Aunt with full custody asks if she's wrong to not let nephew call her 'mommy.'
It is hard to raise a son or daughter, especially if their biological parent is unable to do so. When this aunt with full custody of her nephew feels guilty when he calls her mommy, she takes to the popular Reddit forum to ask:
'AITA for not letting my nephew call me mommy?'
credulo writes:
Okay, so my sister is a wreck of a person atm, and so I have custody/guardianship of her kid/my nephew(6M) until she may possibly get her act together. (Father is unknown and my family and relatives refused to take him in, so I did.)
I don’t really like children a lot so it took a while to get accustomed with this whole thing, but I’ve since managed to get a decent hang of it and everything seemed okay until recently.
I call myself ‘Auntie’ or my name around my nephew, but I think he’s heard other kids call their parents (I.e mom) and now has started to call me mom/mommy despite me trying to gently tell him otherwise.
I don’t want to confuse him nor do I really like being called mom, admittedly, just makes me uncomfortable.
But you're kind of more than that now...
So recently, my mom came over to visit and saw me trying to remind him to call me auntie and just went off on me, saying that I was being heartless, cruel, and some other stuff, and that I just should let him call me mom.
Okay OP's mom is being kind of intense, but is she right?
I made her leave, but now her words are making me reconsider. I mean on one hand, I feel guilty, but on the other hand, I’m really not his mom and if my sister decides to work on herself and come back, I don’t wanna confuse him. AITA?
Every time I try to remind him I’m just his auntie, he calls me auntie for like a day or two before it’s back to mommy/mom, and has started to tear up now when I do it, so then I stop for a bit, then the cycle continues.
At this point, I think he’s really starting to believe I’m his genuine mother or something, I love the kid but I’m just an aunt. AITA?
Well, is OP the AH? Let's see what Reddit had to say.
daemin writes:
Op should see a therapist, and the child should see a therapist. The reason I include Op in that is because of the fact that Op doesn't like kids, but also seems to think there's a possibility that their sister will get her act together.
affectionmine writes:
NTA, but actually, to him you are his Mum. He's calling you Mum and it's coming from his heart. If his mother comes back into his life, he will work it out. I don't like that your sister is criticising you though - she has no right to do that. You're handling something very well that she couldn't handle.
sowhat4 writes:
It's OP's mom who is criticizing her, not the errant sister who gave birth to the little boy. But, to a six y/o, relationships are not nuanced and he, damn it, wants a mom! Let him call you Mommy Credulo if you want to differentiate between you and your sister.