My siblings called our dad by his first name, and their mom… I don’t remember.
My mom didn’t like that at all, and was determined that I should not call my parents by their first names.
I reached the age of five without knowing my parents’ real names. I had to learn them when they were teaching us about family and asking “What’s your dad’s name?” or something like that in kindergarten.
It also took me a long time to learn the “real” names of most of my close relatives, as I learned only the nicknames.
Now, of course, I may rarely call my parents by their real name. And my siblings, after all these years of talking with me, finally started calling our dad “dad” instead of his name. And they do call their mom “mom (or a variant)”.
I thought that this was much more common. While I was calling my father by his name, my cousin was doing the same with her father. Many years later, my niece did the same with my brother.
It wasn’t done out of disrespect, but rather some combination of fun and asserting a little independence. And it didn’t go on for years, just maybe a week.
Mom and Dad, 32 YO Male. I can’t see myself calling them anything else. When my mother worked in the same office as me, I tried calling her by her name but it felt weird and wrong.
On the hand, my son calls me by my name. On the rare occasion he calls me dad, that feels weird and wrong.
Mom and Dad. I don’t think I’ve ever called them Mommy or Daddy except perhaps when being a smart aleck. The idea of calling them by their first names is :eek:.
My mom called her own parents Mommy and Daddy except my grandmother was from the Deep South and had a weird accent and so they learned it as “Mummy” and “Deddy.” I called them Grandmother and Grandeddy.
I never call my folks by their first names, except when we’re in public and I’m looking for them. I figure it’s rude to say “Hey mom!” in the middle of a crowded store and make most of the women there stop to look who’s calling them
Nah, feel free to vote. Maybe I should have included more specific options, but I was trying to keep it simple. As I explained upthread, I just wanted to distinguish the results from people who may have more understandable (to me) reasons for calling their parents by their names.
Because I do find it weird for someone of any age to call their parents by name, but I personally find that less weird if they aren’t their biological parents. But I don’t find it weird for anybody to call anybody Mom/Dad/etc. - heck I used to call some of my very best friends’ parents Mom/Dad if I hung out in their house a lot.
(But no offense intended to anybody who’s preference I find weird.)
(looking at current results)
And wow, I knew “Mom/Dad/etc.” would be a landslide, but I would have guessed that a lot more adults called their parents by name. You all aren’t as weird as I thought you were!
Mom’s always been Mom, and my dad’s been [First Name] since, oh, geez, probably from when I was in 6th grade or thereabouts. I have no idea why. One of my cousins has always called both his parents by their first names since he was a toddler, though his sister never did.
Mommy and Daddy when I was little, Mom and Dad by junior high.
There was a family in our neighborhood when my kids were little where the kids called their parents Tim and Lisa. For the longest time, until one of the other kids in the neighborhood point-blank came out and asked them about it, we parents assumed that perhaps the children had been adopted by their aunt and uncle. Especially since the kids never said anything like, “I’ll go ask my mom” or “we’re going swimming when my dad gets home”. When the bold child broached the subject, Lisa said they just didn’t feel old enough to be parents when they had their kids, and being called Mom and Dad made them feel old, so they just had the kids call them by name. (for the record, I was 25 when I had my first child…Lisa had been 27 when she had hers! Not exactly young.) She was really surprised that anyone in the neighborhood didn’t realize they were the parents of those kids. But we all had assumed they were either an older sib and spouse raising orphaned brothers and sisters or the aunt/uncle raising kids who had tragically lost their parents at a young age! We were just as surprised to learn the truth!
Southern born, so momma and daddy all my life until I became estranged from my father. Now I call him by his last name, which is what people call him, he never uses his first name. He doesn’t get to be my daddy anymore.
Ok, I have explained this to people before, but I haven’t met anyone who relates to me on this at all, so I don’t have an explanation for why it’s so but:
My daddy was daddy always and forever. R.I.P. Daddy.
But my mom is ‘ma’ when I’m talking to her and ‘my mother’ when I’m talking about her to anyone else and ‘mommy’ when I’m talking to any of my four siblings.
So it would go like, “Ma, do you want some ice cream? Ok, Nikki, mommy said yes, she wants some ice cream. Paul, can you tell my sister Nikki that my mother said yes to the ice cream?”
They do the exact same thing without fail. I notice my best friend and her sister does the exact same thing. What the hell.
At one point, when I was a smart ass tween, and my mom was ignoring me with my “Mom! Mom! Mom!”, I called her by her first name.
“Betty! I’m talking to you!” (similar oldschool name)
She got in my face, down in mine, explaining that anyone in the world can call her Betty–her parents, my dad, anyone.
But only TWO people (me and my sister) can call her ‘Mom’. “And that is how you will speak to me.”
And she doesn’t play.
So I can call her Mamajama or Mamacita or Pretty Mommy or Mama or a million other names, but I never call her by her first name.
I’m 42. From Kentucky. Grew up in Texas.
And my Dad has now gone from being called Daddy (which grossed my sister out b/c all she could think of was the ‘whose your daddy’ thing) to Big Poppa.
Same as Miller. Well, almost - I was born in upstate New York, but have lived more than half my life in California. I’m 43 and was raised calling my parents by their first names and have never done anything but. AND when my father remarried after my folks divorced, my two new step-brothers turned out to have been raised identically. Happy serendipity ;). Though not so shocking perhaps, as my step-mother was in the same social circles and had approximately the same values as my parents.
I’ve long since gotten used to people finding it bizarre and occasionally use it as a humorous excuse when I do something particularly eccentric or goofy around others. What can you expect, given the way I was raised :p?
Never been spanked, either. And no my parents weren’t and aren’t hippies - they mildly disliked them, as it happens.
ETA: However my mother’s mother was always “nanny.” Dunno where that derived from. But I remember was always slightly uncomfortable addressing either of my grandmothers as “grandmother” and I think I eeled around it by rarely addressing them by anything at all.
So, clearly I’m coming from an entirely different family dynamic, but your mother’s reaction makes absolutely no sense to me. Can anyone explain why it is, apparently, offensive to have your children refer to you by your first name?
