What do you call your in-laws?

In My Humble Opinion
1

And, for that matter, what does your spouse/SO call your parents? How does your racial/ethnic/cultural heritage affect what you call them (if it does)??

Here’s why I’m suddently interested in the topic:

I am a caucasian American woman, the daughter of California hippies, married to a man who is half Filipino (his father’s side) and half east coast French/Swedish (his mother’s side). His father’s family is huge, his mother’s basically nonexistant and he identifies as being Filipino.

Both of my parents call their inlaws by their first names, and I do the same without thinking much about it. My husband’s mom has no problem with this (though she once, early in our marriage, said that I could call her Mom if I liked, and I think she wishes I had taken her up on it), and his father has never voiced an objection.

However, I’ve been spending more time with his extended family, and it has come to my attention that they’re somewhat scandalized that I refer to them so informally. In Filipino culture, you don’t call someone older/higher status than you by their unadorned first name, ever - even an older cousin is always called “elder cousin Bob” instead of just “Bob”, and aunts and uncles are always, ALWAYS “Auntie Bertha” and “Uncle Fernando”. (My blood-aunts and uncles are just Myrtle and Fred, no titles ever used.) My MIL has explained that I’m not being rude, but I’m certain that they look askance at me a bit for it.

So I’ve been asking around, talking with my various co-workers about what they call their inlaws, and thought I’d ask here. I’m not so much looking for advice on what I should call them, as much as sort of taking a survey to see what sort of nomenclature is used.

Some of the options I’ve seen so far, assuming one’s MIL is named Ginger Rogers:

Mrs. Rogers
Miss Ginger
Ginger
Mother Rogers
Mom
Mama
Grandma (if they have children)
Various ethnic names that translate to “Mother in law” or “Mom”
So…what do you call your inlaws?

2

I call my inlaws by their first name. My wife calls my parents by their first name.

3

My husband called my parents by their first names. He referred to them, to me, as “your mom/dad”. I basically didn’t call my in-laws anything. Mostly I just addressed them directly without any name.

My niece-by-marriage called my brother and SIL (her in-laws) Dad/Mom Lastname.

My SIL (different one) solved the problem about the same way I did, just not using names for my parents. At least until she could call them Grandma and Grandpa. One other SIL called them Firstname and Mr. Lastname. (My mother was her husband’s stepmother, so he called her by her first name, too.)

4

Luckily I have Japanese inlaws so I don’t have to call them “Mum” and “Dad” which would squick me out. I only have the one set, thank you very much.

I call them “Okasan” (Mum) and “Otosan” (Dad) but it doesn’t have the same emotional impact on me. Actually these days I call them “Baachan” and “Jiichan” (Granny and Grampa) as much as I can get away with but Baachan will often moan at me and say “I’m not your grandmother” (No, you are not my mother either, so pthhhh!)

I don’t like her that much, as you might be able to tell!

5

My wife calls my parents by their first names. I call my wife’s mother and her husband by their first names, as well as my wife’s stepmother. My Cuban father-in-law and I call each other “Meng”, as in “Man” with a Cuban accent. It’s sort of a running joke.

6

My brothers-in-law (who married into the family) and I call them “Mr. and Mrs. Rogers.” I’ve heard my father-in-law at least once express mild bewilderment over this, but he’s not the kind of man I’d willingly call “Dad,” and I suspect my BILs feel similarly. My husband calls my mother “Mom” or “Mom Astaire” (if you want to stretch the metaphor further).

7

Mainha and Senhor Jo. (Ma and Sir)

If we’re out of the house, he goes just to Jo.

8

I call my mother in law by her first name whenever a name is required and she’s fine with that. Good thing too, every single time I’ve heard someone call their in laws ‘Mom’ or ‘Dad’ it sounds forced.

9

I’m estranged from my father, and SmithWife’s father died in '06, so it’s just our moms - Poison (my mom) and The Dragon (her mom).

10

Both of Mr. S’s parents were dead when I met him. Apparently I would have wanted as little to do with his dad as possible (nasty alcoholic who probably wouldn’t have liked my uppity ways). I suppose I would have asked his mom what she wanted me to call her; I would have been fine with either some form of “Ma” (what Mr. S called her) or her first name.

Mr. S never initiates conversation with my folks (long story), although he does converse with them and is polite. Names just aren’t used. But if pressed, I think he’d use their names. He’s closer to my mother’s age than to mine by about six months, and my dad is only five years older than that. So they aren’t really of “parent” age to him; more like older sibs. (His oldest brother is older than my dad.)

How’s that for a non-response?

11

Both of us refer to the other’s parents by first names. My in-laws want me to call them Mom and Dad, but it’s weird. I mean…I have a Mom and a Dad already. I like you guys, and you’re great and all…but no. My parents would feel weird if he called them anything but their first names. He’s not sure what to call my grandparents, but I think he settles for calling my grandpas by their first names and my grandmas by the pet names we have for them.

Interesting that you mention other titles in the family. On my mom’s side, I refer to everybody by their first name except my parents and grandparents (and my great grandma when she was still alive.) Everyone else on that side does this, too. On my dad’s side, though, it’s always gotta be Aunt Sally and Uncle George. (Nothing for cousins though. I’ve heard of other people saying “Cousin Billy” and it sounds weird to me. I guess cousins are equal status in my family, regardless of age.)

My husband is inconsistent on his dad’s side, but generally uses aunt and uncle. On his mom’s side (from Puerto Rico) aunts and uncles are always “Titi” and “Tutu.” (titi=aunt, tutu=uncle) They’re sometimes followed by a name when he’s not really close to them, or when distinguishing between different people.

I don’t see cultural differences (what little there are) affecting it that much for us.

12

Hal calls my parents by their first names and that’s what they want him to call them. I think they would be weirded out if he called them mom and dad.

I call my MIL “Bocci” or grandma in Polish. Having a child was the greatest thing for that awkwardness I always had about calling her by a name. She’s much older so I feel the need to be polite so calling her by her first name seemed weird. However, it seemed much weirder to call her mom. So I usually just didn’t address her at all. Now that I have my daughter it’s much nicer because I just call her Bocci and everyone is happy.

13

White, female, Southern reared – I call my MIL by her first name. I call my FIL “Dad.” When my father was still alive, my husband called him “Dad.” If my mother ever showed up, we would both call the cops. :smiley:

14

I call my mother-in-law by her first name; my FIL I call “Granddad” mostly because he has the same first name as my husband, and my son. It’s just easier and he minds not at all. Since we’ve only been married five years and I haven’t known them all my life, it works well. Husband calls my mother by her first name (my father is no longer living).

However, with my siblings, I refer to them as Aunt Jane and Uncle John and my children and nieces and nephews are being reared to do the same thing. My aunts and uncles always had the titles too, though now, all grown up, I do call most of them by their first names only. (Some of my aunts are only a few years older than I am [and one is younger], thanks to my dad being the oldest of a very large family).

15

My wife and I both use first names for in-laws, but “mom” and “dad” for our own parents.

Joe

16

MIL is “yoommeh” and FIL is “yeebah” (loose transliterations of “Mum” and “Dad” in local dialectic Arabic). Behind her back, I call MIL, “that crazy b*tch!” :smiley: My husband call my parents “Mother” and “Father”. He’s weird like that! :wink:

17

I call his parents by their first names, his grandparents Oma and Opa.

He’s called my mom ‘Mom’ once or twice, but most often he calls them by their first names. He calls my grandmother ‘Grandma’.

18

I haven’t seen or heard from my MIL in 8 years, and I feel safe in saying that if any of the three of us ever see her, we’d call an ambulance and then proceed making sure she was in shape to be hauled away when it showed.

Long story. Another time.
My wife calls my mom by her first name, and when Dad was around did the same for him.

19

I call my in-laws by their first names, Mrs. Homie does the same with my 'rents.

20

First names around here. For a while, though, when we were dating, I was calling my future in-laws Mr. and Mrs. Rogers, but all of the hubby’s aunts and uncles Aunt Ginger and Uncle Fred. That was awkward.

Calling the in-laws Mom and Dad or something similar would be just too weird. Those are very familiar terms, and I can’t imagine ever being that casual.