I call my Mom by her first name, Mom or, if she’s getting on my nerves, Mother. I’ve called her by her first name since I was a child. Considering how strict she was, I find it quite odd that she allowed my brother and me to call her by her first name.
They were ‘Mummy’ and ‘Daddy’ when I was very young, but now they’re ‘Mum’ and ‘Dad’. Sometimes my mum is ‘Mother’.
I mostly call my dad Daddy, but sometimes Pops just for fun. I call my mom Mom, or Mother if she’s annoying me. What bothers me is that my mom refers to herself as Mommy when she leaves me messages and stuff, as in “Hi, It’s Mommy, can you give me a call…” I haven’t called her Mommy since I can remember.
Mummy and Baba. Although I sometimes still call her “Ayee” which means mother in Marathi. She started out as Ayee for a long time and then morphed into Mummy by age 11.
My mother is Mom.
My father, who I won’t be seeing again, was Dad when we met because calling him by his first name seemed just as weird. When I refer to him, I still call him Dad although he’s hardly worthy of the title. It’s just easier.
It’s “Mum” and “Dad” for me. When I was little I called them “Mummy and Daddy”.
Always been Mom and Dad. Daddy was only when I wanted something big, like to keep a stray cat. Mommy only when I was very very young and had a nightmare.
I’m 26, female, midwestern US.
“Horrible Dragon-Lady”. Or “Ma”. Whichever.
My 86 year old mom will always be Mom.
My kids call us [their parents] Mom and Dad. Yet, there are times when one will come to me saying Mommie… that means that something is wrong, s/he can not figure this out and needs to talk. That’s when I also feel like Mommie.
I try avoid calling them anything. The “maternal unit” and “paternal unit” serve nicely, though, to express the biological necessity without giving undue implication to affection or affinity, and is more acceptible in polite company than the terms I’m more apt to apply.
Stranger
Heh. Sometimes my mother talks in the third person, like I’m a little child. Like, she’ll say, “**monstro, will you do Mommy a favor and get me a glass of water?” So she enforces it!
“Mother” sounds like I’m about to back-sass. “Mama” is alright, but kinda country-sounding to my ears (plus my mother was nicknamed “big mama” in school, so the name carries baggage) . “Ma” sounds like something out of “Grapes of Wrath”. “Mom” doesn’t feel right on my tongue and it’s too “Brady Bunch”. “Sandra” would earn me a slap across the face.
So “Mommy” it shall stay.
They were always Mom and Dad other than those times when Mom became Mother when I particularly wanted something.
I think being an adult and still using “Mommy” as the term is weird. I guess it all depends on how one is raised… Dad was an engineer and didn’t go for that sweetsie stuff.
I’m Daddy to my daghter, though. She’s 8.
I flip back and forth between Mom/Mommy, and Dad/Daddy. It’s as if her name is Mom, and my nickname for her is Mommy (and the same with Dad). It occurs to me that when she refers to herself, like on the answering machine, she always identifies herself as “Mother.” I wonder if she is trying to drop a hint? It seems a bit late now because I have never called her “Mother” in 30+ years.
For some reason, it drives my brother crazy when I call them Mommy and Daddy in public. It’s fine with the family, but he says he wants to crawl under a table when he hears his adult sister say “Mommy, could you pass the butter?” in a restaurant. Whatever.
When I was in high school, my crowd of girlfriends got a charge out of referring to our mothers by their first names, although never in front of them, such as “Janet says we have to have the car back by 12, what a drag.” or “Can you believe it? Pam made a huge deal when that guy called me for the bio homework, I just about died!” Yeah, in the 16 year old mind, this is what passed for sophistication. 
As we got older, we kept up the habit, only we’ve gained a little more respect for our elders and usually talk about how adorable they are “Did you see the pictures of Janet at my cousin’s wedding? She’s so cute in her pillbox hat!” Anyway, once in a great while, I’ll slip up and refer to my mom by her first name when she’s present, and it’s like the Freezemeister entered the room! Yikes!
Mama & Papa, and I’ve always called them that.
I was raised calling my folks by their first names ( for that matter so were my step-brothers ). And to think they weren’t even hippies :p!
One of my co-workers insists wee should all be psychologically damaged from such a traumatic upbringing, but oddly enough we all seem to have turned out pretty sane, polite, generally good-natured, productive members of society. Go figure :).
- Tamerlane
They’re Mommy and Daddy. My dad’s sister still calls my 80-something grandmother mommy, which is kind of funny, not because she’s old, but because she isn’t really all that motherly (I call her by her given name.)
Really, the only relatives I call my a special name are my maternal grandmother and an uncle. My grandmother is Meenee (yes, like Meanie, but she likes it. She even had it on her license plate. I don’t remember how she got it, she’s not very mean) and the uncle is Uncle Dearie, which resulted from my aunt introducing him to me as, “This is your uncle, Dearie.”
When I was little, it was Mummy or Mommy (depending on where we were living) and Daddy. When I got older, Mom and Dad. I still call them that. I have one friend whose parents I call mommy and daddy, but my other friends’ parents are either called by their first names or Mom and Dad.
Yup, me too. My parents are awesome, and sometimes it’s nice to be able to take a problem and dump it in their laps again. Of course, I don’t really follow any advice they give me anymore, but it’s still good to share the problem.
Mommy and Daddy when I was little, and now only if I want to suggest that they’re forgetting that I’m older now and that they’re treating me like a child. Now they’re usually Mom and Dad. I use Mother and Father when I’m speaking to them w/a disaproving tone.
When I was little it was Mommy and Daddy, but that changed to Mom and Dad while I was in elementary school. Sometimes I call him Da, not because I’m Irish (though I am, some), but because I’m lazy
Papa still being used frequently half surprises me, because up this way lots of kids refer to their grandfathers as “Papa” - which in turn confused the hell out of me several times before I realized they were talking about late grandfathers, not fathers.
Yep, same here (we have the same mom). I think it’s sweet when your teenaged kids say “Mommie.”
The best was last year, when you turned to Mom and said, “Hi Mommie!” in that helium-induced squeak.