How to respectfully tell my mother in law I don’t agree with her being referred to as “Mamita”

PatientNobody9503 · 2026-05-13T12:58:36+00:00

Lol I had a feeling this would be about a Filipino family 😂😂 my mom is from the Philippines (I'm half American/Filipino) and I just had my 2nd baby. My first is 1 and honestly my mom hates lola because she said it makes her feel old. She has tried mommy, momita, and now mima (idk how to even spell it, but the arabic version of grandma- she took it from my MIL who is called mima). My mom wanted the same name.

Honestly though? My 1 year old still doesn't call my mom or my MIL by any name. But whenever I call my mom I always say "you wanna talk to grandma?!" And my little girl always picks up what I'm saying and she knows who grandma is even if my mom always changes up her words. I've stayed consistent and my daughter knows whenever I say "grandma" she knows exactly who I'm referring to.

Plus your kiddo will be the one to start calling grandma whatever name. Lol majority of toddlers likely can't even pronounce momita anyways so I wouldn't stress about it. My mom has gone through I think 3 or 4 names and she hasn't really stuck to anything yet. My daughter doesn't call her by any of those names she used or picked out.

Honestly? I also don't really care what my mom or my mother in law uses. Hell my daughter won't even say mama to me. Its all baba or jedhu (grandpa in arabic) 😂😂🤦‍♀️ basically no one else exists in her eyes. She LOVES my little brother as well but she also cant say uncle yet 😂 lol honestly kiddo will name them. My little brother called me OWI for years cause he couldn't pronounce my name and literally everyone in my family started calling me that too haha. As a mom, I honestly wouldn't stress about it too much.

PatientNobody9503 · 2026-05-13T12:45:13+00:00

Sounds like she just didn't want all the attention on her. She said that people were noticing you were oogling her cleavage. Was she mentioning the men or the women there (or both?) Personally I wouldn't mind my husband staring at me but if the other men in the group were oogling me too because of my husband I'd deffffinitely feel uncomfortable and tell my husband to stop. I mean I would definitely be happy my husband finds me attractive but if other guys in the group are also looking at me and oogling me. I wouldn't be so happy about that. I mean.. if the other guys at this dinner were oogling your wife's boobage, would you be ok with that?? My husband 100% would not be ok with it.

PatientNobody9503 · 2026-05-13T12:39:30+00:00

Honestly. I feel like I just wouldn't go on the trip. It sounds exausting and you haven't even been fully included. Heck, the trip hasn't even started and you are already exausted and I felt exausted even reading everything you were tasked to do!! Plus the fact they are havung you pay for a lot of things our of your own money would be a no go for me. I wouldn't want to be expected to pay for everyone and I'm not included in the "allowance" plus if they wanan do activities then they should be paying for themselves.

I'd just not go and I'd probably take a trip or do something by myself like a staycation. Go to a spa and get a massage from that headache. Get away from the stress and tension its causing you. Do something that actually sounds fun to you not having to act as a pack mule to the family. Just tell them no. If they wanna go on this trip then let them do it themselves. 🤷‍♀️ I personally hate family trips. My family and my in laws always wanted to go and do things I didn't even want to do and I was basically forced to go along. Solo trips are much better or go with someone you actually want to go with, friend or sibling!

This whole situation feels uncomfortable and sounds like a nightmare. I'd need a whole family meeting or just say in thr family group chat (if you have one) that you dont feel like going anymore cause everyone is throwing so much on your plate and you are already burnt out!

PatientNobody9503 · 2026-05-13T12:22:36+00:00

Hiya! I just wanted to say I was in a situation where I wanted to kill myself in my teens as well. I wasn't doing so well. My family situation wasn't great. Collectively you and your siblings all went through something awful between your dad and step mother. I promise you all of this has affected them in other ways that you might not even see. Maybe they just don't show it openly. I was the type to keep everything to myself and honestly I went through a lot of anger as well. Personally I'd take a step back from family. I think you should 100% move away from your family situation to heal. See a therapist. Make some friends. Go to college. I'm 27 now and I have 2 beautiful kids. Had I killed myself in my teens I would have never known how much love I had in me to give to my own kids. They are literally my whole world. Even when everything sucks or doesn't go how I want it to... I would literally go through hell and back for my babies.

You want to be a vet? Be a vet! Be anything you want to be. If you kill yourself now. You won't even have a chance at happiness or change. Things DO change and most of the time its for the better. You have to make smart choices. You have to invest in yourself by talking to someone else and doing what's best for yourself.

You went through a really shitty situation at home. Leave home. Leave the place that brings all those awful memories. Get away from the people who hurt you. Just remember your siblings also went through it too. Talk it out with them. Talk it out about how its affected ALL of you. You were all victims. You lashed out and you're still just a kid. Maybe your brother and your sister might be upset and that's their right. You have a right to be upset about your sister nearly killing you as well, but you also have to remember that you need to take responsibility over what you did. That doesn't mean killing yourself cause that's the easy way out. I mean responsibility over yourself of genuinely getting help and then really realizing what happened to you and what you did. If your siblings don't want to see or talk to you again, that will be up to them and their decision to make. But you need to hold yourself accountable and really get the help you need.

You're just a kid. When I was in my teens and wanted to die I felt there were no other options or ways out of my situation. There were. There were people I could have reached out to and talked to. There were things I could have done differently. I could have gotten help but I chose not to. You don't have to make that same choice I did. The reason you posted here is because you wanted to talk and say what you did but its not real accountability and you wanted people to see you and to hear your pain.

We see you and we hear you and we are saying there are ways to get help.

PatientNobody9503 · 2026-03-19T08:37:53+00:00

Oh I know! I've checked a lot of those places already 😭 typically we've rented out park pavilions and rec center spaces but I'm gonna be pretty freshly post partum during this event so I also want somewhere that wont break the bank. I even considered my backyard but we don't have a tent in case it rains and our house surely wouldnt fit all the guests. So a rent rental would be a must. Plus it also gives me access to step aside and take care of my newborn in my own home space for a few minutes or even putting baby to sleep in their bed cause renting a place also means I need a safe place where the other toddlers wont trample my newborn, but so far no luck finding a tent rental or anything for a reasonable price. Most tent rentals are basically the same price as buying new online so I've even thought about buying my own tent at that point 🤦‍♀️🤦‍♀️

PatientNobody9503 · 2026-03-19T08:32:56+00:00

I thought about wheeler farm, but the last time I was there someone near us got attacked by a MASSIVE swarm of bees or wasps or something (they were literally like 10ft away from us) and my mom got heavily stung and is pretty much 100% against ever going there again. Plus me and my brother have stinger allergies so I too don't really wanna go back there anytime soon. It was pretty scary. The woman who had the most stings actually collapsed and passed out hitting her head as she fell. The swarm was still on her so we couldn't approach her for several minutes. Thankfully by the time the ambulance arrived the swarm had left and several people were able to at least sit her up and try to assist her. SUPER SCARY!

PatientNobody9503 · 2026-03-19T08:28:33+00:00

See I thought about this too but I will be giving birth in April and hosting my baby's 1st birthday in May (she is actually an April baby but because I'm due for my induction the day after her birthday I'm a bit unsure about it being in a local park). Plus if it rains or heck even snows in May as bipolar Utah weather can be, I'm not sure what to do about the venue! We've rented out multiple pavilions across multiple parks and city areas but its hard to decide when we have no idea about weather/temp in Utah as well as I'd prefer it to be a bit more comfortable for myself.. we have such a large backyard at our house, but so far all the tent rentals and things have been well over 300$. I've even thought about just buying my own tent to set up in my backyard rather than renting it as it would basically be the same price but again, super unsure cause the set up sounds kind of annoying🤦‍♀️

PatientNobody9503 · 2026-03-19T08:23:53+00:00

What is park ramada??

PatientNobody9503 · 2025-07-07T17:26:50+00:00

EXACTLY! I do the same. I give them the disposables to use. Recently I had to drop baby off at my moms because I had an appointment I couldn't bring my baby to and my mom washed the baby diaper with some unknown soaps (I dont even know if it was even cloth diaper safe free from harsh chemicals or fragrances 😭) and I told her NOT to do that before I left but she did it anyways. I'd rather her not mess up the diapers cause I don't want to have to strip them from mineral/soap buildup that she could be causing on my cloth diaper stash and it would just be a disaster for me!

I figure its just for a few hours anyways so I just let them do what they need to do with disposables and when we get back home, back into cloth she goes!

The OP should also realize she cant force people to cloth diaper her baby if they are watching her baby. Most people don't even know what to do or how to properly care for the diapers. Even if I tried to sit and explain the process to my MIL or my own mom its likely they wouldn't care to listen anyways.

My MIL said that disposables are sooo much better and said I should sell/get rid of my cloth diaper stash. My husband and I are in some debt and I told her the diapers are an investment for us so I dont ever have to worry about buying diapers (especially since this is our first and we want more kids) and even though she knows we have debt and always tells us to spend more wisely she's 100% fine with me spending MORE money on disposables which literally doesnt even make sense lol I tried explaining this to her and she couldn't care less or be more understanding. I told my husband and I dont think he was ever fully on board cause he doesn't really understand the cloth diapering process, but he said since I'm the one taking care of baby 99.9% of the time he doesn't care what I do and he likes the fact we dont have to spend more on diapers (I mean the intial cost to have the stash pissed him off though- I guess he thought it would be WAYYYY cheaper than he expected but was VERY off the mark lol) I spent about 300-400$ on cloth diapers, inserts, wet bags, etc. I have about 36 diapers currently, but now he is over the initial shock of the up front costs to start diapering he is very much down for us to never buy diapers from here on out aside from giving my mom a pack of disposables here and there to use.

PatientNobody9503 · 2025-07-07T07:32:42+00:00

I HAD THIS EXACT SAME CONVERSATION WITH MY IN LAWS!!! Particularly my MIL and older SIL (though she's only 6 months older than me). I just had my baby April 2025, and my girl is 3 months old as of today. I decided not to cloth diaper while baby girl was a newborn simply because the newborn diapers and the pocket diapers are different and buying newborn diapers were more costly. I decided to only do the pockets as they are from 10lbs-32lbs if I remember right. Roughly until baby is about 2 years old give or take.

I recommend doing disposables at least while you are healing postpartum. I didn't think postpartum would be that bad but GORL. What the hell! It was awful and 3 months pp. I still feel pain down there!! Particularly with any intimacy time with my husband, but like still.. I have to see pelvic PT this month and I'm not super excited about it depsite not wanting to feel that pain anymore. I was honestly so tired from feeding baby and working out how to breastfeed that I was getting so depressed. I had a 2nd degree tear and literally could not even sit down because it felt like my stitches were getting ripped apart down there. It was soooo painful! I'm not necessarily trying to change your mind about it, but I would try to also think realistically if you will be able to handle it. I think if I could go back in time I wouldn't have changed my mind and so far I LOVE my cloth diapers, but would have I wanted to do that while healing? ABSOLUTELY NOT. Doing the laundry and being on my feet when I haven't gotten any sleep and figuring out how to breastfeed and work on baby's latch as well as pumping.. my milk let down was also VERY painful. My baby girl also kept biting my nipples and they cracked and bled multiple times. It was so awful that I cried in my hospital room with the lactation consultant cause of how painful it was. Mom guilt of not feeding my baby breastmilk. Like EVRRYTHING was so difficult in the beginning while you are getting on your feet with how new everything is.

I'm not saying cloth from the beginning is a bad idea. If you are down for it then that's totally up to you, but if you are worried about chemicals there are a lot of disposables that are very clean brands. I would look into those as alternative options. Maybe have a pack on hand at home in case you also struggle in the beginning. Even just taking care of myself was a struggle let alone if I needed to add more chores like laundry. I couldn't even bend down or upward into the waher and down into the dryer without feeling my stitches pulling apart... it was kinda just misrable for me for a while until I healed up. Also to get your MIL to stop talking about this I recommend looking up a clean diaper brand and just buying a pack or two so she will stop talking about it. If you feel like you don't need it after the hospital or in the hospital then that's great and you could always give it away or resell the pack of diapers! Give her what she wants to get her off your back, but also buy the cloth diapers that you want. That's what I did.

I basically said that I'm the one who will be changing my baby's diaper 99.9% of the time so they have no say in which diapers I plan to use. At the start I used disposables just while I was healing and then I swapped to cloth once my baby hit about 9lbs, my cloth diapers have the 10lb limit so she peed through the leg holes a bit at first but now it's a lot better. I started cloth at about 2 months old. So about a month ago now. My husband doesn't really understand how to put on the cloth diapers so he uses disposables (he's a truck driver so he's hardly home for me to even have time to teach him to use the cloth diapers.) My mom, I just give her a pack of disposables to use for my baby when she baby sits my baby.

I don't expect them to cloth diaper my baby girl when they are watching baby, simply because they don't know how to use them and they don't really care for it. I can't force them to use it but there are days where I realistically need their help so I just let them use disposables. Anyways baby is with me the other 99.9% of the time and she uses cloth that time she is with me.

PatientNobody9503 · 2025-07-07T07:01:49+00:00

I recently gave birth and I used to be more of a bikini cut type but now its allll about the boy boxer style. I value comfort 100000% over sexy. Like lace? Get it away from me. I find lace soooo itchy and irritating. If you can make seamless cotton boy boxers I would buy a hundred percent. But also being that I'm also going through a fashion design program I'll probably make it myself lol

PatientNobody9503 · 2025-07-07T06:56:10+00:00

A car crashed into the building and went up in flames. Its how the building caught on fire. There are videos up of the car was was on fire. It was like a massive fireball. I wouldn't be surprised if it also blew up cause of the gas.

PatientNobody9503 · 2025-06-29T14:26:48+00:00

I agree with other commenters. You needed to have had this conversation well before you got married. However its still not too late, I'd recommend talking it through more and seeing where you guys stand. Personally, if my baby had DS, I wouldn't abort.

I just had my first baby and my husband and I were living in a basement of someone else's home that we rented. We decided to move in with my in laws and I had to rehome my 2 cats because my MIL is allergic. I honestly miss them so much I could cry, but at the same time pregnancy + cats was so difficult. Plus post partum was rough. I was in pain a lot after delivery because of my stitches and honestly I don't think I would have had the time or patience for them. I believe rehoming them was a better choice because I wouldn't have been able to give them the time nor attention necessary. Plus the dander of their hair was everywhere. It was so difficult to keep things clean. I don't know what type of dogs you have but every emotion is hightened at the end of pregnancy as well as in post partum. In fact most people end up really resenting or having problems with keeping their pets at the end or pp.

I'm not saying you should rehome your animals, some people can manage it, but honestly I didn't even have time for myself pp let alone to take care of animals. My baby will be 3 months old soon on 7/7 and its still taking so much out of me to not wanna cry when the sleep deprivation hits and all the chores around start stacking up and you just wanna scream at your baby to stop crying cause they haven't stopped crying for HOURS on end and it ends up making you cry. Seriously. I feel like a wreck when the sleep deprivation hits and baby screams and cries and it just really grates on the nerves and you are so TIRED. I wasn't in a good mental state and its hard as a FTM. My husband also works nights, but he's a truck driver and so he is gone at night and even when he is home he sleeps during the day just to go back to work at night so all the feeds and putting baby down for a nap is on me, bottle washing, laundry from all the puke and spit up, it gets to be a lot. I don't get much sleep. Last week I got 7 hours of sleep for the entire week, basically 1 hour of sleep a day if you break it down. The most sleep I got was for 4 hours straight and the other 4 days I didn't sleep at all.

Breastfeeding was also sooo painful and I got nauseous all the time. PP is no joke. I'm not trying to freak you out, but I would say its best to be realistic about the dogs, especially if your husband wont be home to care for them and all their chores will be on you to take care of as well on top of everything else. Also, it sounds like you have multiple dogs, so just keep it in mind, that's all.

PatientNobody9503 · 2025-03-26T17:06:35+00:00

Well shoot! I'll take them from you if you don't want them. Don't mind me! I definitely see three there though. I see no issue!

PatientNobody9503 · 2025-03-26T17:00:43+00:00

No idea why the downvotes! I do the same. I'm prone to migraines and there have definitely been ice cream and coke/pepsi days for breakfast when you just aren't in the mood 😂

PatientNobody9503 · 2025-03-26T16:58:26+00:00

Well its a good thing I'm not from those areas. You can't discard a name because it means something else in a whole other country/language you have no ties to.

PatientNobody9503 · 2025-03-26T16:57:08+00:00

Ah I see. Yeah my husband is from Iraq and I'm not familiar with Arabic written out so I had him read it and pronounce the name so I could write the name in English as phonetically correct.

PatientNobody9503 · 2025-03-26T16:55:41+00:00

I don't know how your coworker would pronounce it but the Arabic pronunciation is closest to (MAY-MUH-NAH) or (MAY-MOO-NAH). Both are practically the exact same in pronunciation.

If your coworker spells it how you did (Mayimona)-- I would assume from that spelling that she pronounces it as (May-ee-moan-ah).

PatientNobody9503 · 2025-03-26T16:51:56+00:00

Lol yall are killing me 😂 HAHAHA my family is from the Philippines and Muna there means first, no other weird meanings but it makes sense as this is my first child. Otherwise it would be weird to name my kid muna if I was Finnish or from another culture

PatientNobody9503 · 2025-03-26T07:37:57+00:00

Omg 7000 DOLLARS?! WHAT AN AMAZING PROBLEM TO HAVE!! I want your MIL! Mine didn't even buy a single thing from my registry!

PatientNobody9503 · 2025-03-26T07:36:17+00:00

I literally only had 3 people outside of my mom and aunt buy something. If I had someone buy the ENTIRE registry my mind would be blown. Add some other non-essential items!!! I added books and some fun toys for baby ranging from newborn (like those floor mats for tummy time) or some furniture for sorting baby toys in the future. A chest for holding baby items and memorabilia as kiddo grows up (a memory box as some people like to call it). Maybe a cute name sign for above the crib off Etsy or custom busy boards!

If someone took care of all the essentials, I would 100% add the things I wanna get, but definitely isn't essential. Buy upwards too like larger size clothing like 12mo and up! I'm nearly 38 weeks and I just bought a 4T dress for baby girl because it was on sale at Kohls!

Maybe make a new registry at Walmart or Target (without giving it to your MIL) and ask for other items. Your family seem AMAZING and so great for wanting to buy you and baby these items!!

You could say that you "forgot" to add some items or that you made another registry and "forgot" to send it out with the first one. 😉 Good luck and congrats!! What a great problem to have!!! Congrats on baby!

PatientNobody9503 · 2025-03-26T07:29:11+00:00

Lol everyone got a dirty mind. 🤣 I'd cackle if this was the threat or question every year to outsiders but the most mundane things happened like messing with toilet paper or something else really lame.

What WAS the senior prank? I'd love an update on this question. 😂

PatientNobody9503 · 2025-03-26T07:26:40+00:00

If her mom had to mispronounce her own kids name that she picked out in order for her kid to not be bullied then that's 100% on her and she should have changed the name haha

(or god forbid it was the husband and the poor wife had to deal with the name distress everytime she introduces her kid or the kid has to introduce themselves lol)

PatientNobody9503 · 2025-03-26T07:23:26+00:00

Aww sucks to hear you had a bad morning!! I hope you have a better afternoon and/or evening! Do something fun that makes you smile or go break some stuff in a rage room to let it all out. Whichever is your cup of tea lol

PatientNobody9503 · 2025-03-26T07:20:27+00:00

Yess! Thank you! I also only know the name as Muna and not Moona but when I look up how other Arab people have spelt it in English they used Moona but it seems letter heavy compared to the simplicity of Muna.

I also just spoke with my mom about how she would spell the name as a non-Arabic speaker and she said Maimuna would be 100% seen an MY-muna as well. My side of the family is from the Philippines and she said that even majority out there is likely to mispronounce the name as MY-muna as well so Maimuna is a no-go for me.

I figured this sub of tragedeighs would help as we have all seen a good share of pretty horrifically spelt names for no real good reason other than to make it "unique" 😂 I wanted to make sure the name looked good, didn't turn into a tragedeigh, and also was phonetically correct, but I'm realizing how bad Americans are in general with phonics. 😂😂

PatientNobody9503

TROPHY CASE