For some women, having a kid is the best thing they will ever do. For others, being a mother is just part of who they are and they resent being expected to allow it to become their whole identity.
OP falls into the latter category. She loves her girls and is a good mom, but she resents being reduced to that one job title instead of being seen as a human being.
I have 2 kids, 2f, 4f. I hate how everyone thinks of me as being just a mommy now. I don’t get to be my own person. I’m just mommy.
Husband doesn’t face this. He gets gifts from everyone that have to do with his hobbies. Me? I get a bunch of mommy stuff. Tee hee, mommy needs wine!
And like matching outfits. I don’t mean like, one of those cutesy matching pajama sets that the nurses and horse girls wear in their staged Christmas insta pics.
I mean like, people actually think I’m going to go out in public wearing some cutesy matching outfits with my toddlers. As though I think they’re mini versions of myself? Or dolls?
She’s tried pointing this out to her in-laws before but everyone just kind of brushed her off, so at a recent gathering, she blew up at her sister-in-laws and the rest of her family.
From the time we got to the in-laws, it was “mama” this and “mama” that. At some point, my SIL said it and I said “You know my name is (Carmen), right?” she just looked at me funny and said “Of course, silly?” I said “So why do you keep calling me “mama”? You aren’t going around calling (husband) papa?”
SIL just looked at me like I had 2 heads and was like “Um, okay.”
This went on all over Christmas. Here you go, mama. Want another slice, mama?
She pointed out how her husband was treated as an individual and given gifts that appeal to him as a person but everything she received was “mommy’ related, etc.
At that point I was just like “Do you guys mind calling me by my name instead of calling me mama?”
The same SIL as before did the whole golly-gee doe eyed thing and said “But you’re such a good mama!”
I said that I’m not JUST a mom. I gestured to the things that husband got for Christmas from them, and said “Why didn’t you guys get him anything that says “papa”?
Everything you gave me is somehow related to me being a mom. Why does HE get to be his own person?”
Her mother-in-law apologized, stating she could see it that way now and was just so excited about grandchildren.
MIL grabbed my hand and squeezed it and said that she was sorry that she made me feel like this.
She was just “so excited” about being a grandma and she never really thought of things like that.
Her sister-in-laws, though, doubled down as if OP was insulting their way of thinking personally.
I was feeling a little better until SIL2 and SIL3 started going after me. One of them did that whole “Are you okay? Do you need to talk someone? You sound so angry, it isn’t healthy” faux concern thing that’s meant to shame you for having any emotional response.
The other one was angry and saying that “is being a mom somehow beneath you” and “do you think you’re better than the rest of us?” and all that.
Her husband says he gets it, but also thinks she should apologize for casting a “pallor” over the day.
When we finally left, he asked me why I’d kept it in for so long, and I said that I haven’t. No one listened to me before. I’ve said these things plenty of times.
I’ve always asked them to call me by my name and not some disgusting nickname that boils me down to giving birth.
He nodded, but said that I’d put a big pallor on the weekend and that I need to apologize for the outburst at some point.
I said sure, as soon as SILs apologize to me for dehumanizing me for years.
We’re at a stalemate. AITA?
What does Reddit think? You know they’re about to tell us!
And this person thinks some petty revenge might be in order.
Maybe this could be a way to make them understand.
This person says to give granny a pass, though.
And this commenter says they just need to understand that everyone is different.
This woman seems a little over-the-top angry to me.
But that doesn’t make her wrong.