An issue with my in-laws

In My Humble Opinion
1

I’ve been married for about 2 1/2 years now, and I have this tiny problem with my in-laws. I have no idea how to address them.

Soon after I proposed to my wife I made the earth-shattering mistake of calling her dad by his first name. Evidently, this is a major no-no. Her mom completely freaked out and said that I was never to address them by their first names, and how rude it was, and other such things. I was taken aback by how extreme her reaction was. She told me that I had to call them Mom and Dad (which is how they both addressed their in-laws).

The problem with that is that I already have a Mom and Dad. I really don’t feel comfortable calling my in-laws Mom and Dad too. When I told her this, she freaked out again and told me that since we were family, I had better get comfortable with it. She also thought my compromise of Mr. and Mrs. [Last Name] was rude.

Now, this was about 4 years ago, and I still don’t feel comfortable calling them Mom and Dad. In fact, as far as I can remember, I’ve never directly addressed either one of them. I’ve gotten around it by using “you,” “him/her,” “your mom/dad,” “my wife’s mother/father,” and other workarounds.

My preferred option is still to call them by their first names (which seems to be the normal way of referring to one’s in-laws), but I’ve been too chicken-shit to bring it up again. Recently it’s been bothering me quite a bit.

I was thinking that since we’re going to try for kids soon, I could just hold off and use Grandma and Grandpa. However, this seems like a cop-out and would probably still bother me.

My wife is no help because her usual method of dealing with a freak out by her parents is to permanently avoid the topic that brought it about. My parents aren’t any help either. I figured the SD might be able to help. So, after all that rambling, here’s my questions:

What do/did/would you call your in-laws (or reasonable facsimiles thereof)?
Any suggestions how to talk to them about this (hopefully with exponentially less freaking out)?

2

I had a similar issue. I asked the other “outlaws” what they called them, and was told everyone calls them Mom and Dad. So I (not being terribly bugged by it) did the same. However, my family had a very mild shit fit, saying that I already had parents.

Too bad, I says. That’s the way it’s done. Fortunately, it’s not much of an issue since the the two parental groups have only met once and when I refer to my mother in law, I call her “Mr. K’s mom”.

May I make a suggestion? How about calling them “Mother Jane” and “Father John”? Maybe it will roll off your tongue a little easier. You would, of course, insert their real names. :wink:

3

My recommendation is to let it go. There are so many important things to be concerned about, and so many problems one can have with in-laws, that I just can’t see why, 4 years later, you’re still making a big deal about a name. If I were you, I’d consider myself fortunate to have in-laws that embrace you as family and want you to use the more familiar terms to address them.

They’re just names.

4

My parents are long since deceased, and my husband asked his parents (unprompted by me) what I should call them. They said I should call them by their first names, so I do. It leads to confusion because my husband is named for his dad, and we always have to clarify which “Bob” (not his real name) I’m talking about. I think “Mom Jane” and Dad Dave" would sound good.

5

I call my inlaws “Mr. and Mrs. (Lastname).” I’ve ranted about my father-in-law a number of times here, so I’ll spare the details and just say he’s often an utter jerk, abused his kids growing up, is still sometimes verbally/emotionally abusive, etc., so I couldn’t bring myself to call him “Dad.” The others who married into the family call them the same thing, so I went with that. I heard my father-in-law mentioning it when talking with one of his daughters, about how Brother-In-Law “Smith” calls him that, but really, we all do, so I think he was trying to be subtle and hint that we shouldn’t do it.

My husband refers to my mother as “Mom (Herlastname)” sometimes, though I’m not sure he actually calls her that now that I think of it.

6

But the inlaws were really nasty and rude to have a fit and dress him down for him daring to actually use their first names as if they were all equal adults. They could have done much better by saying something like, “We’re a bit old-fashioned and prefer you not use our first names; ‘Mom and Dad’ would be what we’re used to.” It may well bode poorly for other incidents in which he dared to not be psychic and discern what they expected out of his behavior, and at the very least it doesn’t do much for establishing that “embrace you as family” feeling.

That being said, I’m not sure what I’d do in this situation. Considering how your wife doesn’t want to go against her parents or even discuss problems like this (not a good sign if it continues for worse problems, and definitely don’t buckle if it comes to interference in your lives the next time something happens), and they are utterly against any alternatives, I also don’t think that “Mom/Mother Jane” and “Dad/Father John” would work.

7

Can one have more than one Brother? Sister? Child? Why not Mom and Dad? (says the girl with two Moms and two Dads even before she got married…)

My in-laws “hoped” I’d call them Mom or Dad, and to their faces, I try to do that, although I’ll admit it doesn’t come all that naturally. It’s not a name, it’s a title, and short of “Lord Superdick of Lower Trenton on Avon”, I try to use the titles/names that people request of me, no matter what’s on their birth certificate. In the third person, when not in front of them, I use their first names for clarity, and when talking to my husband or his siblings, “your mom and dad” works just fine.

8

A lot of people my parents’ age and older aren’t very comfortable with someone a generation younger than them calling them by their first name, so I can see them being a little wigged out but still wanting something less formal than Mr./Mrs. Theirname. Of course, there’s no way in hell I’d call my husband’s parents Mom and Dad, even though I call his grandmother Mamaw. Too weird.

Maybe some variant of Mom and Dad that you never use for your own parents would be a good compromise. When I was still young enough to be uncomfortable calling my friends’ parents by their first names, I called my roommate/de facto sister’s mother Ma. (If they freaked out that badly, though, I don’t foresee them being all that amenable to compromise.)

9

I’m sure there is a mature solution to this.

On the other hand, for almost 10 years I have managed to call my in-laws nothing for similar reasons. I have avoided every situation where I need to vocalize a name when speaking to them. It’s a little ridiculous, but totally possible. At this point, it’s second nature and not difficult at all.

I do have a vague worry that some day they will be standing in the middle of the street, and a Mack truck will be hurtling toward them, and they won’t realize it, and I won’t be able to yell “Hey get out of the street, <name>” so I’ll have to go find someone else, preferably one of their blood children, to shout out Mom! Dad! and by the time I get back, all that will remain is a pile of carnage on the asphalt. But really, they will have brought it all on themselves, don’t you think?

10

I call my mother-in-law Pat.

11

Thanks for the responses, all. I might try to talk to them again over the holidays. Maybe it’ll be one of those funny things we laugh about later on. (Or maybe my mother-in-law is the She-Hulk and will rip me limb from limb…)

12

This would, however, be a solution to the problem; albeit a rather extreme one. :slight_smile:

I call my in-laws by thier first names, mostly. Both of our mothers refer to themselves as “Mom” to both myself and my wife.

13

I use first names. I would let them know why you’re doing it so that hopefully the discomfort is diffused.

You: Hi, Jane!
Jane: WTF!? Call me mom, for chrissakes…
You: (Regretful grin) Sorry, my mom objects to that. Wouldn’t want to hurt her feelings. Can I call you Mother Jane? Something else?

At that point, she’d be rude to insist and if she does, stick to your guns, but nicely. It’ll cease to be an issue at some point.

14

I was married like 9 years before I ever called either of my ILs anything. Now it’s either nothing or mom and dad. But, oddly, I never call them mom or dad, I just refer to her as mom or him as dad to the other one. They weren’t jerks about it like the OPs MIL or anything though.

15

People have a right to be called what they want to be called. The old-fashioned etiquette rule is that you should never call *anyone *by their first name unless they invite you to, but most people don’t embrace that anymore. Maybe your in-laws do. If they want you to call them Mom & Dad then you should just suck it up. You’ll probably get used to it. It’s very common and does not mean you have renounced your own parents.

I’m on my second marriage, and have called all the in-laws the same thing that my spouses have called them. Same thing for how my first and current wives call my own parents.

16

I had the same issue with my MIL, whom I grew to hate. I could NOT call her any maternal name. After about 9 years, when we had children, I then referred to her as “Babushka” which means “Grandmother.” She loved that. I still detested the woman. Few people knew how much, including the children.

17

Old fashioned? I have always called my SO’s parents by their first names, and they ranged in age from their 50s to their 80s.

18

No, they don’t. And they especially don’t have a right to demand to be called something they are not.

19

While I agree with the point that people should be able to label themselves in theory, it doesn’t always work in real life. For example, I’m 33. I had an employee who was 27 and called me “m’am”. I hated it. I invited her several times to call me by my name, or “Ms. Flea,” and she insisted it made her uncomfortable, so I didn’t insist and just put up with it. Eventually I ceased to care.

The in-laws have the right to ask, but he has the right to refuse if he doesn’t feel right doing so. In this case, they have to both be content with a compromise.

20

I can’t really agree with this, especially when it comes to being called Mom and Dad by someone who is not their child. That’s a bit different than saying, “My name is Elizabeth, but I go by Liz.”