I have three kids, 21 months, 3 years, and 6 years old. The two older ones always call me Dad or Daddy, but the 21 month old only calls me by my first name. I have no idea where she learned this, even my wife calls me Daddy most of the time. I’m not bothered by it, but I wonder why this is. Anybody else have a kid who calls you by your name?
Yep, it’s almost a developmental milestone around that age. My guess is that people call you by your first name in her hearing more often than you think.
When my daughter started doing it, I told her that while she was right and that was my name, I liked it best when she called me by my “special name” - Mama.
It kinda sorta worked. Mostly I think she outgrew it.
Not really on point but related. My mother always insisted I call her by her name. If I called her Mom she would lecture me about the objectification of women :rolleyes: .
Now that I am almost 40 she wants me to call her mom. :rolleyes:
I tend to refer to my parents by their proper names and not their titles. My sister in law gets freaked by this. Should I start calling her “sister in law?”
My kids, now 13 and 17, each went through a very short lived phase where they called me by my first name. My daughter used to scold her brother for doing this, but I always told her that as long as I’m not called late to dinner, I don’t mind.
Currently they call me dad.
My neice went through a spell at 2 ish when she called her daddy by his first name. The concept that Mommy had a name other than Mommy was totally lost on her, but she was in the bathtub with Mommy one day when Mommy switched from calling for “Daddy” to yelling his name which gave her the idea that Daddy had another name, and she was going to use it. I don’t know how things were resolved, but he went back to being Daddy.
(A couple of brief explanatory notes–from the time my niece was born, her mother found it easiest to bathe her by simply stripping off her own clothes and hopping in the tub with her. At the time of the incident in question, Mommy was pregnant with her second child, and found soaking in a warm tub comforting to assorted muscle pains associated with pregnancy, weight gain, and significant fluid retention. The downside is that her ability to pick up her two-year old and remove her from the tub was limited. No big deal, except that Daddy was downstairs, on the computer, and not expecting to be needed. So calling his name once or twice wasn’t sufficient. Mommy was in the tub, in pain, wanting her child out of the tub and supervised, and unable to get her husband’s attention immediately. Hence the intensity of her calls.)
Same here, except the sister in law part. It’s the same with one set of granparents too. People either seem to think it’s odd or disrepectful, in my experience. I have heard from people who didn’t have strong feelings about it, but they seem to be rare.
Better your name than when they call you by the pet name that your spouse uses for you. Nothing like being called “Pookie” or whatever, by your toddler, in front of people.
Among the plethora of colorful, insulting and (usually) apt names my son calls me, my proper name is not numbered.
If he called me by my proper name, he’d have to come to grips with the fact that I just may be a real person with real feelings – not just a mobile wallet.
You may call me ‘Sir’ or in less formal settings, Mr. Peabody.
My oldest called me by name as soon as he started to talk. I didn’t try to correct him, and the other three followed suit. Now that they’re in their 30’s and 40’s, they think it’s funny to call me Mom or Mamma when they’re doing sibling stuff, like telling on each other. “Mom! Mike’s picking on me!”
My mom teaches three and four year olds. Every now and then, she’ll check to see if they all know their parents’ proper names. Most do, although some effort is required to get them to acknowledge it.
She’s had a few "Honey"s or "Dear"s–and at least one proper name which had to be confirmed to be believed.
OMIGODHE’SBACKWHERE’VEYOUBEENWEMISSEDYOU!
I mean, ChiefScott. How nice to see you around here again. I hope you’re well?
To me it has always been about respect for them as people. I have no family obligations. I choose to spend time with my parents because I enjoy their company. Ramsay makes even more obnoxious puns thatn me.
Yes, TA, I’ve returned. During my time away from the boards, I didn’t know whether folks out there were actually getting dumber, but it seemed like it. I lurked here a bit, to see if the wit, enthusiasm and accuracy of the posts were as high-minded as I’d remembered.
They are.
I coughed up my 15 clams and – voila!
“You can call me Dad, you can call me Father, you can call me Jacob and you can call me Jake. You can call me a dirty old son-of-a-bitch, but if you EVER call me Daddy again, I’ll finish this fight.”
(Scene from Big Jake: Jake (John Wayne), reunited with the family he abandoned, has one son (Patrick Wayne) who very sarcastically calls him “Daddy”; after a brief fistfight, Jake corrects him)
Lord. My MIL insisted on being calle Grandmother. She would correct my kids at very young ages, if they said Grandma.
Now that her daughter has kids, they call her Grandma and we call her hardly at all!
If it makes you feel any better, my son calls me daddy. I know he knows I’m mommy since he called me mommy from 8 months to about 13 or 14 months. But he’s called me daddy since June and I can’t convince him to do otherwise now.
David Allen Coe (or Steve Goodman) seem apropos:
Yay! Believe it or not, and you’re perfectly free to choose “not”, but it’s true…I was thinking about you about a month ago for some reason or other.