I call them by their first names, though (and this is admittedly a bad habit) as a general rule I don't say people's names when I talk to them. I make eye contact and then start talking.

Why would you call them mom and dad? That's kinda creepy and incestuous.

I call them by their first names; they like it and so do I.

I call them by their first names and have done ever since I met them. We're all adults.

cmonkey, lots of people do it.

Yes, a lot of people call their in-laws Mom and Dad and it creeps me out.

I could never. Ever. Ugh.

My mom calls my dad's parents "Mom and Dad" (which is very confusing, since her dad lives nearby and her mom is dead. I keep thinking she's been attending seances or something). My dad calls my mom's dad by last name only, no Mr. (to be fair, that's a valid nickname among men).

I call my S.O.'s parents by their first names (which is awkward, because I never remember if his mom is named Diane or Diana). He calls my parents by their first names, but not by their in-family nicknames. Sometimes, he calls them "muddgirl's mom" and "muddgirl's dad" to their faces.

Basically, whatever's comfortable.

My MIL would like me to call her Mom, but it has never felt right to me. She isn't my mom and it feels weird to call her so, and the last name makes it too formal for my comfort. However, I don't think she is too comfortable with me calling her by her first name. So usually I just make sure that she is certain that I am addressing her before I start speaking.

only one of my three in-laws (long story) is still alive and I call her by her first name. Pips' dad I always called "Mr. [insert last name]". He was not a man you wanted to disrespect carelessly.

"Hey you"

Seriously? Mom & Dad. It started out Mr. & Mrs. B., then first names, but it somehow seems more natural to call them the same thing my wife does.

My wife had a problem with calling my parents Mom & Dad but eventually she decided it was the least awkward thing as well. Everybody pretty much gets along; it wasn't always that way, but since things have kind of settled in, Mom & Dad just feels right.

I call them by their first names. In my first marriage, I wasn't quite so comfortable right away, but eventually got to that point. I had an interesting conversation with my ex-wife's grandfather who had quite quite the circuit court judge in the day about how he wanted to be addressed. He suggested 'dad' to which we negotiated to 'Rudy' because in my life there is precisely one person with that epithet.

I never really called the mister's mother anything. I met her once before she died and, I dunno, I just never really got comfortable in calling her anything. For the most part I called his dad by his first name up until the last year before he died and then he was "dad".

The mister calls my mum "mum". He called her by her first name for a while and he just kinda started calling her mum. It surprised me at first but she was fine with it. When we (her kids) were growing up all of our friends called her mom. And all of her kids-in-law call her mom.

cmonkey (and others feeling the "ick" factor) - in the few years I knew the mister's dad, he was more of a dad to me than my own father ever attempted to be.

I call mine Dave, and the lady I never address by name. Jen calls my mom by her first name. I call my step-dad by his first name. I'm a little messed up in the dad department, and it turns out I can't call anyone else Mom either.

I tried calling my MIL Mom, and it felt all kinds of messed up. I tried calling her by her first name, but I could always feel her wish that I just called her Mom. So, now...I don't address her at all.

By their first names, both of them.

I'm not really icked out by it. More curious. I mean, for those who call their ILs Mom and Dad, what did you call them when you were dating? I guess my curiosity is just that I haven't called anyone "mr/mrs/ms..." for over a decade, I guess. Any time I meet someone new it's immediately to first names. So I can't imagine going from callling my MIL "Janice" to then calling her "mom".

Oh but I guess they've never expressed any desire to be called anything other than their first names either. So I don't know how I'd cope if they wanted to be called mom or dad. I probably wouldn't call them anything, richat-style.

My husband and I both call our in-laws by first name.

I am very comfortable calling my husband's grandmother, "grandma". Or his aunts, Aunt such and such, but I can't call my inlaws Mom and Dad.

My mom calls my dad Daddy though, especially when us kids are around. My sister and I were annoyed at first, because it sounded so goofy, but my mom is goofy, so we let it go and got used to it.

Wow, I'm glad to hear I'm not the only one facing awkwardness in this department. Isn't it odd? Does this mean our culture is shifting, and currently sits at some midway point between formality and informality?

First names which seems fine to me. Now calling a former college instructor by his first name in social situations feels weird to me to the point I just avoid it.

Just got all the way over the top and call them Baby Mommy and Baby Daddy. She's your baby. I heard you say it.

The BF and I call each other's parents mom and dad - which can be confusing when someone else doesn't know exactly who we're talking about.

I called his parents by their first names, though it did feel weird at first, especially with his mum, who frankly I didn't like very much. Okay, I couldn't stand her. His dad & I got along famously, so that felt more natural. Even if they (the in-laws) weren't as fucked up as they actually were, I couldn't see calling anyone else Mum & Dad but my parents. Zack's mum I called by her first name; again, we got along quite well, so it only felt weird initially.

I refer to her as 'your mum' when talking to my SO, but call her by her first name to her face. It would be too strange to call her 'mum' as she's nothing like my mother, and I wouldn't want to put her on that level. We get on fine, but I'd want to keep some distance as I've seen that she can be quite controlling (in a way that my mum isn't at all).

My first mother-law I called "Mom". She was a sweet woman who never had daughters (she ended up with three awful sons). In fact, even though I had divorced her son by the time she passed, her other ex-daughter-in-law and I visited her more often than her sons. I never met my ex'es father. He left them when my ex was 17.

My current father-in-law I refer to using both his first name and "dad" on occasion. I really don't care much for him, and since my "real" dad was not a good role model, I have no trouble tossing that moniker around.

My husband calls my mom by her first name. He asked her how she liked to be referred to, and that's what she said.

I'm with initapplette, in that I basically just look whoever I'm talking to in the eye to make sure they know to whom I'm referring...I'm sure it'll blow up in my face at some point, but I just can't call anyone "mom/dad/mother/father/whatever/whatever" unless they actually are, biologically.

However, the whole thing is complicated on my wife's end by the death of my sister...she (my wife), uncomfortably (I think), calls my parents "mom/dad," but I sort of silently kinda do a bit of a throat clearing to myself, thinking that my parents are just dying to hear a female voice call them "mom/dad" and thus are actually hoping to hear it out of her mouth. It adds a whole new and unwelcome angle to the whole issue, I promise. My wife bears it with aplomb, tho, I must say, and really only does it when she has to.

But to sum up, I think that all things being equal in my little neck of the wedded woods, there would be no "mom/dad"s to in-laws. I know that I personally would prefer her to call them by their names, or "Mr/Mrs," as they're pretty substantially older than us. Either way, I think that these days you can get away with first names.

Actually, it occurs to me that I call her father "dad," tho never (to my remembering) to his face....only in conversation with my wife (where it actually gives me great pleasure to call such a man "dad," and to suspect that he wouldn't mind hearing it from a man such as me...). This is also complicated by the fact that he lives on the other side of the planet, so I have basically no contact with him, other than a visit every year or so. He's also almost 15 years older than my father, and is so cool and has endured so many crazy times that he feels like at the very least a father-figure type. But to his face? Never anything but "Hey you," or "Mornin!"

To their faces? Mom and Dad, per their request. It's kind of like Joan Crawford demanding that Christina call her Mommie Dearest. "When I asked you to call me that, I wanted you to meeeeaaan it!"

My husband calls my mother Mom and my dad by his first name. (My father even wanted the grandkids to call him by his first name, but I wouldn't allow it. So he went in the other direction and is referred to as "The Grandfather.")

My father-in-law is "dad", his wife is usually "D******" (her name), although sometimes it's "mom". My wife's mom died when she was a teenager and she doesn't call her stepmom "mom", so neither do I. My mom also died when I was a teen, but I call her "mom". My wife calls both my parents by their first names. Different families, different names.

I have called all three of mine by their first names since I met them. I am sure that they would be fine with me calling them Mom and Dad, but it is my hang up that keeps me from doing so. I lost my mom in 1981 when I was 15 and my dad in 2004. It just feels too weird for me to call someone else mom or dad.

This is a really interesting thread. Thanks for posting the question, agro.

(My father even wanted the grandkids to call him by his first name, but I wouldn't allow it. So he went in the other direction and is referred to as "The Grandfather.")

Heh. My grandfather was ALWAYS called "Grandfather" by us kids. It seems ridiculously formal to everyone else, but we did it for so long it seemed natural.

I call my in-laws by their first names (as my wife does my parents). Ms. Steady's father died when she was young, and she calls her stepdad by his first name (Rich when he's nice, Dick when he's being a...), and my parents are divorced and remarried, so I call my stepparents by their first names, so the "first names for parents" thing comes naturally to us.