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21 March 2007

What do you call your parents? And when did you (or did you?) start calling them by their first names, rather than Mom/Dad/variants?→[More:]

There's a long and complicated backstory involving my relationship with my passive-aggressive, depressive, authoritarian father, but I'll spare you the details. But suffice it to say that the relationship definitely needs to be renegotiated at a adult-adult level, rather than the parent-child one he wants, and I'm considering stopping referring to him as Dad as a way to work on reframing this.

Bunny thoughts? I'm leaving this weekend for a two-week visit (yeah, quite possibly a bad idea but my mom is really excited and she and I actually do get along) so...yeah.

post by: Fuzzbean at: 12:13 | 40 comments

My mother's "mom" in English or "mommy" in Chinese. If my father were still alive, he'd be the same, "dad"/"daddy" depending on what language we were speaking. I would never call my mother by her first name - that's just not done in a Chinese household...filial piety and all that.

Good luck with your father, fuzzbean.

posted by phoenixc 21 March | 12:20

I don't know anyone who calls their parents by their first names - is this an American thing? or do I move in restricted social circles?

(Mum and Dad now, slightly embarrassingly Mummy and Daddy when I was a kid)

posted by altolinguistic 21 March | 12:22

I don't know anybody who does that either (I'm American). Mine are Mom and Dad.

posted by Miko 21 March | 12:27

I usually call my mom, "mom" - although there are times during heavy adult conversations where I'll call her "Barb" - and times when I call her "Barbie" because that just annoys the shit out of her. Oh also, there are times when I'll say charming things to her such as, "well okay I will do that if you stop being such a bitch about it." (This is okay - she calls me any number of names on an as needed basis.)

I call my dad, "Dad" or "Pop."

posted by fluffy battle kitten 21 March | 12:30

I have one friend who calls her parents by their first names, but she always has, and they are in many ways a little unconventional. Everyone else I know, incl. me calls 'em Mum (or Mom!) and Dad.

posted by gaspode 21 March | 12:31

"Dead before her time" and "Violent Alcoholic".

What??

OK, Mum & Dad. I called them Mum and Dad.

posted by seanyboy 21 March | 12:32

Moms and Pops. The moms thing is a New Yorkism I guess. The only people I ever knew who called their parents by their first names are total fucking weirdos. Which is not to say that all people who do so are total fucking weirdos, just everyone I ever met who did that. Buncha fucking weirdos. They all did it because their parents had some weirdo hippie idea about parenting that seemed to more or less involve passive neglect though, being a parent is hard work.

Oddly when I used to feud with my father all the time I called him dad. Know that I'm older and we can deal with each other and express love and all that I call him pops.

So I say if it helps you deal with what you need to deal with you should do it.

posted by Divine_Wino 21 March | 12:33

now that I'm older, not know that I'm older.

posted by Divine_Wino 21 March | 12:34

I used to call my mom Anne when I was pissed off at her. But I usually call her Mom or Mum. My Dad was almost always Dad except when I was being clever and I'd call him Popsicle.

To my boys, I'm Poppa or Daddy.

Good luck, two weeks is a long time.

posted by fenriq 21 March | 12:35

Mom and Pops, usually. I stopped calling my father 'Dad' during my teen years, and eventually settled on 'Pops,' for some of the reasons that other people have mentioned.

posted by box 21 March | 12:41

heh, I've always called my folks by their names, even when I was a sprout. My sisters don't. Not sure how that all happened.

posted by edgeways 21 March | 12:42

Mom and Dad, generally. If I'm feeling particularly loose and jaunty, I'll call my Dad by his given name, Joe.

posted by jonmc 21 March | 12:46

I call 'em mom and dad, unless I'm with friends I'm introducing them to, then I call 'em by their first names to encourage my friends to do the same instead of calling them Mr. and Mrs. [Janus]. But I go back to calling them mom and dad once my friends are on a first-name basis with them (my parents like that).

My favorite ever Mr. Rogers moment was when he told us what he called his grandparents. "I call my grandparents on one side Grandmother Rogers and Grandfather Rogers, and I call my other grandparents Nanny and Ding-Dong."

posted by Hugh Janus 21 March | 12:49

Mom and Dad. My mom wanted to be known as Mary Kay or MK to her grandkids. I apparently rubbed her the wrong way by consistently referring to her as Grandma Mary Kay to my daughter until I explained that I was intentionally doing it so that my daughter would have context and would be able to better build abstract/concrete reasoning.

posted by plinth 21 March | 12:50

Oh some times I call my pops, pop-dukes, usually after we've had a few drinks, he thinks it's funny but basically evidence that anyone born after 1939 has mild brain damage.

Once I called him Red for some reason but he offered to kill me with his fists if I ever did it again and I believed him.

posted by Divine_Wino 21 March | 12:50

I'm calling everyone Nanny and Ding-Dong from now on.

posted by Divine_Wino 21 March | 12:52

When I was a kid I called 'em mommy and daddy. Now, when I hear my nephew call my brother and sister-in-law mommy and daddy, I get a thrill right up my spine that almost brings tears to my eyes, and a shit-eating grin. Silly little fucker. He's pretty adorable.

posted by Hugh Janus 21 March | 12:55

Uh, vice-versa on one of those, for agreement's sake.

posted by Hugh Janus 21 March | 12:56

I've always called my father Daddy. He called his father Daddy until the day he died. It's a southern thing.

I've always called my mother Mommy. She's always called her mother, Mummy. It may seem a little juvenile to still call your mother Mommy, but I couldn't imagine changing it at this point. Mom would feel unnatural.

My sister and I used to have a rather derogatory nickname for our father. Daddy Dickhead. As in, "Shit. Daddy Dickhead is home." He's mellowed out quite a bit, he'll always be our Daddy.

posted by LoriFLA 21 March | 13:00

I was thinking about this the other day. My whole life, I've called my father by his first name (divorced parents, bitter, yada yada). I've been trying to start calling him "Dad," because he's my dad in my head, and I love him, and he deserves it. It's still a little stiff and awkward, though.

The mother was "Mama" when I was little, and then "Mom," but the last time we spoke, it was Susan. She didn't care much for that. Her type doesn't take well to the reassignment. Good luck, Fuzzbean.

I love "Ding-Dong." My grandfather is Bimpy. We call him "The Bimp."

posted by wimpdork 21 March | 13:02

I call my mom and dad mom and dad, and never by their first names... Part of the reason for this (minorly so) is that I was adopted but view my non-biological mom and dad as my "real" mom and dad and would feel like it was a slight towards them to call them otherwise.

posted by drezdn 21 March | 13:29

Mom is mom or mother. Dad is Dad or Pop. When mailing them official business I'll use their full names.

posted by safetyfork 21 March | 13:30

I call my mom "Mom," unless it's in an email, where I call her "Ma".
I call my dad "Dad," unless via email where he's "Pops".

When I want to annoy my mom, I call her by her childhood family nickname, which she hates. When my dad does something annoying, I'll use his first name in an exasperated tone, like my mom does.

posted by muddgirl 21 March | 14:13

Sexy and Motherfucker.

posted by danostuporstar 21 March | 14:27

My mother is Mom. My father is Dad. I only use first names in conversation if I'm being silly. I use their first names on postal correspondence.

posted by Luminous Phenomena 21 March | 14:34

Hi, LP! Welcome, mind if I call you LP?

posted by danostuporstar 21 March | 14:37

Mom and... well Dad died back in 95, so I just call Mom's boyfriend Frank. Sometimes I refer to him as St. Francis since he puts up with my mom so well. ;- )

posted by Doohickie 21 March | 15:03

Sexy and Motherfucker

Funny, that's what I call your parents, too.

posted by plinth 21 March | 15:27

Rawk, Sexy has been throwing hints about a MFM threeway. How's Saturday?

posted by danostuporstar 21 March | 15:37

Mam (with an a—it’s a Welsh thing) and Dad.

posted by misteraitch 21 March | 16:02

The only people I ever knew who called their parents by their first names are total fucking weirdos.

One of my cousins calls his parents by their first names. And yes, he's a total fucking weirdo. I love him anyway. Also, I think that's what his parents wanted.

I call my mother, mum. That started when I moved to Canada and that's how Canucks tend to pronounce mom. It was mom for a long time before that. When I was a kid I called her Ma, thanks to Little House (some of the family still call her that). At one point she mentioned she wouldn't mind being called by her first name, but I never did.

My father was daddy and then dad when I was growing up. In my teens I called him by his first name. When we became totally estranged I started referring to him as the "the sperm donor", or as XXXX's dad (my oldest brother's name), or Mr. Lastname.

posted by deborah 21 March | 16:07

Until they died, Mom and Dad, or Mother and Father. Because they always were, to me and my siblings.

posted by paulsc 21 March | 16:22

I call 'em Mom and Dad.

My maternal grandparents split up before I was born and have since remarried--I call the resulting couples "Grandma and Howard" and "Grandpa and Marijon." When my aunt had kids she taught them to call "Grandma and Howard" something like "Nana and Papa"--it still annoys me just to think about it. I'm not sure why, but I hated that she picked these random names for people who were already being called something else.

posted by mullacc 21 March | 16:48

I always called my mother "mom", she tried to initiate us calling her "momsy" but it never took, she also resisted being called "mama" because she said it made her *sound* fat. and she is currently listed on my cell phone as "smother".

and very briefly (for like a summer) she tried to make my brother and i call her "ohma" which is korean for mom. that one didn't take at all!

and i have no special term for my dad as i don't know him very well.

posted by Mrs.Pants 21 March | 16:49

My father was Uncle Sidney until I was ten or eleven and the "adoption" went through. He was my biological father, but didn't acknowledge it until after I went to live with him and his wife when I was nine (I called him Dad once when I was little and he got mad and told me never to call him that). I called his wife Aunt Edith at first (I felt like Stephie on All in the Family; she's a lot like Edith Bunker, too... even plays the piano). She legally adopted me as well and has always been very good to me (admirable considering I was her husband's child by another woman). After a couple years I called her mom, and dad finally became dad. I never could tell my birth mother that I called my father's wife mom, though. I always referred to her as Edith when I talked to my birth mother (no sense hurting her feelings). In my mind, they became mom and birth mom.

Complicated.

posted by Pips 21 March | 18:05

I call my mom "Mom" and I call my dad by his first name. My folks split up before I was born, and when my mom asked him what he wanted me to call him, he answered "Robert". When I was really little I used to call him "Wobuht". I call my father's dad by his first name too. ("Walf" when I was little.)

I had a step-dad for 14 years, and I called him "Dad", but now they're divorced and I don't know what to call him. Mostly I just don't call him anything, but if he sends me chocolates on Valentine's Day or sends me money for my birthday (so sweet of him!) then I write "Dad" on the thank you card, because those are very dad things to do.

posted by Specklet 21 March | 18:06

Mom has always been "Mom" or "Mommy" during my younger years. Dad left when I was 10, but he's always been Dad on the rare times we've talked. I had a stepdad for 13 years that I called Dad, and I generally call my father-in-law Dad as well - the terminology holds no special meaning for me.

posted by redvixen 21 March | 18:47

I refer to my Italian grandparents as 'nonna' and 'nonno' which is Italian for grandma and grandpa, which disconcerts my non-Italian friends. My 2 year old neice calls my mother 'nonna' but calls my Dad 'Joe.'

posted by jonmc 21 March | 19:10

My siblings and I called them by Mom and Dad until we fell to bad influences. My birth mother died when I was 9, my dad remarried. We called my stepmother "Mom" almost from the day she moved in. I had a serious run-in with my father that led to me referring to him in public by first name. I never went back to calling him "Dad" after that. We've resolved our differences and now work together, so it'd be weird to call him Dad at work, but when I'm emotionally a kid again (like when he was in the hospital) I went right back to it without thought.
My brother-in-law is a "Jr" and everyone called his father by his first name. That started the trend with my sisters calling Dad by his first name (along with my doing it), and so he's been Firstname for about 15 years now.
My stepmother is a little nuts, and we kids have lost respect for her over time for many reasons. I love the old bat, but she's a loon. So it became very natural to just stop thinking about her as a "Mom" and think of her instead as "Dad's wife".

posted by disclaimer 21 March | 19:44

When I was speaking to my mother I called her mommy until I was about 12, then I figured that was too babyish and started calling her Ma. I couldn't stand the way she was stressing it after several years and started calling her mommy again, but she still kept with MA. A therapist told me that calling my father daddy infantilizes, but nothing else ever took. If I'm speaking to my father now, I call her Anne, but he insists on calling her mother--even though she's not his.
Ruder things: chupahija, fisheyes, vampire, queen bitch;for my father: schmucky, baby Andy.

Good luck fuzzbean, use what feels right for you.

posted by brujita 22 March | 00:22

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