Maybe it is a cultural or regional thing, but despite hearing characters in movies and TV shows often referring to their fathers as “my old man” or calling them “pop” to their face, I can’t say I have ever met anyone in real life who uses either expression.
Everyone I have ever known uses “dad” and “father”.
“Hey dad, do you want another beer?”
“My father went bowling last night.”
Never heard anyone say:
“Hey pop, wanna another beer?”
“My old man went bowling last night.”
Do you say “pop” or “my old man” in conversations?
My mom’s father (“daddy”) died when she was only 23; at that time my parents had been married for two and a half years. My dad’s dad told her “I know I can never fill his shoes, but from now on I will be your father.” She started calling him “pop,” and did so until the day he died, 26 years later.
In my family, my parents gladly accept nani and poppy in place of grandma and grandpa. They do this because it has been sort of a family tradition and to differentiate between “Mom’s” parents and “Dad’s” parents.
I call my dad old man all the time, but only because I love him and have to give him some crap. I have never reference my dad to someone else as pop or my old man.
“My old man”, “Me old man” and “The old man” are pretty interchangeable and commonplace around here. “I’ve got to get moving early 'cause the old man’s taking me out fishing in the morning.” “I was going to mow the lawns but when I got home me old man had already done it”. That sort of thing.
“Pop” is a grandfather. My mother’s father was Pop or Poppy to us. My daughter does in-home daycare when I work weekends and her carers go by the names Nanny and Poppo.
I’ve been calling my father “Old Man” for almost twenty years or so. When I was in my late teens I made the conscious decision to switch. For me, at the time, calling him “Dad” seemed juvenile.
I address him as this directly “Hey Old Man, would ya pass the salt?”; indirectly “Yeah, my Old Man says…”; and in correspondence “Dear Old Man”.
No one else in my family calls him this, he never called his father “Old Man”, and none of my friends call their father’s “Old Man”, so it’s not a socio-cultural thing.
In fact, it’s more like a “pop-culture” thing. I assume I picked the term up from movies / books / TV shows. (I can’t even remember anymore!)
“My old man” in reference to someone’s father is only suitable if you’re some kind of burnout with a pack of cigarettes rolled up under your sleeve, slicked-back hair, a switchblade in your pocket, and you’re talking to your other high school dropout greaser friends. “My old man’s got a .38 in his sock drawer…I’ll grab it while he’s at work.”
My husband calls his father ‘Old Man’ in a light, joking manner. It’s not a regular thing (he calls him Dad), but I think it’s partly to try and get his goat a bit. And he’s not a cigarette smoking high school drop out either.
I’ve never heard someone IRL refer to their father as “my old man.” I’ve heard “Pop” mostly used to refer to a grandfather, but in my mother’s case, that’s what she and her siblings called their stepfather, and I had a friend named Lamont, who called his dad Fred “Pop.”
Several years ago, the kids got my husband a rifle scope for his birthday. My son made a joke about all the deer calling him “Big Papa” so the kids all started calling him Big Papa E. That got shortened to Pops, so now all four kids call him Pops, both in speaking to him and in speaking about him. These kids are all in their 20s.
I call my dad “Pops.” Also, quite frequently, Popser.
I’m 35, he’s a Boomer born in 1948. I called him dad/daddy when I was younger, over the years its like it evolved somehow. I can’t put my finger on it.
I never use ‘Pop’ and I don’t think I’ve heard others use it outside of t.v.
I refer to my folks as ‘the old man’ and the ‘the old lady.’ They’re 50ish and started whinging about their age a bit so I started teasing them about it.