Times have changed. Today we would refer to Mother as “they” or “them”.
All these years and I don’t think anyone has pointed out that the book in question was almost certainly The Bully of Barkham Street by Mary Stolz a pretty good (for the genre) sequel to A Dog on Barkham Street. It was published in 1963, as noted somewhat different times culturally in the US 
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I grew up in Queens in the '50s and '60s, my mother grew up in Brooklyn and my father grew up in Manhattan. I never heard this. I never pulled this trick, but my brother did. And certainly nothing about the cat’s mother either.
Grew up in the 60s and 70s in Minnesota, never heard of it being disrespectful.
My dad used to tell me all the time all the rude things that I did without meaning to be rude, and it was always my fault when I forgot some rule I was supposed to have already learned. My mother’s mother is Polish in ancestry, and my father was full Polish in ancestry. I have never heard any of this stuff before, or at least don’t recall it at all. I was born in 1981.
This is an 11 year old thread, FYI.
She would hate that…
(This all sounds like another case of “I’m angry at life, so I’m going to yell at my kids for almost anything they do.”)
Your mother is a cat? If, so, let me be the first to welcome our first feline member of the SDMB.
The ‘Quakers’ got into all kinds of trouble for being insolent and disrespectful. Their sin? Saying ‘Thee’ instead of ‘You’. “You” is/was the plural. “Thee” is/was the singular. The ‘plural’ was used as a mark of respect. The Quakers held the position that all people were equal – a position that offended the Church, the Aristocracy, the Monarchy and the hierarchy in general. They articulated their position by using ‘Thee’ instead of ‘You’ – and “we were not amused”.
The English speaking world in general eventually got around this difficulty by just using the respectful plural in all cases for everybody – you don’t mind do you?
I know it is an old thread, but this is how I remember it as well. You didn’t call your mother “she” while she was there.
If your mother wasn’t home and your father asked where your mother was, it was fine to say “She went to the grocery store.” What was rude was to say “she” when she was right there and you were referring to her almost dismissively. I don’t remember getting the same treatment for my father or another adult. I do remember “the cat’s mother” statement and we didn’t even have a cat.
I grew up in the '50s, and don’t remember any of this. My mother was a female, and females are called “she.” What’s the problem?
My step father would say it to me when it was just me and him. Like he would confront me and say “who said you could do that” and I’d say “She did”. And he’d flip out “SHE’S A CAT YOU CAN’T CALL YOUR MOTHER SHE!!!” The whole thing was just crazy to me and I never understood what I did wrong, it’s something that stuck in my head all these years. It was as if I called my own mother the worst thing you could call someone.
But I never heard the part of “she’s the cats mother”, till I saw it on this thread, cause if he said that it would mean I was calling myself a cat. ?
Sorry for bringing to life this old thread. I was thinking about it and googled it and came across this thread.
Just as a general principle, it sounds more courteous to refer to someone in the third person by name or title instead of pronoun, especially in their presence.
This rule was not applied only to mothers. E.g., bringing a friend home after school:
Mom-approved phrasing: “Mom, can Caroline have a chocolate milk?”
Definitely not Mom-approved phrasing: “Mom, can she have a chocolate milk?”
After the initial reference by name, it’s okay to switch to the pronoun, as in “Mom, Caroline says she’s thirsty, can she have a chocolate milk?”
According to this article, the first written reference is in a children’s play in London in 1870, but it’s used there as if it was a well-known phrase.
In 1878 someone wrote to a language journal to say it was an old phrase he’d heard in his childhood.
FWIW, I heard this as a child in South Africa. It probably came into the family via my grandmother who was British-Jewish.
my brother and my mom were too much alike and didn’t get along and when he was annoyed that’s how he referred to her "as that woman or even worse “that female” … let’s just say the last time he did the literal smackdown he received was epic… it even scared me …
This wasn’t a thing of “using proper English”, I was more like you called you own mother a nasty bitch by referring to her as “she”.
Even if I said “Look dad at the roses I bought for my mother for mothers day, they are yellow, she likes yellow”. He would still flip out cause I wasn’t to EVER refer to my mother as “SHE”, cause “she is a cat”.
I missed the previous iterations of this thread, so I have to add my two cents. Never heard of this before. Never heard the cat’s mother phrase. I was born and raised in California. It’s really weird to me.
I know it from reading, not from actual conversation. The version I have always heard is “Don’t call your mother ‘she’ like a she-goat!”
That’s weird. So you would have to say something like, “Dad, Mom just called. Mom said that Mom’s car broke down at the corner of Main and 10th Street. Mom called the tow truck, and they took Mom’s car to the mechanic. Mom wants you to come and pick Mom up and bring Mom home.”
I’ve never heard of this custom, and find it utterly absurd. There’s a reason we invented pronouns.
I honestly don’t remember, so it must have never been an issue. I’m sure, on occasions, I would say something like, “Dad, mom called, she said she is on her way home.” I can’t imagine that as being offensive to anyone.