Do your children call your friends by first names or aunt and uncle?

[TwentytoTwelve]

What do you expect/what do your children call your friends ie if they’re called Mark is it Uncle Mark or Aunt Rachel or just Mark?

My husband didnt even know his Aunty C wasn't his real Aunt until he was in his late teens

So what did he think?

Only very close friends are aunty. Mostly it’s their first names.
Incredible that there are still people out there doing the Me & Mrs! Sounds like my grandparents 😊
I still call my real aunties “Auntie” as an adult.

He thought she was his mother's cousin as she was integrated into much of her family and would be at most events. It was his mother's childhood friend as their mothers (my husband's GM) worked and went to church together when they first arrived here in the 60s.

And grandparents never spoke about their children and memories etc?

Family photos always included the cousin?

Can’t have been a close family

Most people don't trawl through fanily photos from years ago looking for evidence of fanily members. We didnt obsessively take pics like we do now in the 80s.

I think why you find this hard to understand is because you dont come from a close extended family where there where both your parents were one of 9 siblings. For white British people, living in extended families and knowing your cousins well etc isn't really the done thing. My husband probably has 25 aunts including siblings of parents, cousins of parents and grandparents, great aunts, god parents of him or his siblings. Just 2 families getting together from his side could easily add up to 20 people when you go from grandparents to grandkids. He has 18 nieces and nephews just from his siblings.

Pictures around the home of grandparents of their children growing up. Family holidays.

Talking about family stuff over family events, Christmas lunches etc

obviously not close family 🤷‍♀️

My Nigerian friends, they call Aunty/Uncle. Everyone else by name.

But not everyone lives in this country, nor were photos all that common. She would know all family stuff because she was integrated into the family so would be at the Xmas table remembering the same people and incidents as everyone else.

We will see her today because everyone goes to my MILs every weekend for Saturday soup and Sunday dinner.

Sure I can understand it now. Huge family. Not particularly close.

In my family, parents talking about their childhoods, sharing bedrooms with siblings, holidays, arguments, funny memories etc they had with their siblings was very much part of my life so it was abundantly clear that auntie x was my mum’s real sister whereas auntie p was my mum’s close friend * *

DS calls his godmother ‘auntie X’ even as an adult. They’re very close. But only actually family members apart from that. Over the years I’ve had friends and cousins introduce me as ‘auntie x’ but I don’t love it and don’t encourage it if I’m not close to the children. My cousins, who I don’t really have much of a relationship with, get their children to do it, but I barely know them, and definitely not their auntie anyway. I don’t dislike them or anything, it’s just that we’re not close and don’t keep in touch independently of the odd family wedding and funeral.

For my child my best friends have been more auntie figures than my own siblings to the point DD asked who auntie Sam was (biological) but knows straight away who Auntie Zoe (friend) is and has from a very small age.
I don't call friends from play group who we might have a play date with once a auntie.

But not everyone lives in this country, nor were photos all that common. She would know all family stuff because she was integrated into the family so would be at the Xmas table remembering the same people and incidents as everyone else.

See in my Irish family that person would have gone to the funeral. Maybe that was what confused your husband.

First names for everyone (except parents and grandparents). I never called my aunts and uncles anything but their first names when growing up either. Although my great aunts and uncles were referred to as Uncle X, Auntie Y though. I haven't heard anyone say that in a long time and that generation in my family have all died now (would be 100+ if they were still around).

Mine too. Close enough that someone thought you were their mum or dad’s sister or brother but at the same time not close enough to attend a funeral of someone that side of the family are all attending.

Even aunts and uncles are just first names now. (Since they were maybe 11 or so.)

My youngest niece is now 12 all of our nieces and nephews just call me and DH by our first names. I’m the same with my own aunts and uncles.

My closest friends children call me Auntie. Oddly my nieces call me by my first name only