'AITA for telling my brother and SIL they are doing a bad job raising their children?'
"AITA for sitting my brother and SIL down and speaking up for my niece (and nephews)?"
My brother has three children: Luc (16M), Cam (14F), and Bow (11M), with my late best friend, Cam. My brother and my best friend were married for almost a decade and separated just before she passed away from a brain bleed in her early 30s.
My niece Cam was named very similarly to her mother intentionally. My brother was the one who suggested it when they found out baby number two was a girl. My niece always used her full name, while my best friend always went by Cam.
After my best friend died, my niece decided she wanted that extra connection to her mom and stopped using her full name. She chose to go by Cam. Everyone respected this and started calling her Cam. My brother had no problem with it at the time. He called her Cam just like everybody else. When people asked about her name, my niece would say she was named after her mom and that she was “mini Cam.”
This only became an issue after my brother remarried a couple of years ago. His new wife has always had a problem with my niece going by Cam. She tried to use my niece’s full name, but my niece told her she did not like it and had her reasons for going by Cam.
At first, my sister-in-law voiced some complaints, but she dropped them when nobody in the family agreed with her. When she remembered that I was my late best friend’s closest friend, she closed herself off to me completely. A few times she complained about how often my late friend was mentioned, and how people reminded my niece that she looked just like her mom.
Two months ago it all came to a head. My brother and his wife sat the kids down and told Cam it was bothering her stepmother that she used the same name as her mom. They asked her to go back to using her full name. She said she did not see why that was such a big deal. My brother backed his wife up. His wife also asked that they speak less about their mom at home because it made her uncomfortable.
Instead of complying, the kids doubled down. They talked about their mom even more, and Cam made sure her name was used significantly more. Her brothers would repeat her name just to get under their stepmother’s skin. My brother said nothing until his wife tried to stop it, and then he supported her again. He told the kids not to chase her away. They told him they would rather she leave than let their mom’s memory fade.
Things escalated further when Cam told her stepmother she would never be as good as her mom. She told her she was jealous and insecure, and that she would always come up short in comparison. Cam was punished for this. Her brothers supported her, which led to more fighting in the house.
The kids gathered all of their mom’s belongings and sent them to my house for safekeeping. Their stepmother then became upset about how much the kids were turning her into the enemy. She began insisting on using Cam’s full name all the time, and my brother supported her whenever arguments broke out.
The kids told me about it last week, so I decided someone needed to step in. I sat my brother and his wife down and told them plainly that they were mishandling this new family dynamic. I said that by making their mom into someone who should be hidden away, they had guaranteed she would become the enemy in the kids’ eyes.
I told them that fighting a teenager over her own name showed how much they needed to work on their own issues. They did not appreciate hearing this from me and accused me of overstepping. AITA?
Here are the responses to OP's post.
BulbasaurRanch says:
Your brother is a piece of work for supporting that nonsense. He’s putting his kids second here. What a failure of a father he is. NTA.
Sparklingwine23 says:
NTA, it doesn't take a genius or psychologist to understand how this works. Tell a kid not to do something and that's exactly what a kid will do. And the kids are right, his new wife sounds insecure and jealous AF and she can't tell Cam she has to change her name or any of the kids they need to stop talking about and remembering their mother, she was their mother!
Stay supportive for all the kids and let them know you will always talk about her and remember her with them so they know they have an adult in their corner while their dad seems to have forgotten that he is a parent.
dheffe01 says:
NTA make sure you keep their mums stuff safe and ensure SIL does not have a key.
OP responded:
She'll never get a key to my place, there's zero worry of that. My brother doesn't even have one.