Am I being too American?
I recently gave birth to a baby boy with my partner who is Nigerian. We are not married and before we found out I was pregnant, we had just reconnected after breaking up due to issues around communication, differences in love languages and perceived imbalances in emotional maturity and effort. When we reconnected after a 3mos breakup, our intention was to take it slow and pursue therapy in an effort to unlock how we move forward, but pregnancy happened which we decided to move forward with together. S
That said, the road was not smooth with two major instances where he just could not rise to provide the emotional support I needed and communicated by screaming which is a non-negotiable for me. Given this, I wanted the baby to have my last name as we are not married and we still need to do the work to meet one another’s needs. Additionally, I was not open to following his tradition of choosing a biblical name for our child given we never went to church even though we are Christians. This never came up during our previous years of dating and I didn’t want to choose a name to be performative. This was another example of a lack of communication per usual that then results in him being upset and not being heard. However, fast forward and his mother has “chosen” a name for the baby which is biblical and seems to only refer to the baby with that name and refers to the baby’s last name as the father’s even though that’s not the case.
Am I being sensitive? My partner refers to our child by his given name and accepted (begrudgingly) the last name being mine.
I feel erased when his family does that but admittedly his mom always asks about me and how I am doing and his extended family also ask to say hello. Am I being “American” and not acknowledging his culture?
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This has nothing to do with being “too American”. His mom needs to stay in her lane, period.
With all the respect you both deserve. You’re not being too American and he’s not being Nigerian 🤣. This entire post yells backwards, and unfortunately that’s why you’re now troubled with what to do babes🥲. He clearly didn’t acknowledge his own Nigerian culture so why should you put that type of burden on your American shoulders honey 💗
I see what you mean. It is inevitable that whatever country the child is in, is the culture they will be brought up with and will likely adopt.
We can be respectful to dads culture but we must also recognize that the child will be brought up in American culture going to American schools, and will take on American culture no matter how much you try to center dads culture.
Personally, I would just let MIL call the baby whatever makes her happy. But that’s me. I see it like a cute nickname.
The child’s friends and the rest of society will call the child by the name the child tells them, which will likely be their Americanized name.
We can be both respectful to dad’s culture while also respecting the child for who they are as an individual separate from both mom and dad.
Have you actually given birth to the baby and named it officially/registered the birth, or are you still pregnant?
If his mother wants to name a baby, she can go ahead, get pregnant and name her own baby. This is YOUR child. YOU are the mother. You need to grow a backbone and put your foot down, lest be bullied into feeling a lifetime of resentment everytime you have to say your child’s name. She’ll get over it, if she doesn’t, oh well.
You/your partner should come up with a name you both can agree on. Whether that includes biblical names is up to you. But ultimately, you are carrying this child, you should get the final say.
OP are you yt?
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