A mom-to-be recently took to Reddit asking the interwebs if she was in the right for sticking to family tradition and naming her firstborn Gaylord despite her husband calling it “abuse.”
The new mom, 24, is due with her son in August and as it will be the first grandchild on her side of the family, she feels his name will be of the utmost importance.
“In my family, our genealogy is extremely important,” she wrote on Am I The Ass—-. “The firstborn son since the 1800s has been given this name.”
“The name is Gaylord.” And while she is “well aware” that the name carries a stigma, the poster felt that as a compromise, her son will go by Gail in school and with his friends “so that he doesn’t have to deal with bullies.”
While at first, her family didn’t love the idea of the nickname as they wanted to keep things traditional, the OP “wore them down and they have agreed and don’t seem too offended by this.”
“They see the backlash over the name today as a fad that will eventually disappear, and I agree seeing how accepting each generation tends to become,” she went on. “When society stops being so immature about it, he can start using the full name.”
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She even convinced her husband of the nickname, and he was on board with it at the time.
About a year ago, she told him that they would only put Gaylord on the birth certificate “and asked him if he was on board for naming our first son Gail.”
“I remember, he kind of chuckled and said, ‘Sure,’ and that was the end of it,” she recalled. “I thought it was settled.”
But now, he’s saying that he never agreed to the name and thought his wife was kidding.
And after informing her in-laws about their grandson’s possible controversial name — the entire family is on edge.
Now, her husband refuses to discuss the name and his family is pressuring her to pick another name.
“I now have his whole family hounding me and overreacting, telling me it would be abusive even when we’d just be calling him Gail,” she went on. “My mother told me my MIL has called her to scream at her over the phone.”
Her in-laws informed her she needed to “‘get with the times ‘and choose something more appropriate.'” They also sent over a list of “approved” names — “which is incredibly offensive to me.”
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“Not to mention they were trendy names that would never stand the test of time,” she added.
The mom admits she is between a rock and a hard place. While her husband’s family is vehemently against the name, the mom feels like he just doesn’t get the pressure to uphold tradition.
“How could I be expected to break a centuries-old family tradition?” she asked. “Are we really going to let immature homophobia dictate what we can and can’t do?”
What do you think? Comment below what you think she should do!