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Post by beaglemom on Feb 2, 2020 1:20:34 GMT
My inlaws would like to be called mom and dad. I avoid that as much as possible. I don't like them very much and we are with them and my parents multiple times a year and that just feels weird calling them that around my parents. When I am referring to them when they aren't around I use their grandparent names with the kids, your mom and your dad with dh, and mother-in-law and father-in-law when talking to anyone else.
I sometimes use their first names. But I think I avoid calling them anything if I can get away with it. I think it is so weird that they want all of us (their kids and their spouses), mom and dad, because none of us are very close to them and it just seems so fake.
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Deleted
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Post by Deleted on Feb 2, 2020 1:26:40 GMT
I'm amazed at how many people seem to be able to interact with their inlaws without calling them anything. What do you do if you need to get their attention? Walk to where ever I need to be so I can just make eye contact and speak directly to them. For my mil that wasn't a real problem since she was deaf in one ear and had trouble hearing anyway. |
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likescarrots
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Post by likescarrots on Feb 2, 2020 1:38:17 GMT
If they won't accept 'mom' and 'dad', then I would either be calling them by their first name or not talking to them at all. They need to get over that ridiculousness, not your husband.
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Post by jemali on Feb 2, 2020 2:35:02 GMT
My MIL had a nickname, I called her that. FIL I used his first name.
MIL referred to herself as “Mom” to me for things like birthday cards or leaving a phone message, but I never called her that.
DH calls my parents by their first names.
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Post by 950nancy on Feb 2, 2020 3:04:31 GMT
I think the quality of the relationship between family members is so much more important than what we call one another. People get so bent about the wrong things. Your parents should be grateful for a loving son in law and about-to-be-father of their grandchild. (I don't mean this as a handslap. I just think their priorities are misplaced.) I feel like when a child is old enough to vote and go to war, he/she should be able to call an adult their given name. I don't understand how it is disrespectful to call an adult by their name especially if they know them well, are married into the family etc. People do have some weird hangups. When my kids' friends graduated from high school, I told them to start calling me Nancy. Some did, some didn't. For me, calling my MIL by Mrs. X would be the same title I went by and would be weird. |
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Post by scrapmaven on Feb 2, 2020 4:04:21 GMT
My mil is mom and when the kids are around, though they are adults, she's grandma. She's like a mother to me and once my own mother died mil took over as sole grandmother and I just adore her. At 91 she can be called whatever she chooses. My fil had alzheimers when we got married, so really his name was a non issue, because he wasn't present to anyone for many years.
Would Mother(insert last name here) work? Once the kids are born you have an out, because you'll likely be able to call her by whatever she chooses for the kids.
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*Marjorie*
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Post by *Marjorie* on Feb 2, 2020 5:18:02 GMT
My DIL calls me Ma or Gma. My SIL calls me Grandma.
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rickmer
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Post by rickmer on Feb 2, 2020 5:27:21 GMT
i called my ex MIL by her first name... first time i met her i called her mrs. smith but she corrected me with her first name. she tried to get me to call her mom later but i felt that was disrespectful to my *own* mother, the one who actually gave birth and raised me.
i think if someone thinks their first name is "disrespectful" then they should come up with what THEY feel is more appropriate and i would totally honour their wishes. however, i can appreciate there are cultural differences at play.
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tincin
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Post by tincin on Feb 2, 2020 5:38:08 GMT
What name does your mother think your husband should use? I’d just outright ask her. What about Mom and Dad in your cultural language? You could work it in when you are talking about what they want to be called as grandparents. We let both sets of grands pick their grandparent name. I know DH and I struggled with this ourselves when we were dating and first got married. We were young enough (22) that we still called most adults Mr and Mrs and using first names seemed disrespectful. DH’s older siblings were married and one called them by their first names and one Mom and Dad, so I settled on Ann and Marv. For years, DH just never called my father anything. My XH managed this for 26 years with my parents. I called his by their first names which upset his Mother because she wanted me to call her Mom but that was so not happening. My DIL calls me by my first name and likely much worse behind my back. 😂. My DS calls his in laws by their first names as well. I do like Mill and Fill though. |
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Gennifer
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Post by Gennifer on Feb 2, 2020 7:52:23 GMT
I call my in-laws by their first name. My husband does the same thing with my parents. Anything else, particularly after 12 years, seems super weird.
On a slight hijack, is it really a thing to call other adults Mr/Mrs whatever?
I honestly can’t remember the last time I called an adult by anything other than their first name. I guess, when I’m with my kids, I refer to their teachers that way, but not when the kids aren’t around. Hell, I saw one of my old teachers from HS yesterday and called him by his first name.
I’d punch anyone who called me Mrs.
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Post by AussieMeg on Feb 2, 2020 9:45:07 GMT
I honestly can’t remember the last time I called an adult by anything other than their first name. I guess, when I’m with my kids, I refer to their teachers that way, but not when the kids aren’t around. Hell, I saw one of my old teachers from HS yesterday and called him by his first name. I’d punch anyone who called me Mrs. Same! I think the last time I called an adult by Mr / Mrs was when I was in high school. Even then there were a couple of teachers whom we could call by their first names. Even growing up I called all of my friends' parents by their first names, and every adult in our street by their first names (except for Mr and Mrs Furphy). And I would hate it if anyone called me Mrs or Ms. UGH! My kids have literally never called an adult Mr or Mrs, except for teachers. |
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Post by gar on Feb 2, 2020 10:04:00 GMT
I honestly can’t remember the last time I called an adult by anything other than their first name. I guess, when I’m with my kids, I refer to their teachers that way, but not when the kids aren’t around. Hell, I saw one of my old teachers from HS yesterday and called him by his first name. I’d punch anyone who called me Mrs. Same! I think the last time I called an adult by Mr / Mrs was when I was in high school. Even then there were a couple of teachers whom we could call by their first names. Even growing up I called all of my friends' parents by their first names, and every adult in our street by their first names (except for Mr and Mrs Furphy). And I would hate it if anyone called me Mrs or Ms. UGH! My kids have literally never called an adult Mr or Mrs, except for teachers. Same here. I've never been called Mrs by any of my DD's friends or boyfriends. |
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mallie
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Post by mallie on Feb 2, 2020 14:13:39 GMT
I think this is your parents' problem to solve.
Not your problem. Not your husband's problem.
I would truly be pissed at my parents for creating a situation in which my spouse was made to feel bad/awkward about the name he has called them without correction for over a decade. At that point, if those were my parents, I would have told them to suck it up and get over it. ANd if they couldn't it would be on them to figure it out. Until then, my husband would have probably called them, "Hey, you."
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pancakes
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Post by pancakes on Feb 2, 2020 16:09:45 GMT
I call my in-laws by their first name. My husband does the same thing with my parents. Anything else, particularly after 12 years, seems super weird. On a slight hijack, is it really a thing to call other adults Mr/Mrs whatever? I honestly can’t remember the last time I called an adult by anything other than their first name. I guess, when I’m with my kids, I refer to their teachers that way, but not when the kids aren’t around. Hell, I saw one of my old teachers from HS yesterday and called him by his first name. I’d punch anyone who called me Mrs. I still feel weird calling my childhood friends’ parents by their first names simply because I grew up calling them Mr./Mrs. and I don’t see them often enough to have gotten in the habit of calling them by their first names. We would occasionally refer to our parents by their first names in high school but only to each other as a semi-joke and not to their faces. I also think it can be more of a regional thing. I definitely hear it more in the southern parts of the U.S. From an etiquette standpoint, it’s polite to start off that way and then be corrected if not. I think most people would correct you and say, no please call me First Name or whatever. But it’s also a know your audience sort of situation. |
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Jili
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Post by Jili on Feb 2, 2020 17:53:08 GMT
Honestly, if I were your dh and was, after over a decade, told that he had been disrespectful for calling your parents by their first names and that now it's time to find something else to call them, I'd be supremely angry. I would, from this moment on, refrain from calling them anything, just to be passive-aggressive like that. They're being disrespectful to him, too.
As we've seen here, it's totally possible to not call your in-laws anything. I'm one of those people, as I posted earlier. Just to note-- it wasn't because of any situation such as this, but dh and I were a lot younger, it was about 30 years ago, and neither of us felt comfortable calling them by their first names. It feels too late to start now, LOL.
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Post by giatocj on Feb 2, 2020 18:53:44 GMT
I call my FIL Dad and MIL was Mom before she passed. My SIL called my parents by their first name and my brother did the same with her parents. My husband also calls my mom by her first name and my son in law calls me by mine.
I don’t get why your parents think it’s disrespectful but I’d 100% leave it up to them to come up with something better.
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Deleted
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Post by Deleted on Feb 2, 2020 19:09:36 GMT
That's a toughie. I call my in-laws by their first names and DH calls mine "mom and dad" (we spend more time with my parents and his live in another country). I really don't know what else he could call them besides the three options that have been mentioned.
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Post by 950nancy on Feb 2, 2020 19:17:22 GMT
I call my in-laws by their first name. My husband does the same thing with my parents. Anything else, particularly after 12 years, seems super weird. On a slight hijack, is it really a thing to call other adults Mr/Mrs whatever? I honestly can’t remember the last time I called an adult by anything other than their first name. I guess, when I’m with my kids, I refer to their teachers that way, but not when the kids aren’t around. Hell, I saw one of my old teachers from HS yesterday and called him by his first name. I’d punch anyone who called me Mrs. I'm thinking we should be friends. As a retired teacher, I was used to being called Ms or MIZ. For some reason, people rarely called me Mrs. I never corrected anyone. Just be nice and respectful with whatever you call me and I am good. My first year of teaching, I had a first grader student yell, "Bye, Nancy," to get a reaction. I just smiled as he ran out the door to go home. I honestly would not have cared if students called me Nancy, but that was a big no no in our building. |
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pilcas
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Post by pilcas on Feb 2, 2020 21:24:25 GMT
This is one of those times that the old fashioned rules of etiquette make so much sense to me. My mom taught me that you address an older person as Mr. or Ms. unless and until that person says “Call me John.” It just makes so much sense to me that if you want to be addressed in a certain way, you should politely make your preference known. How in the world is the other person supposed to know what you want to be called if you don’t tell them? But what if they never say that? If you are sitting at my table for Christmas and Thanksgiving-or vice versa-I am not calling you Mr/Mrs anything because we are way past that point. Now I don’t how close OP is to her family but in my book family doesn’t require such formality. I would never call an in-law mom or dad. They are not, no matter how much I liked them. |
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Post by crittsmom on Feb 2, 2020 21:29:00 GMT
I guess he could call them "Hey you !", but I don't think that is what you were looking for. If after 12 years they are complaining, then they need to figure it out. I called my in laws by their first name or Grandma (name) etc.
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QueenoftheSloths
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Post by QueenoftheSloths on Feb 2, 2020 23:20:09 GMT
It would be weird if my DH called my parents mom and dad, since they are only a couple years older than him. Likewise, I don't like to be referred to as the "stepmom" of his kids, considering they were full grown before he and I ever started dating.
We're never in a large group with my parents, so it isn't hard for any of us to understand if we are being spoken to without being addressed by a name or title.
His parents were both gone before we started dating, but I certainly wouldn't have called them mom and dad, but I'm not really comfortable with first names either. More than likely I would never have been in a position to have to address them as anything, since I hate initiating conversations.
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Post by auntkelly on Feb 3, 2020 0:05:40 GMT
This is one of those times that the old fashioned rules of etiquette make so much sense to me. My mom taught me that you address an older person as Mr. or Ms. unless and until that person says “Call me John.” It just makes so much sense to me that if you want to be addressed in a certain way, you should politely make your preference known. How in the world is the other person supposed to know what you want to be called if you don’t tell them? But what if they never say that? If you are sitting at my table for Christmas and Thanksgiving-or vice versa-I am not calling you Mr/Mrs anything because we are way past that point. Now I don’t how close OP is to her family but in my book family doesn’t require such formality. I would never call an in-law mom or dad. They are not, no matter how much I liked them. I would probably say “now that we are married, what would you like me to call you?” |
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Post by littlemama on Feb 3, 2020 1:59:39 GMT
I also find it interesting hie many would never call their inlaws mom and dad. The fact that I call MIL mom in no way diminishes my mom's position as my...mom.
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Deleted
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Post by Deleted on Feb 3, 2020 2:19:54 GMT
I have a few not nice suggestions.
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Post by Spongemom Scrappants on Feb 3, 2020 2:29:55 GMT
It would be weird if my DH called my parents mom and dad, since they are only a couple years older than him. I get it. My MIL is younger than I am by half a year... imagine me calling her mom! |
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