A mum has been slammed after she tried to change her daughter’s nickname.
The daughter explained that her mum recently tried to intervene after learning her 18-year-old daughter had been given a nickname by fellow college students.
She asked for advice on whether she acted unreasonably after feeling guilty that her mum was upset.
But people on Reddit comforted her and advised that she wasn’t in the wrong.
She wrote: “My mom (35F) gave matching names to my twin and me (18F).
(Image: Blend Images – KidStock)
“I don’t want to give away our real names, so I’ll pretend our names are Eleanor and Eliza, which both have the nickname Ellie.
“My mother has been very insistent since we were little that if our names are to be shortened, my sister gets to bear the name of Ellie and I can only go by Liz/Lizzie.
“When we were 12, my twin decided that Ellie is too feminine for her and started to go by Eli.
“The only person who still calls my sister Ellie is our mother. Everywhere else she goes by Eli and occasionally Eleanor for professional reasons.
“I decided to go to a college a few hours away. Basically nobody there has met my family.
“The only ones who know I have a twin are those that I have told.
“Some of the friends that I have made started to call me Ellie months ago and I didn’t care.
(Image: Getty Images)
“I asked my sister if she was cool with it and she said it was fine.
“While I didn’t keep it a secret from my mother, I hadn’t told her either.”
But she explains that her mum recently confronted her after discovering that she now goes by Ellie.
The woman continued: “Yesterday, she found out because of a social media post.
“She texted me a screenshot of someone calling me Ellie on Facebook with the message, “LoL how did they mix u up”. I told her they didn’t confuse us and that some classmates are calling me that now.
“She called me about an hour later and asked if I was trying to hurt her feelings.
“I told her that I didn’t ask anyone to call me that, they just started it because it’s a ‘natural’ nickname.
“I also reminded her that Eli hasn’t gone by Ellie in years, and I asked her first.
“She replied that I should have immediately corrected them because names are an important part of identity. If I go by Ellie, I would start taking on my sister’s characteristics and I would never be a separate person from her. (This is kind of hard to explain, but I felt like my mother was taking advantage of feelings I had shared with her about struggling to feel like and be seen as an individual. It was part of why I chose the school that I did.)
“She ended with a guilt trip about how she had chosen names that were very special to her and that she had known I was Eliza and not Eleanor from the moment she saw me.”
Support for the woman’s mum was in short supply on Reddit’s ‘Am I The A**hole forum?”
One person replied: “Your mum doesn’t get to decide your name as an adult.”
Another commented: “If it’s cool with your sister go for it, it sucks for your mom but that’s what you get when you name to twins similar name.”
A third replied: “Your mom is insane. This is an insane level of controlling.”