The day we were married, my mother-in-law pulled me aside and said that I am now allowed to call her Kathy. It was kind of odd, and it took a little work to call her that. To just about everybody else, she’s Mrs. Surname.
I call **The Superhero’s **parents by their first names.
The Superhero calls my mom “Mom”. He doesn’t call my dad anything, because we don’t interact with him.
I call my husband’s mother and her (current) husband by their first names. I called her dead husband by his first name. I call the man she was married to prior to that by his first name. I call my husband’s father “dad” and his wife by her first name. We never had any discussions about it, and in all honesty, I didn’t call my FIL “dad” until after my Dad passed away.
If/when my kids get married, I shall expect to be called by my first name. I hope that by the time either of them are at the stage of getting married, I have already met and established some sort of relationship with their betrothed. I hope so, anyway. I might not like the kid, but if my kid is enamoured enough of them to go to the altar, I will give them the benefit of the doubt.
ETA – my husband called my Dad “dad” while he was alive. If we ever had need to decide what to call my mother, we’d just call the cops instead.
I call my mother in law “Mom” to her face, because she expects it. I’ve never called my father in law anything. I thought I was weird, I’m glad to know I’m not alone. I just look at him and start talking. My husband calls my mom by her first name, because that’s what she expects, and he’s only met my father once. If they met again, he’d probably call him sonofabitch.
I call my in-laws by their first names, but I knew them before I met their daughter, so switching from first names to something else would have been very strange. My wife called my parents Mom & Dad when she had to, but went to some lengths to avoid having to call them anything at all. Not that she minded them (much), she was just a little weirded out calling them Mom & Dad.
Mein Herr has always called my mom by her first name; my dad was dead long before it became an issue. I, too, have strenuously avoided calling Herr’s parents anything for 20 years. Thank heaven the kids came along, and I went along with the Grandpa/Grandma stuff.
I learned here on this board, some time ago, that I am not the only who strenuously tries hard not to call them at all. When I have to, like in thank-you notes, I say “Mr. & Mrs.” I don’t want to call them Mom and Dad, I have two moms and two dads already and none of them are really very good, so I have parental issues to start with. First names don’t work in Asian families, it’s disrespectful. If they were Indian, I would call them by the formal Hindi terms for them; if I was Chinese, I would use the Chinese names. As it is, I use nothing.
It’s one thing I really don’t like about English, though I love the language - there just isn’t enough words to differentiate relationships.
Most of her friends have been students in my class, so they call Mr. Lastname since that is what they have been taught since they were little. (I’m sure in the lunchroom, they sometimes had other names for me!) Even though I love them dearly, there is still that teacher/student dynamic that goes on. In fact, one of the greatest things about having my own kids in my classes is that it humanized me to the other students. I wasn’t just another teacher, but also their friends’ dad.
Litoris, sounds like you have a really fun family. We also have some of that dynamic going on.
In our situation, the son-in-law may end up settling on Mom and Dad. His own parents are not very supportive of much of anything. (His mom wore a wedding dress to the wedding. No, I’m not kidding. Yes, she caused a stir.) When the boy needs help, he calls me not his dad. His dad was the best man at the wedding (who does that?), but is pretty clearly not his best friend.
Just their first names. But then I’ve always called all adults by their first names unless they were my own teacher (till the age of 16, after which it was first names) or my biological parent or Grandparent. That seems to be the usual way where I’m from.
I use their first names, but then so does my husband. And while my Mother-in-Law is “grammy” to my kids they also call my Father-in-Law by his first name.
I can’t imagine a senario in which I’d call them Mom and Dad, and should I ever get to have a child-in-law I’d never as it of them. It seems kind of contrived to me.
Cindy and Greg. And Cindy. My wife’s dad remarried a woman with the same name. Smart guy. I did dance around it for quite awhile, even after we were married, but now it’s no big deal at all; I use their first names as often as I would use those of my friends. If you want to use their names, just do it. It’ll feel odd at first, but that passes.
Oddly enough, I call my wife’s grandparents “Grandmother” and “Granddad.” That’s an easy one, though, because **everyone **calls them that.
First names.
Ditto- first name until I had kids. Then they were grams and gramps.
I played grammatical games during my first marriage, avoiding the situation for the 7 or so years it lasted. When I remarried, I resolved not to allow that situation to arise again, and so promptly took to calling my new in-laws by their first names.
On my wedding day, I asked my bride’s father what they would like me to call them, and he said “You’ve been calling us [his first name] and [her first name]. I don’t see any reason to change to anything else.”
One divorce later, I still call them by their first names, when the opportunity arises.
First names. I don’t call them Mom and Dad, because they aren’t.
–Cliffy
I call them by their first names. That was how they introduced themselves to me, so I thought I should. My wife calls my Dad by his first name too–he invited her to the first time they met.