Husband sides with wife as mother clashes over 'virtue name' for soon-to-arrive grandchild. AITA?
"AITA for telling my MIL she's making a huge deal out of virtue names when she really doesn't need to?"
Immediate-Ebb3113
My MIL has a really weird hatred for virtue names. This is something she has become vocal with in more recent years. A lot of it centers around the compared to your name/setting high expectations for your child thing.
I (29f) have a virtue name; Serenity. My SIL (25f) aka my husband's younger sister, and her husband, are strongly considering a virtue name for their daughter who is due in a few weeks.
MIL has been so outspoken recently against them that SIL asked me how I felt growing up with a name like Serenity and whether I felt a ton of pressure to live up to the name.
I told her I always felt like my name was really pretty and I never felt like I was expected to live up to it. I told her until I was like 12 I was pretty wild as a kid and I never had it thrown in my face that I wasn't living up to my name or that my name didn't suit me.
I told her my name was seem as pretty normal and I wasn't even in a religious town. She mentioned MILs issues with virtue names getting to her. I pointed out to SIL that Grace is a name MIL loves and that also counts as a virtue name.
SIL, who forgot that, laughed and it reassured her. She thanked me for the talk. I told her she could talk to me again if she needed to and they should just follow their hearts on the name.
We were at MIL and FILs house on Saturday and MIL was off on a rant at SIL about virtue names again and how she better not seriously consider one for her grandchild.
SIL told her there was a virtue name on the list and it was in their top three choices and could be her granddaughters name so she needed to stop talking about the names like that because she would not let her daughter hear that crap.
MIL pulled me in, expecting me to be on her side, which is when I told her she's making a huge deal out of virtue names when she doesn't need to. I told her it's not a huge deal and some are very common and popular today. My name included.
She told me I should know having lived with one that it comes with a lot of judgmental comments. My husband jumped in and told her the most judgmental one was her and like he had said before, she's rude ranting like she does in front of me when she knows I have one of those names she freaks out over.
He told her nobody cares what she thinks of them at this point. MIL ignored him and asked if I was really going to put her granddaughter through a life full of being compared to her name. My husband and SIL told her to let it go. She told me she expected me to be more understanding and less dismissive of her genuine concerns. AITA?
Here were the top rated comments from readers in response to the OP's post:
StAlvis
NTA
"Virtue names."
I very rapidly went on a personal journey from "what the heck is a 'virtue name?'", to intuiting it reasonably quickly, to immediately dismissing these concerns as poppycock.
Ain't no kid cares dick about "living up" to their name. To them, it's just their name. The "virtue" of it all isn't on anyone's mind.
"He told her nobody cares what she thinks of them at this point."
My man.
Immediate-Ebb3113 (OP)
The idea MIL is that people expect them to and make comments when they don't. Comments the kids will feel pressured by. But my experience is I did not get those, even when I wasn't living up to mine lol. It also amuses me that the one that is probably the most popular, Grace, she's more than fine with but anything else is crazy to her.
TemptingPenguin369
NTA. MIL needs to show some Grace and Charity and Prudence in dealing with her DIL, or else she won't have any Hope that the grandchild will be part of her life and she'll miss out on the Joy and Felicity that would bring to her. If she changes her mind, and lets her Destiny include learning to live in Harmony with her DIL, perhaps the DIL will show her some Mercy.
EquivalentTwo1
NTA. There are tons of virtue names that are not obviously virtue names to our modern ears. Grace, Pax, Constance, Clement, Joy, Ever, Celeste, Iman, Felicity, etc. Is this all her backhand way of getting your SIL to agree to some name MIL prefers?
SmackoftheGods
NTA, but your MIL sure is. How the hell does she feel justified making such a big deal about the horrible mistake virtue names are in front of you? Is she just oblivious that throwing all this judgment around has the potential of directly impacting you? And what does she expect you to say, "oh you're so right I absolutely hate my name?"
Immediate-Ebb3113 (OP)
I think she expected me to list off all the bad points of having a virtue name, the people expecting you to be like your name. I never faced that. I have said that to her before. There is no way I could say oh yeah it's the worst for that when I never experienced it myself. But MIL has convinced herself it's such a horrible sentence for a person but especially a child.
purplstarz
MIL: Aren't those names the worst!? OP: Not in my experience. MIL: Well what do you know anyway? OP: Literally a whole lifetime of having my name... NTA.
Ancient-Platypus5327
NTA. Next time MIL goes off on a rant about virtue names, start talking about vice names. Vice names are the humorous opposite of virtue names, based on the old joke that anyone with a virtue name will invariably become the opposite of their name.