Helping family members in times of need is generally a pretty nice thing to do. However, time and time again, some folks prove that not only are they perfectly willing to bite the hand that feeds them, they also just can’t keep their uninformed opinions to themselves.
A woman wondered if she and her husband were wrong to kick out their unemployed, adult cousin for making an internet post mocking their newborn’s middle name. She, mistakenly, thought it was a made-up name and not the husband’s grandfather’s real name, but this didn’t stop her from trying to spin her actions as “doing the couple a favor.”
One young woman thought her cousin’s Aboriginal Australian baby name was a mistake and mocked it online
Image credits: Laura Garcia (not the actual photo)
AITA for kicking my cousin out over Reddit post?
“I(28f) and my husband (29m) had been hosting my cousin (23f) at our place since last summer because she wanted to find a job at our city and we were the only ones she knew, we aren’t close but my parents begged me to let her stay.
My husband has very little native blood, he doesn’t know the language or culture but we did name our newborn after his grandfather. Just his middle name (Fake names) (John) Djarrtjuntjun (Harrison).
Well, five months after our beautiful boy was born. I met up with an old colleague who showed me a screenshot of my boy’s name on a subreddit specifically made to make fun of uncommon or misspelled names.
Though the post has been deleted my colleague screenshot it because she thought it sounded familiar.
In the comments she remarked the OP has also made snickering comments on my child’s name. With people cheering her on. We dug a little further and I could confirm it was my cousin’s profile. From her interest to her pictures post.
Me and my husband confronted her about it and she said majority agreed with her that it was a stupid and horrendous name.
She also said it didn’t matter that it was a cultural name since my husband can’t speak [the language] and isn’t even involved in the culture. My husband was livid and we decided to kick her out.
She has since blasted us on Facebook and in the family group chat [for kicking] her out in a foreign city [while] she was jobless and [that] we are setting our son up for failure with names like that.
She also said she was doing us a favour by showing us how horrible of a name it was. However, I don’t see that as the case as it was posted almost a year ago and she seems to had no intention to reveal to us otherwise.
Image credits: Liza Summer (not the actual photo)
So I would like to know, am I really the a**hole?
Edit: Let me clarify, the fake names was John and Harrison because it’s very basic white names. Like Daniel will be able to replace it or Hemsworth.
Djarrtjuntjun is the actual name, there’s actually quite a few of them here in my city
Mandawuy Djarrtjuntjun Yunupingu Here’s one famous singer with that same exact name for reference purpose. The reason why my husband is very distanced from his culture, would you guys like to take a guess what colonialism did to Australians aboriginals?
Credits: [deleted]
Some parents do pick unconventional names for their kids
Image credits: Fadime Demirtaş (not the actual photo)
While there are folks out there who decide to give their kids bizarre or pop-culture-infused names, it’s important to remember that most of the names we think of as “normal” all were probably unusual at some point. It’s only through usage that they become common enough to not draw attention.
However, this is clearly not the case here, as the name is a passed-down, family name. One must assume that it’s not from the cousin’s side of the family, but that is no reason to be rude and ignorant. The many commenters on the cousin’s post no doubt fell in the same category, willing to mock, but not do their due diligence, as a simple internet search would reveal that this is, in fact, a real name.
Mocking your own family online is a bad choice when they literally give you a place to stay
Image credits: Liza Summer (not the actual photo)
The real issue is that, first and foremost, the cousin thought it was perfectly acceptable to make an internet post mocking the newborn of family members who were hosting her. If you are unemployed and in a new city and a family member, who isn’t in your direct family, takes you into their home after having a baby, you shouldn’t literally antagonize them. It’s not like she is doing them some service, she is practically a freeloader.
Even worse, when confronted, she invents some dumb story that, actually, she was helping them. As the woman who made the above post noted, this really doesn’t make any sense, as she never brought this idea up, nor showed them the post. Similarly, she didn’t try to “show” them that this name could be an issue, she made a post specifically mocking it.
It’s quite unclear how a middle name is going to ruin a child’s life, as most folks who don’t like their middle name simply do not use it anywhere. She then tries to bring up some ideas that the husband “can’t speak [the language] and isn’t even involved in the culture,” while at the same time literally mocking this name. These actions are not equivalent, no matter how she tries to spin it.
The cousin’s arguments hold no water
Image credits: MART PRODUCTION (not the actual photo)
There is some evidence that a person’s name can affect their career prospects, but it’s not as clear-cut as some might think. Essentially, a name can be an indicator or race, gender or even age, which could matter to some employers. This is generally not legal, but this doesn’t mean that some hiring managers don’t have their own biases.
However, a middle name can often be fully excluded from a job application, if the person doesn’t like it. Similarly, as the woman notes, there are people in their hometown with this name. Perhaps at some point this child will grow up and want to move, but the cousin’s faux “concern” is just an excuse to cover up what she already knows, that her behavior is simply horrible. And, as this story shows, it’s also terribly short-sighted, since she was now evicted from a comfortable place to stay. She should have been more worried about her future instead, it seems.
The woman shared some more details
Most readers thought the couple was right to kick the cousin out
