To ask MIL to not force dd to call any adult auntie or uncle

[OBface]

My MIL is from a different culture where they call literally any adult auntie or uncle (bus driver, waiter you name it). For DHs sister and brother in law there are 'special' names used rather than auntie etc. Obviously for my family there isn't. AIBU to be cross with my MIL for giving an outright no when I explained nicely to her this morning that I'd rather keep these terms exclusively for family?

Gosh, op I wouldn't have waited to get home to say anything. Your mil corrected you and your dd in front of everyone, she doesn't mind taking charge!

If my dd said thank you to the waiter and my mil said " say thank you, uncle" unless he was her uncle, then it would be uncle Brian or whatever, I would have said no, thank you is enough. He is not her uncle and thanking the wait staff doesn't need extra! If I was a waiter I would think it weird, tbh.

What do you call your mil, op? And I agree with another poster. Just because you're older doesn't mean you are right. And also respect is to be earnt, its not a given and a way to get your own way everytime!

Good question Lavender! I have avoided calling DH's parents anything in the almost 10 years since I've known them. When I refer to them to other people I use 'DH's mum/dad'.

DH calls my parents by their first names for clarity.

Tis a bloody minefield

I honestly couldn't correct MIL in front of other people. Would go down like a sack of shit and I suspect his family already think I'm hard work.

This is tricky op because normally my advice would be if it's not really important then go with the flow.

However here your mil does sound very sure of herself and has no right to correct your dd in this way over a cultural difference.

Yes you married your dh and if course expect to respect his culture but by the same token he and mil must accept yours.

I guess only you can say how much of an issue this is for you and then how far to push it.

Fwiw I grew up calling next door neighbours auntie and did my kids. It was quite sweet but random adults no.

^"I honestly couldn't correct MIL in front of other people. Would go down like a sack of shit and I suspect his family already think I'm hard work.
Bookm"^
So you're just going to knuckle under to this? Seriously, if you think they tregard you as hard word, what have you got to lose? And what about your DH, how weak is he?

"Would go down like a sack of shit and I suspect his family already think I'm hard work."

Nothing to lose then!

The thread has moved on a little but in answer to the questions above:

I am in my early 40s. I live in a part of the north where using 'auntie/uncle' is still pretty common but was brought up in the SE in a multicultural area where this was also the norm.

I grew up calling my peers and those younger than me by their first name. I guess I was an adult before I felt comfortable doing this with other adults (and still find it very difficult with the parents of my childhood friends, my old teachers etc).

I am 'Mrs Barbarian' when I help out on school trips (or LittleBarbarian's mum). I am Auntie Barbarian to most of my childrens' friends. A few call me by my first name - I grin and bear this (unless I know they are trying it on and their family still use Auntie/Uncle). My kids never use first names with adults unless they have been specifically invited to do so. Even then, they'll usually get round it by just saying 'Excuse me' to get the person's attention, or by referring to them as 'X's mum' in the 3rd person.

It may be on the way out, but the idea that this is some foreign imposition (as some posters are implying) is not true. A tradition that is alive and well in (some parts of) Yorkshire.

My mil is a different culture and I step in. The other dils don't:) she is a matriarch and very controlling.

It also goes down like a sack of shit, but frankly, her overriding me goes down like a sack of shit too. And I've never stood for it. It amazed me she thought it would be ok anyway to behave like that with me and my dc. Who made her queen?:)

She doesn't do it with friends etc. wouldn't dream of correcting them.

I know this is a tradition here too but always with known, trusted people.

That's the point of it, acknowledging their closeness, above Mrs so and so from down the road, or Mr Bloggs the window cleaner.

To me, calling all other adults aunty or uncle implies trust and closeness where none is due. I find that idea very uncomfortable as it seems to convey to the child that this is an adult who is good with children and reliable, who they could be alone with and expect to be looked after by. Giving that message about random strangers who could be anyone, with any motivation or incompetence with children makes me shudder.

OP this comes down to a straightforward choice. Either you are going to be happy or she is. Now I am firmly of the belief that when it comes to raising children, the mother's wishes override the gps.

So you are either going to have to grow a spine and set her straight or suck it up ehen she walks all over you. Your choice.

My mil does this too and it drives me bloody nuts! I hate how my dh and sil refer to all mil's friends as aunty and uncle despite being in their 40's. Mil expects me to refer to her friends as mr or mrs (insert surname) as it's respectful. I'm in my thirties for gods sake!

It's not that I think my husband's cultural traditions automatically trump mine - it's just one that I don't get too fussed over myself. If it's important to them, why not? Generally they will only ask the kids to call an elderly family friend that. I see it as the equivalent of sir/maam. Something which is not important to my generation but is to my grandparents and it's the same situation. If we are visiting them and they want my kids to address their elderly friends as sir/maam, I don't mind.There are some things which I dodig my heels in over with the IL's - p's and q's for example. They think it's ridiculously formal and tell the children there's no need. It's important to me so I tell them they must.

calling all other adults aunty or uncle implies trust and closeness where none is due. I find that idea very uncomfortable as it seems to convey to the child that this is an adult who is good with children and reliable, who they could be alone with and expect to be looked after by. Giving that message about random strangers who could be anyone, with any motivation or incompetence with children makes me shudder.

lottiegarbanzo I agree with you and also lavenderhoney who said the same thing earlier. I know that was my mother's reasoning too because she told me. It wasn't in a hysterical way, just in a 'no-one is allowed to say they're your special friend and you should keep secrets' kind of way.

I hesitated to say it because I didn't feel up for a mad peedo-phobe fight. But yes, I do feel that and I've never been abused and I don't think my mother was either. But she taught me that these things happen and you have to be alert and unafraid because your mummy and daddy aren't always around to protect you.

I feel very strongly that children should not be expected to be blindly respectful to adults. Many adults are simply undeserving of respect; but some of them are dangerous.

As an adult, I have a voice and can choose to be friends with whomever I want. Why wouldn't I want to extend that choice to a child?

Yes, I think my discomfort is about disinterest and disappointment, when the aunty or uncle turns out to find children irritating or baffling and ignore them or bore them, as much as risk but that too.

Is the problem that the mil is mistranslating a nicety like sir and madam, or calling adults mr and mrs, which is polite but not familiar?

I've never called anyone but aunts and uncles aunt and uncle and brought up my kids to do the same so would strongly resist anyone trying to make my kids call any adult by those names, to me they are family names with a meaning like mum and dad not random adult titles.
On the other hand I wouldn't expect a preschool child to be calling an adult by their first name, particularly if that adult is at work. That seems very rude and precocious and I'd expect them to call them Mr or Ms X.

As breatheslowlysaid, this is all about translation. In MIL's language, they have words which denote respect for unrelated adults. They have a different word or words for actual aunts and uncles. Somewhere along the line, the "respect" words have been mistranslated as "Aunty" and "Uncle". No doubt goes back to lazy colonists.

OP, have you tried to explain to MIL that, to your ears, calling random adults Aunty and Uncle is the same as calling them [insert her culture's special family word]?

Maybe she'd get it then. Out of interest, was the waiter whom your DD addressed by his first name from the same culture as your MIL? If so, then I am afraid that she was probably right to ask your DD to address him in a way which their culture considers appropriate, just as you'd have told her off for clicking her fingers at him. (Though not right to do it in a way that undermined you).

However if he was not from that culture, she was totally wrong and frankly needs to acvept that she is the one who should adapt to the culture of the country in which she has chosen to live.

Could you compromise by agreeing that DD will address adults from MIL's culture using the respectful term in its original native language form? Even if speaking English that might work OK, just like you could easily say "I was talking to my French teacher Monsieur Roux yesterday and he said..."
That way you don't have to hear her use words that are special to you in a way that sounds inappropriate and the adults who'd expect the respect still get it and don't look down on MIL for having a rude DGD....

Then you agree with both DD and MIL that to adults not from that culture it is NOT appropriate to call them Aunty and Uncle and frankly sounds odd to them as well as to you.

Worth a try?

"If so, then I am afraid that she was probably right to ask your DD to address him in a way which their culture considers appropriate,"

Why?

Just because it's a thing that MIL still does, doesn't mean that all of her culture who live in UK do it!

How is calling a waiter by his first name comparable to clicking your fingers at him?

I know that some cultures do this but I cannot imagine why in this scenario.

Harvesters for lunch: hi my names Lucy and I'll be your server today.
Your dd: thanks Aunty Lucy I'll have chicken and chips

Sounds bloody ridiculous.

"Your dd: thanks Aunty Lucy I'll have chicken and chips".

Yes.

To me it doesn't come across as respect, but thinking that you are not good enough to use someone's first name.

If you were in France though, you wouldn't call the server Lucy, you'd call her Madame. In thr States you often hear sir and miss for both servers and customers. The auntie/uncle thing is more aligned to that, rather than the English words for Aunt and Uncle. I agree with Jessie, something has got lost in translation.

limited in MIL's culture, calling a waiter by his first name is considered rude. In British culture, clicking your fingers at a waiter is considered rude. That is why they are comparable.

Diddl agree that the waiter could be from the MIL's culture and not be too fussed about not being addressed with a respectful term. However he is unlikely to find being addressed with such terms to be weird or offensive. Butvsome in that culture will find NOT being addressed in such terms to be rude. Since the DD will not know the particular sensitivities of those that she talks to, surely better to err on side of caution and use with all of that culture?

And calling a server "Aunty" may sound ridiculous to you but it in certain cultures it is as basic as calling a French shop assistant "Madame" or "Monsieur". Saying it is ridiculous makes you come across as a bit culturally imperialist, to be honest.

Last para of my last post addressed to sunnydays not diddl

But OP isn't in France.

She's in UK, knows the waiter's name & used it!

That's entirely different to her MIL wanting her to call all adults Auntie/Uncle.