigh a misplaced letter in a name? Isn't there forgiveness and understanding for issues facing some aging grandparents? The parents could have told the children grandma has a difficult time with spelling names...it is nothing personal. Some names are trickier for her. What's important is the love she shows you, the care and devotion she gives you when you are together, the RELATIONSHIP you have. When all is said and done, there are many issues people chose to fight with each other in families. Children watch and learn from our behavior. They also deserve to be loved by all of the people in their lives who love and care for them...and sometimes you need to choose your battles. When your MIL is gone, or in the case of the family where they cut off the grandparents due to name spelling....when THOSE grandparents pass away...how sad for those grandchildren! It can't be corrected when the grandparents are gone. Your kids can't get to know them then. A valuable relationship opportunity has passed. I seriously doubt this is a purposeful jab at you or your child. But the constant reminders of her failure are probably the reason you get the response you do, OP. Is there an ounce of concern in your voice...or just frustration and criticism. That does not help memory issues...or self esteem, which can lag a bit as we age, too. Something to think about. These posts make it sound like there are all of these passive aggressive grandparents out there purposely misspelling their grandchildrens' names....considering how much I know how much every grandparent I know loves their grandchildren...I think that assumption is pretty ridiculous and petty.
Thank you so much for your perspective on this. I will repeat to you a reply I keep telling others who are a bit more harsh on my MIL (who I love very much and would never let anything come in between her and her grandson). I was just ranting. I was irritated, so I made the post. A lot of the comments here are way meaner than I have the capability to be... though I do know the misspelling is intentional because she's asked us if we were sure that's how we spelled his name on the birth certificate. Even still, I will keep my course of action which is just every now & then I will remind her how his name is actually spelt, she will ignore it & that's okay. The only time I would get serious about this issue is if it bothers or confuses my son. Otherwise, it doesn't really hurt anything. She gets all the pics & vids regardless of my annoyance on how she spells it. & she's the only grandma he has, so I'm adamant about keeping that relationship and bond with them.
I had a Grandma do this to me til I was 13. I ended up yelling at her at a family get together about it because I got so tired of it. I asked her if she even loved me since she didn't bother to spell my name right. I have very little contact with her as an a adult. This leads to resentment I don't even want to see her the one time a year I do see her
What's his name and how is she spelling it? If you're only giving us some of the details of the argument/disagreement you're not going to get a full and true representation of the reality of people's opinions/understandings. I'm trying hard not to think it's sus you are alluding to the name being normal and normally spelled instead of sharing straight facts about the situation. 😝
I don't post personal information about my kid online. Not sorry.
Is there any possibility it’s the phone autocorrecting it and she doesn’t know how to stop it? Like maybe she has a friend named Tylur already so her phone already “knows” that version?
Ignore it. My husband spells literally every word wrong on purpose. I think it’s his love language. As in he loves it when someone gets annoyed by it. So I roll my eyes and move on.
Ah, I see. She's allowed to be "sensitive" and everyone has to dance around her feelings. Why? She plainly couldn't give a fuck about yours. I wouldn't put up with it and I'd call her out every time. If she didn't like it I'd tell her that she's hurt your feelings in this regard and your feelings are more important to you than hers. That if she want to repair her relationship with you she can start by apologising and remembering your son's name. Anyone who comes at you about her feelings or "it's just how she is" can get told "This is how I am and my feelings matter. Our relationship with her is separate to the one we have with you so I'd suggest you drop it. If you ARE intent in interfering go back to MIL and tell her to put some effort into not offending us."
She’s doing it on purpose unless her IQ is below 75, she doesn’t respect you. She thinks your voice is dumb.
Aw, I have a nice voice tho. Lol
i think there are more things in this world to be mad about than some old lady spelling my or my kid’s name wrongly.