To not want to call MIL Mum?

[sunshinelolipops]

My MIL wants me to call her Mum and gets upset if I call her by her first name. I talked to Dh about it and he doesn't get the problem and thinks this is a normal thing to do. He is very defensive of his Mum.
I don't feel close to MIL and it feels awkward and weird to call her Mum. I am very close to my actual Mum. At the same time I don't want to upset her and have been humouring it but don't know how long I can keep it up for. I am also worried it might offend my actual mum if she heard me call her this.
My mum doesn't expect Dh to call her Mum, just by first name. I had never even heard of calling MILs Mum before.
Is this normal? What should I do?

I think as a society we're much more into using first names for everyone. We generally address our boss by their first name, which would have been unheard of a generation ago. The exception of course is with teachers, we still say Mr/Mrs/Ms surname.

In the past it would have been natural to call your MIL Mrs Surname if you didn't want to call her Mum. Now it would sound very unnatural, hence we call our PIL by their first names, as we no longer consider them to be our elders and betters but people just like us.

It's similar with stepmums. My DSis has a DSS, now 20. He calls her by her first name, but curiously calls our DM Granny, because his half siblings call her that.

And I might well have to get used to my adopted DDs calling their birth mother 'Mum', it would be for them to decide not me. So it's not true to say that you can only have one mum in our case.

This thread just shows how insular people are. The astonishment/disbelief that people might do things differently is bizarre.....

I really like my MIL, she is a lovely woman. Hubby and I have been married 12 years. I don't call her Mum. She isn't my mum. I call her by her name or more recently "Nana" as that is what my DD calls her. I don't call my FIL dad either - I just use his name or refer to him as Grandad.

I don't think it's necessarily a generational thing. I always called my lovely MiL by her first name, ditto Dh with my mother. I'm sure they'd both have been uncomfortable if we'd started calling them Mum.

And I am getting on a bit - I realised the other day that my mother would have been 100 this year.

I once had a very short term boyfriend who started (unasked) calling my father 'Dad'. During a minor row with my father at the time, he ended by saying, 'And I will NOT be called 'Dad' by bloody Michael!'

The astonishment/disbelief that people might do things differently is bizarre.

I agree Bertrand. A few more years on MN will sort them out - MN has been great for showing me all of the different ways that people do things that I thought there was only one way to do.

I am Milly.

Lucy that's brilliant. I am going to tell my MIL. Know fact I might just start calling her milly.

My Pil's signed cards and gifts Mum and Dad for a bit when we were first married.
I'm not particularly close to them and found it a little odd.
It became upsetting when my actual Dad died and I had to ask them to stop.

I'm a MIL...my DIL calls me by my first name...If I'm talking to her alone I refer to my DH as first name, if I'm talking to DS or both its dad...

I sign card to both as mum & dad, to her 'A..& ..B'

but she was annoyed about something one day and called out 'muummmeee' I just laughed..

She has also said openly that she finds me easier to be with than her own mum.
But she has her own mum I'm not her mum, I love her to bits and she and DS know I'm there for both of them but I let them get on with it.

My mil has many dils and sils and is called different things by different ones. We look forward to seeing the knots she ties herself in trying to please all of us on cards and stuff.

I agree with others that this is perfectly normal in some cultures/areas, but not others. Neither of my parents called their in-laws mum and dad and neither do I.

I imagine many mothers in law who expect to be called mum might be upset if their daughter in law doesn't want to do that, so it seems to me that a bit of care needs to be taken in saying no and making clear that it is not a sign of rejection.

My husband's ex-wife called my mother in law 'mum'. Still does, for that matter, more than 30 years after the divorce. Our mother in law sees us both as her daughters and would introduce us that way. At our wedding there was a lovely moment when she introduced my husband's ex to my father as 'my daughter, x', before realising that that might sound a bit odd/tactless (my husband is an only child).

I would find that extremely disrespectful personally and would not honour her wishes.
I wonder if she'd like her son to start calling another woman 'mum' affectionately.

"I would find that extremely disrespectful personally and would not honour her wishes"

Have you actually read the thread?

" wonder if she'd like her son to start calling another woman 'mum' affectionately."

And yes, she probably assumes that her son would call his mil "mum" too.

'Have you read the thread?'

Why do you ask?

I think you need to take the bull by the horns and next time she corrects you say " sorry but I find it really uncomfortable calling you that. Lovely though you are, you aren't actually my mum and it feels really odd and sort of disrespectful to my own mum."

My MIL told me I could call her Mum "if I wanted" not long after my own Mum had a rare and aggressive form of cancer from which she could have died. I found it distasteful. And can't believe how insensitive she was. She always tries to put my Mum down. Thankfully, we are no longer on speaking terms.

“'Have you read the thread?'

Why do you ask?”

Because you are describing something that is perfectly usual in many families and communities as “disrespectful”. Which is pretty......disrespectful!

Bertrand I said I PERSONALLY would find it disrespectful, very much so.
In my experience, it isn't a Yorkshire thing or a working class thing, either btw.

No offence Bertrand but you're always on these MIL indiscriminately defending every MIL, you manage to personalise everything. There's no need it's not about you.

These MIL threads*

“No offence Bertrand but you're always on these MIL indiscriminately defending every MIL, you manage to personalise everything. There's no need it's not about you“

I’m not a mil so of course it’s not about me. And i’m not defending mils- I’m defending different cultural and family traditions being OK.

If you married into a family where it was the norm to call your mil “mum”, how would it be disrespectful to ask you if you wanted to do the same?

It clearly does happen in some Yorkshire families, from the posts on this thread. And in my experience, too. My MIL always called her Yorkshire PIL 'Mum' and 'Dad'; apparently they would have considered it very disrespected to be called anything else. But they were born before the First World War, so possibly very old-fashioned?

It would never have occurred to my DM to expect my DH or BIL to call her 'Mum', though. And, as stated earlier, my DH's DF never called his FIL 'Dad', he used his first name. So it's all about the way you've been brought up, I think.

I won't bring it up but a thread stuck in mind once and after that I always notice the trend of you almost being vicariously offended and defensive.
Oh well.
I've never heard of it being a family tradition or culture to expect to be referred to as someone else's mother, I don't see how that would work as every DIL is individual.
If such a thing exists, I'm afraid the DIL's feelings would have to be taken into account. So for me that would be a polite but firm 'no'.
It's one things organically calling your MIL 'mum', another to be asked to call you that.
It's not hard to see why it would be viewed by most as disrespectful.

One thing* argh.

I wonder if she'd like her son to start calling another woman 'mum' affectionately.

This is a bizarre thing to wonder.

People whose traditions are "you call your in-laws mum and dad" would of course expect their children to do the same to their own ILs.

It's as if you think she is doing is as a power move (I am the mum of everyone! I am the most mum-y mum of all!) rather than it being a normal thing for in-laws to do in her experience.