You were going to name your child after your Mom, but then your brother beat you to it.

Q:

After so long trying, I’m pregnant, and it’s a Jewish tradition to name our kids after relatives who have passed, and one thing I have been very clear about from basically the week after our Mom died (3 yrs ago) was that I wanted to name my child after her. She has a name that is used for all genders. I was there with her until the end. I took care of her when she was sick for a long time. My brothers were not around barely at all. She was my best friend in the world and much closer to me than my brothers. One of my brothers had another kid after she died and told me “don’t worry, we won’t take your name.” Now, my other brother, his wife just had their 3rd kid and they named her after my Mom! We got the text that was like “introducing (name).” I have never had such a negative reaction to looking at a picture of a baby! I controlled myself. I waited a few days to talk to him about it. He said he didn’t realize it was “such a big deal.” But, how could anything be a bigger deal? We’re talking about birth and death here, the biggest deals of all. It was his wife’s idea and he had thought it was “so sweet” that she wanted to “honor our Mom” like this. This hurts really bad also because maybe we would’ve had our first kid before they had their third kid if it wasn’t so hard to get pregnant as a lesbian couple. He suggested just using my mom’s middle name, but her middle name is a Girl’s Name, that might not fit with the gender our kid is assigned at birth. (we are waiting until birth to find out the sex.) Meanwhile my brother has a daughter, loves gender, and therefore could have used the middle name for his own kid! I actually want him to change her name before it is too late and it requires a court order. Is that insane? My Dad actually agrees with me. I think my wife just wants me to lie down. I have cried about this every day for a week.

A:

Drew: My advice is two-fold. 1) If you think your brother — and his wife — might actually change their child’s name, then it’s worth asking. 2) If he says no, or you decide it’s not even worth asking, then I think you need to work on letting go of the name. Of course, you’re allowed to be hurt and disappointed — and can express those feelings to your brother before moving on! — but then you need to remember that a name is just a name. In fact, even if your child is cis, you won’t be able to control if they decide to go by a nickname anyway. You’ll honor your mom by raising your child with the values she instilled in you. You’ll honor your mom by telling your child stories about her. I’m not suggesting that names aren’t important or that this shouldn’t feel like a betrayal. I just think there are deeper truths to hold onto to move through this if you have to. Also, hey, maybe make your mom’s first name, your child’s middle name. I don’t think it’s weird for someone to have a middle name the same as their cousin’s first name.

Summer: First off, my condolences to your loss of a mother who was extraordinarily close and good to you.

Then…whoa. This is a profoundly serious topic for you. I think the biggest disconnect here is between the weight of your mom’s name to you, and to your brother who named their child after her. His response to you was definitely flippant, rude, and insensitive.

However, I believe that if you didn’t have a firm agreement with him to let you name your child after your mother, he didn’t break any agreements. Your other brother recognized the importance of your mom’s name to you and offered to not use it, but that’s a courtesy. At most, the brother who named his child after your mom did something intensely uncourteous to you. He is still allowed to join his wife in naming his child in a way he considers fitting.

I don’t think it’s fair to you that he offered your late mother’s middle name as a sort of consolation prize. I also don’t think it’s fair that he made his decision without consulting you, especially if you broadcast to the family that you wanted to pass your mother’s name to your child.

Even so, I’m not sure that you have good legal or moral grounds to push your brother into renaming his child. The child is here and has been named. Having a name is a human right and if you try to press him to rename his child, you are now involving the child and their well-being in your interpersonal conflict. In my eyes, his child has done nothing to warrant the replacement of their name. The name is important to you, but it’s also important to your brother and his child. Trying to get him to rename his child may be intensely difficult and if you take it to court, extremely expensive and devastating to family relationships. I don’t think it’s a good idea.

Still, your father agrees with your view. That…actually speaks to a layer I can’t comment on. Which is the Jewish tradition and family dynamics involved here. I’m ignorant of the complexities of Jewish naming and how different segments of Judaism weigh it or carry it out. Given that part of this dispute is religious and familial, I think you should seek guidance from other family members or a rabbi for opinions.

I won’t make uninformed recommendations to you except that I don’t think it’s a good idea to press your brother to rename his child. The weight of this experience is enormous on you and I think there’s space here to continue grieving your mom while processing what’s happening. Talk to your wife. Share time with her and look to the future you do have with your child alongside the pain you’re going through. No matter your decision, I trust you to make one that is well-informed, balanced, and honors your late mother and the dreams you have for your child.

Kayla: I’m going to offer up something that hasn’t come up yet…………I think you can still name your baby as planned. I know first cousins sharing names isn’t exactly a norm in Western cultures, but it is found in all sorts of naming practices in other cultures —especially when the name holds significance, usually as a result of death. Are there alternative spellings to the name? That can be one way to distinguish. Or is there a nickname for the name? I feel like people can be so strict about naming “rules” and conventions, and I think breaking free of that can be a gorgeously expansive experience. How lovely that two different humans could serve as a remembrance of your mother. It doesn’t take away from the significance but rather adds to it, at least the way I see it. Maybe I’m a weirdo, but I personally find this route queer and powerful, though I understand if you don’t feel the same way. I guess I’m just giving you permission to do it, in case it’s occurred to you at all but you’ve worried about what other people might think.

Riese: I think I agree with Kayla! Living parents and children often have the same name, and I did just google this and find a reddit thread full of people who have abundances of Katherines and Sarahs in their own families or who have cousins with the same name as them. However, if that feels off to you because of the Jewish tradition not to name your child after a living relative, I understand. I just wish he hadn’t put you in this situation to begin with — and I do, in fact, think your brother should change his daughter’s name (as you point out, if the birth was recent, there’s a few months left before doing so would require a court order so it’s not a huge hassle at this point)! It’s a bit of a crazy ask, but it’s also a bit of a crazy move to give his kid the name that you already claimed, that was deeply meaningful to you. That said, the chances of that happening might be slim. I’m so sorry for your loss and so hopeful for your birth — the TTC process can be so exhausting (and full of resentment for straight relatives having an easier time starting their own families), I’m so happy for you that a kiddo is on the way.

You can tell your girlfriend wants a dog and you are not about that life

Q:

I’m not a huge fan of dogs in general — they’re loud, they need so much attention and physicality, they’re intense shedders, they smell bad to me even when they’ve just been to a groomer, and I do not ever want to share a bed with them ever again. Cats meanwhile are self-cleaning, relieve themselves autonomously, are so, so quiet, and typically 100 times more chill, in my experience, than even a senior dog. Yes, surprise! I am a lesbian who loves cats.

Two of my last three partners had dogs that were huge, untrained, never groomed, and wildly aggressive barkers, but I survived all of it, I really did. I was kind to those dogs and did love them, but my life was 100% better without them in it and even though I was sad for those relationships to end, I actually found solace in the fact that I would never again have to smell the dogs, sleep in what was essentially a dog bed, be startled by their random barking attacks, or vacuum up canister after canister of their hair. My friends actually comforted me through both breakups by simply texting variations of “remember: !!!!” at all hours of the day.

Cut to now! I’ve been dating my current gf for two years and I adore her. We’re so, so good for each other and it’s the most stable, healthy relationship I’ve ever known. Everything is wonderful except that we’re moving into a house with a backyard and a walkable neighborhood and welp, my girlfriend is now talking about how much she would love to adopt a sweet little pup. She knows I’m not wild about dogs and hasn’t outright asked if we could discuss the possibility of adopting one, but I can tell that she really wants to ! I can even say how it would add another layer of happiness to her life and I do want that for her.

What do I do? I really dislike dogs in my living space and I don’t wanna walk headfirst into something I already know I don’t want. Could she just maybe volunteer at a shelter that could help my gf feel like she had loving relationships with these animals without bringing them into our home? Just typing that sentence made me roll my eyes. Volunteering is not the same as adopting! I don’t know, I’m really stressed out about this and would love to know if anyone has been in a similar position, and what you did, or what you wish you’d done?

Em: I haven’t been in this situation, but I’ve had the experience of both deeply disliking dogs and also deeply loving them. I grew up with fairly large, barking, shedding dogs and it was very hard for me to love them because they were sensory nightmares. On top of the random loud noises, unpredictable movements, and odd smells, my OCD was triggered by the thought of dirty dog germs getting everywhere and infecting me. I’m not sure if it was time, medication or therapy (probably a combination of all three), but years later I’m hoping to adopt a dog!

What I can say from this love-hate relationship with dogs is that SO many different types of dogs exist in the world. I’m no dog expert, but I know there are breeds that are extremely cat-like from the temperament to the hair to noise level. You can even find (mostly) hypoallergenic or hairless breeds, but that might mean reaching out to breed-specific shelters in areas further away from you. It seems like most of your past experiences were with high-maintenance dogs, and I just want to remind you that it doesn’t have to be this way!

Maybe you can agree to search for a cat-like dog, or a dog-like cat? I know a few folks who have negotiated something like this. Something worth considering, though, is your past relationships with dog people. Clearly, you’re attracted to big dog people! Maybe opposites attract?

Summer: Okay, so your first paragraph could have been written by me in its entirety. I grew up thinking I was a dog person until my current girlfriend made the same sales pitch of cat’s benefits and costs to me. I flipped really quickly due to how much ‘gentler’ and easygoing cats are as pets.

I can totally understand why you dislike dogs as pets. I don’t think your dislike comes from a place of disliking animals but disliking what typical dogs bring into a household. There’s no shame in acknowledging that certain pets are wonderful but they have care requirements and behavior that is the total opposite of what you need in your life.

As to your current situation, I think this is something that needs to be discussed. Discussed seriously and over a period of time. Bringing an animal into a relationship always warrants discussion because it’s adding a new life and block of responsibilities to the house. In particular, you will have to discuss the balance of care responsibilities for any potential pets and your respective attitudes toward care ownership. Do you have very different views on how they should be cared for, trained, and handled? This is the time to work it out and come to a decision.

The extensive list of reasons you don’t want a dog in the house should also be discussed. Framed as considerations for any dog owner so she knows what they bring into a house. But also framed as a necessary discussion for your well-being. It’s important to meet her enthusiasm in the middle with your previous bad experiences and see if you two can come to a reasoned, mature agreement about the topic.

The outcomes of those conversations will determine whether she can fulfill her need for dog company in other ways, like volunteering. I wouldn’t go to that as a first option because it could be seen as outright denying her something she wants without giving her an opportunity to speak about it. If this is the most healthy and stable relationship you’ve had, then this conversation should be possible and a great opportunity to learn about each other’s pet ownership interests and needs.

Riese: I grew up allergic to dogs and cats and therefore was never a big fan of either. Now I’m still just allergic to cats and also I do not like cats at all and think it is gross that they pee inside and also shed everywhere and yes that has been hard for me as a lesbian thank you for asking but! I think there are some dog breeds that shed a lot less and also there are some dogs that are cats, like my dog Carol, for example, is a cat, and has won the affections of multiple cat lovers who normally do not like dogs. Despite being a dog person, I am not a large dog person (large dogs smell much worse than small dogs! and are much harder to bathe!) (also I am somehow still allergic to Golden Retrievers). I would not have wanted to live with the dogs either of your exes have but I am currently living with two dogs, one of whomst I selected and one of whomst I did not, but neither produce canisters of dog hair or smell bad all the time. My girlfriend’s dog barks a lot but we’ve been squirting her with a water gun and i think it’s making a difference. (She’s barking as I type this)

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