I haven’t asked my mom, but once I was older, I perceived calling your parents by their first names as “too formal/distant”. Obviously this is not necessarily true, as my sibs love our dad. But that is how it comes out as.
Again, in my family, almost nobody is called by their first name by other relatives. It’s almost all of the time a nickname, or if not, the appropriate relative term (ie, “Hey cousin!” instead of “John!”).
A relative calling you by your first name is a relative treating you like a non-relative, not even a close friend. That is how I was raised to understand it.
That’s interesting, as I’ve more often had people seriously suggest to me that the flaw in calling your parents by their first names is just the opposite. It is that you are treating them as peers rather than parents and not maintaining that proper patina of respect. In other words that it is to informal and familiar and therefore inappropriate. I’ve had it suggested that my upbringing was the result of liberal 1960’s idealism where parents wanted to be seen as “buddies” to their children, rather than as their parents.
I don’t entirely agree with either POV, but it is curious to read that particular take.
Ive never called my parents Mom and Dad in my entire life. Always by their first names. That’s because I was the second kid and, for some weird reason, my older bro had taken to call them by their names. I just followed what was apparently the custom in my house.
I think in some way, it does have an emotional effect, and I’m sure my relationship with my folks would be quite different if I had been calling them Mom and Dad (sometimes I miss never have said the words in all my life).
Also, it can make you look like either coming from a really upper class family or incredibly pretentious. But, as I said, it wasnt a matter of choice.
I’m 35, raised in a Mexican-American household in the Northwest. It’s hard for me to even conceive of calling your parents by their first name. The one time my niece called her mom by her given name she was very quickly told to quit. My mother has always been “Mom” and my father (who left us as toddlers) was always “Dad”.
On a slight hijack, I noted a poster above mentioned that most of his relatives were referred to by nicknames. This is very similar to the case in my family. Is this a cultural/ethnic/regional thing?
It was ‘mom’ for my moms, and first name for my stepdad, even though I never knew my real father and had only known this guy as the male presence since age two. It was part me being a shit, and part that’s what my mother called him.
I voted before I realised that under-30s weren’t supposed to. Oops. Anyway, I call my parents Mum and Dad. It feels weird to think of calling them anything else.
Growing up in a primarily Spanish-speaking household, I used to call them “Pa” and “Ma” with a Spanish accent. Nowadays, Pa is also “Pop” and Ma is also “Mum”.
Mom was only mommy for a short time. I think I was seven or eight when I consciously decided that she was to be called mom forevermore. She’s kind of a formal person.
My first boyfriend tried to call her mom once…once She gave him the coldest look imaginable and said “You may address me as Mrs Lastname.” Totally cut the legs out from underneath him, poor kid.
My dad has been dad for ages. I’d still call him daddy but started abbreviating it to dad when I started abbreviating my sister’s name. Calling him dad is a fond nickname, but I’ve been doing it for so long I’m sure he’d think I was regressing if I called him daddy
I’m 34 and was raised to call them by their names - my parents were/are rather liberal English atheists. I’ve always felt it had an intimacy that just referring to their parenting role lacks - though like the good Capitaine I sometimes wish I could refer to my mum as ‘mum’ as it seems quite sweet.
I’m 43 and called my mother mom or mommy when I was a child. My father died before I could speak, but my older sisters always refer to him as daddy. We called our mothers parents nanny and poppy, as did she.
Mom and Dad, for the most part growing up. When I was a teenager or so, I got tired of my dad calling me “Kid” all the time. So I started calling him “Old Guy.” Now, when he calls, I answer the phone that way, “Old Guy! Whatcha doin’?”
Mom I always called Mom until a couple years ago. We were at the beach and my friend’s 80-something mom got sick. My mom is a nurse, so they called her over to see if she could help. (She could and did.) To my friend, his parents, and me, my mom has been “Nurse Firstname” ever since. That’s how I refer to her, but to get her attention, I just call her Mom.
I’m in my 40s. I called my mother “mommy” til I was about 7 and then “mom” after that. Same with “daddy” and “dad” too. My parents got divorced and each one remarried, I called my stepparents by their first names.
I still call my mother “mom” and if my father were alive I’d still call him “dad” too. When referring to her I usually call her “my mother” even when talking to my offspring. Though once in a while in that particular situation, I call her “your grandma” or “your grandma (her firstname)” to distinguish from their paternal grandmother.
I was thinking about this last night. I actually call my dad ‘Daddy’ when I’m addressing him, but dad when I’m referring to him. It’s a little weird since I don’t have the sort of relationship where you’d expect that (in that, he’s not wrapped around my finger. We could be roommates by how we interact.)
Mom is mom, or a nickname, or little girl (which I also call the cats), or half a dozen other things.
I’m 34 and British and have called my parents by their first names for as long as I remember. I don’t recall ever having called them anything else. Mummy and Daddy or Mum and Dad just doesn’t make me think of my parents. I even feel strange talking to others about “my mum” or “my dad” and always refer to them, even with other people, by their names.
Oddly, it seems weird if I hear other people using their parents first names, but not if I do. Can’t explain it.
Now that I have my own son, I debated for about 5 minutes about him calling us by our first names, and decided to go with Mummy and Daddy. Not sure why, and maybe it will change when he gets older, but for now it seems right.
When it comes to addressing my mother to my son, I’ve tried Grandma, but it’s not sticking. I think we’ll be reverting to their first names for him too.
Mine varies only between those who know me and those who don’t. They are “my mom and dad” to those who don’t know me, and to everyone else they’re “Mommika” and “Roy.”
Mommika is a combination of Mama and my name, and I’ve been using it as long as I can remember. My older brothers picked it up, so the younger ones did too, and that’s what people call her now. Roy is short for Your Royal Highness, which my brother called my dad for a week after he used my dad’s first name and was told to address him respectfully. I was 4 when it happened, so it stuck because I didn’t understand sarcasm.
I’m 35 and have lived most of my life in the US.
(My biological father is David. I refer to him as “my friend David.” Neither of us are comfortable using the father and daughter labels with each other. My biological mother is not in my life, but if we’re talking about her, she’s “that woman.”)
She gave him the coldest look imaginable and said “You may address me as Mrs Lastname.” Totally cut the legs out from underneath him, poor kid.