Woman tells stepdaughter not to call her 'mom'; husband says she's 'awful.' AITA?
"AITA for telling my husband’s daughter to stop calling me mom?"
I (42 f) met my husband (44 m) 6 years ago and we have been married for 2 years. He has a daughter (7 f) from a previous marriage that didn’t end well after his ex cheated on him. His daughter rarely ever sees her mom as she constantly travels the world.
I feel awful that his daughter hasn’t had a good mother figure in her life so I have been trying my best to take her out to do girly things and bond with her sine her mother isn’t around to do so.
She always would call me by my first name but for the first time when we were sitting at the table for dinner she called me mom and it just didn’t feel right, it made me feel uncomfortable. I told her that “I’m sorry but I’m not your mother you can’t call me that sweety” and she was shocked and started to tear up a bit.
My husband and I were arguing all night telling me that what I did was awful, he told me that she feels comfortable and close enough to me to call me mom and I should feel special for her calling me mom. He doesn’t want to see how I feel from my side.
Her mother is still very much alive and I don’t want to disrespect her by taking her title as mom. It all feels very awkward as I’m used to her calling me by my name. Life was moving so smoothly until she had to call me mom. So AITA for not wanting to be called mom?
Here's how people judged her:
failure_as_a_dad writes:
YTA for crushing a little girl in a vulnerable moment. She probably had to work up the courage to go through with it, fearing your rejection. And you made her worst fears come true.
EmeraldBlueZen writes:
I agree but will go with gentle YTA because I do think OP thought the title mom should be reserved for bio mom. BUT that being said, if she just feels weird mainly because her step-daughter is calling her mom rather than her name, and this isn't something she has a strong objection about, I do think she should be ok with being called mom.
Bubbly_Ganache_7059 writes:
She doesn't want the title dude, that's the point of the post.
docasj writes:
I think that anyone getting into a relationship with a parent has to be prepared to see their children as their own. There are plenty of people without children out there and to get into the life of a child and not embrace them fully seems like a recipe for disaster.
throwfaraway1014 writes:
I think the main difference is the 42 year old has more emotional maturity and can reason why they might not want to call her mom. A 7 year old would just be devastated and doesn’t have the capacity to understand the dynamics of the relationship.
Relationship_Winter writes:
This. I'm not understanding how the people just repeating 'she has a right not to be called mom'. Duh, but she is an adult and could have handled it better. Had she said 'I love you so much, thank you for saying that. I think since you also have your mom, what if we call me Mama OP?' Or something, and the child had still responded negatively, I would have said N T A, but that's not what happened here.
She blurted out something rude and crushed a kids heart, and never bothered to stop and think that this could happen in the first place. The situation sucks for everyone but OP was unnecessarily rude and therefore TA.