There must have been a thread about this but a cursory search found nothing. If I could please have the following information: How old are you and what do you call your parents? How old are your kids and what do they call you?
I’m in my mid-forties and call my dad, Daddy. But not when referring to him. If I’m talking about him to someone else, he’s Dad. My kids are in their early twenties and they call me mommy at home. When my son and I worked at the same place, he called me Mother theire. I’ll sometimes get ‘Ma’ from either of them, but that’s usually said in a very weary and exaggerated manner so it sounds a lot like, “Maaaaaaa”.
I refer to my parents from the perspective of the youngest person in the room. Usually my mom is “nana” because that’s what my son calls her, and my dad is “grampa”
Usually mama when I’m talking to her. If I’m talking to my youngest sister or my nieces I usually refer to her as mawmaw. When I’m talking to people I don’t know about her I use mom, but if it’s people who know my family, I usually use mama.
Now that I look at that answer, though, I notice that I wasn’t thorough about my dad. I did call him ‘daddy’, but if I were mentioning him to someone else, I would say, “my dad”.
My father is Dad. My mother was Mother. This made me unusual among my siblings, who all use Daddy and Mama respectively.
My two youngest nieces – 17 & 20, respectively – still call their mothers Mommy. Always seems strange to me, though of course it’s not essentially different than my brothers called our father Daddy.
ETA: My son’s sister calls me “Poppsy,” when she’s feeling sentimental, or by first name when she isn’t.
I call my dad Pop and my mom Mama. I have two kids, an 8 year old who calls me Mom (dad is Dad) and a one year old who usually calls me Mumumum and his dad Dad-dad.
I missed Biggirl’s request for approximate ages. I’m in my early 40s; my father’s in his late 70s; my mother died in her late sixties; my son’s sister is about to turn 24.
I’m about 40, as is my older sister. We both call our parents, who are around 70, “Mom” and “Dad.”
I used to work in an office with my Mom…I usually called her Mom, although occasionally used her real name. It was fun to sit in meetings with her, and see other people struggle with what to call her in front of me.
A couple of guests Christmas Eve remarked when giving me a ride home that I not infrequently called my parents by their first names – I hadn’t thought about it, but I guess I do do that and have for quite a while AFAICR, but also with “mom” and “dad” as the standard. I use those for emphasis or if they do me a favor and I’m trying to wheedle my way into another favor. Sometimes ‘Mom’ is shortened to ‘Ma,’ and I’ve been known to call the old man ‘pops,’ and ‘big [first name]’ (never ‘old man,’ though, not that I can recall) when we ‘adult-man-bond’ if he needs a hand lifting some sacks of concrete for his little old man project.
In third person, usually ‘father’ and ‘mother’ (as in, “You smell nice, just like my [blah blah]”). ETA I’m 35 and my parents are…I don’t know, very late fifties or very early sixties? I can’t remember. I think 60 – they’re a year apart.
If I’m adressing her or talking to The Bros she’s Mamá (Mom), which is what we’ve always called her. To The Nephews, Yaya Maite (yaya is Aragonese dialect for grandma). To the rest of the world and in Spanish, mi madre. To you guys, my mother.
I’m 29. I call my mom Mom and my dad, when I used to talk to him, I called Daddy. My daughter (11) calls me Mom when she remembers to be cool, or Mama when she doesn’t. She calls her dad Daddy.
I turned 59 this month. My sister will be 53 in February.
Our mother died in 1998. We both called her Momma. When we talk of her to this day, we call her Momma, unless we are speaking with our kids, then she’s Grandma.
Our father died in 2008. He was Daddy to both of us. Sometimes when we talked about him just between ourselves, we called him “Father Figure,” or FF for short. But always, always, when speaking to him, we called him Daddy. We still do. If we are with our kids, he’s Grandpa.
My kids call me Mom, but when I’m referring to myself to them, I call myself Mommy. They call their father Dad, but when I’m referring to him to them, I call him Daddy.
We’re grandparents now, so we also refer to ourselves as Grandma and Grandpa.
~VOW