A mother has called the father of her child "spineless" after she was left baffled at the choice of name for his new baby.
Parenting can be hard, especially when you're separated and have to co-parent with somebody who may have different ideals.
But on the other hand, co-parenting suits some people perfectly and they take to it naturally, and that's exactly how this bizarre story began.
Taking to the popular Am I The A**hole (AITA) subreddit, a perplexed parent questioned whether she was correct for referring to her daughter's father as "spineless" and his girlfriend as "creepy".
To begin, the OP (original poster) provided some context for the situation: "I ended up falling pregnant with my 10 year old daughter during a drunken hook-up with a friend in my mid 20s. When we found out we decided to keep the child and co-parent while remaining friends. We were never a couple and we didn't want to be one either."
They appeared to co-parent quite successfully, and even when the father of her daughter got into another relationship and was expecting another baby, the OP was supportive.
The plans were for the two children to be friends with each other, and for the families to remain close so the children could have an upbringing with both of their parents.
When the new baby was born, the OP and her daughter traveled to the hospital to meet their new relative, but when they found out the name of the baby, things began to unravel.
"They'd used my daughters name. She (the girlfriend) didn't seem to have any issue with this when she introduced the baby bold as brass. My friend seemed uncomfortable and wouldn't look at me directly," the post read.
She went on: "I told them they were being ridiculous and that they couldn't do this, I then told his girlfriend that I found this frankly creepy and told my friend he was being spineless if he was happy to go along with this.
"He tried to claim our daughter could use a nickname or something but I shut that down immediately asking why it was more reasonable for a girl who has used that name for a decade to [change] her name compared to a baby who had no concept of what a name was yet."
Stating that she felt like the name was chosen maliciously, the poster concluded: "His girlfriend told me I was being a b**** talking to her like that after she just gave birth and asked the nurses to remove me saying I was being disruptive."
Safe to say, the people in the comments of the Reddit threat were not amused.
"From the outside it sure reads like she wants to replace her partner's affection for his first daughter with his new baby. Of course it's creepy," one person wrote.
A second added: "They hid this for a reason. He was embarrassed for a reason. The same FIRST and LAST name is going to cause both those girls a life time of issues, especially with the same father. I usually would have a bit more sympathy for a woman who just gave birth but she seemed deliberately cold and cruel towards your daughter (her step daughter) to have done this."
The two kids being named the same will surely make some confusing scenarios pop up in the future, and it certainly seems bizarre to choose pretty much the only name that's off-limits.
