Mother-in-Law Asks “Who Wears the Pants” After Wife Breaks Tradition

Some in-laws have strong opinions on baby names.

On a PEOPLE article asking readers to tell their baby-naming stories, a user by the name of Jeannie shared her experience dealing with the strong opinions that come with welcoming a newborn into the world.

“When I was pregnant, insurance wouldn’t cover an ultrasound to find out the sex of the baby so we took potluck both times,” Jeannie writes. “My daughter was first… no issues.”

“When I was expecting again, my mother-in-law asked if we had picked names for this baby. My family has a tradition of names beginning with J, so my boy and girls names did just that.”

Jeannie adds that her kids’ father holds the title of ‘the third,’ his dad, ‘junior,’ and his grandfather, ‘senior.’

“My MIL then asked if I didn’t feel obligated to name the baby the 4th, should it be a boy. I told her absolutely not, because we weren’t royalty,” the commenter continued.

Though Jeannie seemed ready to stand firm on this decision, the mother-in-law wasn’t ready to back down just yet.

“She then asked her son (with me right there) exactly which one of us wore the pants in the family,” Jeannie wrote.

She responded to the mother-in-law’s comment, “I told her whenever her son got pregnant and delivered a baby after 9 months, he could name it whatever he wanted.”

Jeannie ended up having a son, and decided to give him her mother’s maiden name as a middle name because “she was one of the three girls with no brothers.”

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“My MIL then started telling everyone that I threw ‘that name’ in there for spite,” Jeannie says.

“To this day, almost 38 years later, my son is so grateful that he’s not the 4th!”