Modern Day Mammy?

The liberties the mother took didn’t end there. Later when she was leaving the house for work, again the boy was throwing a tantrum.

“Go sit on the couch with Aunt Nicole.”

My friend just looked at her, hoping to illustrate her irritation. Not only had the mother not asked her permission to give her this title, she’d only seen the children eight times at this point.

Again Nicole expressed her frustrations.

“Do you tell him to call your next door neighbor Uncle Peter? And they’ve known them all their lives. But I’m Aunt Nicole.”

Not only was the title unwanted, my friend recognized it would eventually cause problems for the son.

“You’re telling this boy to call me Aunt Nicole and I’m about to be gone. And he’s going to be like where did my aunt go?”

While the mother expects Nicole to have an intimate relationship with her son, she doesn’t want any of her input or suggestions, she ignored her suggestions on how to remedy his cold (which he had for weeks), what he might like for lunch (because he doesn’t eat what she leaves him) and why he acts out every morning.

“You know your child’s needs, you know I’m in education. Why aren’t you focusing on what I could be teaching your child as opposed to showing him affection?”

It doesn’t seem to be top priority for her.

To top everything off, the mother is consistently late coming home from work, even though she works the next exit over from her home. While Nicole arrives fifteen minutes early to work in the morning, the mother frequently comes home forty minutes late.

Her behavior led my friend to this conclusion: “I’m a service to you but you want the baby to be family to me.”