Need Advice -- Please!!

[Samantha Puppy]

Growing up, I had 3 grandmothers. My dad's step-mother and mother lived out of state, but my mom's mother was never more then 30 minutes away from us my entire life. She was known as Mom-Mom and was the quintessential grandmother - pudgy, loving, generous, funny, etc. The kind you read about in books. Because she was always nearby, she was very involved in everything my brother and I did growing up - football games, ballet recitals, band concerts, etc. She died on Christmas Day, 1997, when I was 19 years old and there isn't a day goes by that I don't think about her and miss her terribly... especially now, with her first great-grandchild about to be born.

My issue is this. Josh's mom has decided she wants to be called Mom-Mom. Try as I might, I cannot NOT be bugged by this. I almost feel like I'd be cheating on MY Mom-Mom by calling someone else that. My Mom-Mom was such a good person, my memories of her are so special... and to bestow a name that has such special connotation to me on someone else, I just can't seem to do it. I've gotten around it so far being as the baby hasn't been born yet, but we're down to less than 2 weeks now so we've got to figure something out.

What did you call your grandparents? What do your children call theirs? I think I'm willing to give in to Cindy on this one, I guess, I'm just finding it very, very difficult. I was just writing out envelopes for the birth announcements and got to hers and froze. I just couldn't bring myself to write Mom-Mom.

What do I do? Go along with it, and always have that nagging feeling in the back of my heart? Let her call herself whatever she wants when she's around the baby but call her something different when she isn't around and hope he latches on to that? I'm not trying to be bitchy or controlling here... I am just having a really difficult time with this one.

[Pawsitive Thinking]

Mine were always Nanny and Grandad (shortened to Nan as I got older....) and Katie does the same (expect for MIL who insists on Granmama!! mad old bat!)

Fully understand how you feel - can you not sit down with Josh's Mum and explain the problem?

At the end of the day its not the name you use that makes you a grandparent but I do hope you get this resolved. It may be that baby decides for himself with his first attempts at talking (my Grandad was known as Nannack for years!)

[Cataholic]

Jaime, how ever do you get yourself into these conundrums? Repeat after me, "it is MY baby, MY wishes will be followed...." Really, just have a sit down and tell her why you feel so strongly about it. What sort of person wouldn't understand? And, if she doesn't understand, and won't bend- why would you care that you are equally un-understanding back?

I haven't ever heard of Mom-Mom for a grandmother. Frankly, it is a little too close to MOM- my title- for my liking.

My mom is Grammy (actually, Gammy....but, it will morph into Grammy), and my stepmother is Grandma.

One of the men I work for has a really cool title. He is Pops, and his wife is Mops. I love that!

You shouldn't be stressing so much this close to the event! (or, ever, really.)

[elizabethann]

Luckily, my Grandmothers were called Babcia (Polish) and YiaYia (Greek) so I didn't have a problem (though my Greek Grandmother was really a step-grandmother and I felt weird calling her that).

Anyhow, I would explain to her why you don't want to call her Mom-Mom. Perhaps you and she can come up with another special name? I'm sure she would understand.

Good luck and let us know how it goes.

P.S. Here's a website that may help. I like MiMi. It's sweet.

http://www.janbrett.com/piggybacks/grandma.htm

[poofy]

I had grandma, and grandpa, my kids have grandma and papa, and my grandkids have mema and papa..umm, my cousins have mamaking and papa king,their last name, and my sister is meme..

[Maresche]

Mimi is only 8 months so she isn't talking yet, but when she does, we're hoping she'll call my mother Grammy, my step-father Poppy and my grandmother Great-Grammy. We're hoping she'll call my MIL Grandma, my FIL Grandpa and my GMIL Great-Grandma. But whatever she calls them is what she calls them.

[Karen]

Growing up, nearly everyone I knew had a Meme and Pepe (mem-may, pep-ay) and a Grandma and Grandpa. (One set of French Canadian grandparents, one set of not French ones!)

Maybe instead of Mom-Mom, she'd be okay with Meme? What's her ethnicity?

Other common Grandmother names:
Grammy
Gamma
Nana

Have you spoken to her at all about it? Maybe she'd be fine with something else, you never know 'til you ask!

[Queen of Poop]

Perhaps tell her that that name has already been used in your family and has great sentimental meaning to you and that you'd like her to be called something else that will end up being equally as significant to your children as Mom-Mom is to you. Good luck.

[prechrswife]

We've been going through similar issues around here--mostly my mom not knowing what she wants to be called. My husband's mom is already "Grandmama," and my grandmother is "Nanny." We have finally settled on "LaoLao" for my mom (Chinese for maternal grandmother).

On the same name issue, my husband calls my grandmother by her first name because his late grandmother was also "Nanny," and he isn't comfortable using this name for someone else.

As for my grandmothers, in addition to "Nanny" (which started out as "Granny," but that's another story for another day), my paternal grandmother was "Mamaw." (Can you tell I'm in the deep south? )

Edited to add: My father-in-law is "Granddaddy" and my dad will be "Papa."

[Lobodeb]

Where did she get the term Mom-Mom? Is it something that Josh's family has been using, or is it something she picked up from hearing you talk about your Mom-Mom?

I, too, have never heard that term before. My instict tells me to let her be called that (if it was already in their family) because she might be as influential to lil' Nug as your Mom-Mom was to you. If she got it from you, I'd suggest explaining to her why you aren't comfortable with calling her that.

Does that help? I swear, Libras (I'm a true Libra) can never make up our minds.

[gemini9961]

I called my Mom's parents, Oma and Opa (German) and my Dad's parents were Grandma and Pappy. It looks like everyone has a unique way of identifying their grandparents. Can't MIL think of something unique for herself?

[Husky_mom]

actually we called the grandma(1), and grandpas (2) and to make a difference
it was "Tata" and "Yeyo".

i think you should only call her that IF you feel comfortable with it, if not, call her what you want, you can´t be imposed to doing it a certain way, if i were "forced" to call my MIL mom i wouldn´t no way jose!!, so i think is the same but with different people. but do as you feel better

[Samantha Puppy]

I don't know where she came up with Mom-Mom. Josh and his brothers called her mother Grandmom. They never knew their paternal grandmother (she died in 1963), so I don't know that they ever called her anything. I don't know if maybe Cindy called one of her grandmothers Mom-Mom and has fond memories of it at all. I'm really passive when it comes to confrontation, so I never asked whenever she'd mention being this baby's "Mom-Mom".

As for her ethnicity - nothing of note. I mean, her family's been over here forever and she has no Meditteranean heritage like Greek or Italian. She's just your average, jumbled-up Caucasian American woman.

Here is a picture of Cindy, me and Josh at my brother's wedding reception in October.


I guess I haven't talked to her about it because she and I are both pretty strong, stubborn women. I feel like all we ever do is clash about big things like this. We don't clash in a nasty way (most of the time), but the fact that nothing ever seems to be easy between us bugs me. I don't want to make an issue out of this... I just cannot seem to help it. I thought I'd just swallow it and be okay, but when I was addressing the envelopes and got to hers, I just froze. It was then I realized exactly how big a deal this is... and I just don't want it to turn into WWIII. What if she loves that name for a reason and she's always seen herself as being someone's Mom-Mom? I'm not saying she wouldn't understand... I'm just saying, I really don't feel like having to have "a talk" about this. Especially when we're currently in the middle of arguing about Christmas dinner!!! *sigh*

And prechrswife, I have a Mamaw too. She's my dad's step-mother and she rocks, but I don't get to see her often as she lives in Ohio. She's my last remaining grandmother.

[ramanth]

Gramma and Grampa or G-maw and G-paw.

[catnapper]

Hmmmmm.... I have not read all the other replies, but this is one thing I've alweays felt very strongly about --- and I don't have kids, but I'm already planning for when the step kids have children!

I told hubby that I want THEIR kids to decide what they want to call me. If its mom-mom, then so beit. (but personally, I always hated it, much for the reasons you love it so much -- my step father's parents were mom-mom and pop-pop... and well, they were not the nicest to my brother and I but were the fdream grandparents of their biological grandchildren) My step kids call their grandfather Fav (or Favie) because thats what they heard when hubby called his dad "father" (my FIL is from the old school that feels children shold respect their parents and call them Father ) ANYHOOO.... they called their grandfather Fav, their Granmom was Nan. Their step-grandmother was Mama. All the names were chosen by the oldest child (my son) and I think its more personal and sweet that way.