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AIBU?

Share your dilemmas and get honest opinions from other Mumsnetters.

Original poster

to cringe when adults call their parents mummy and daddy?

126 replies

Milly848 · 02/12/2018 18:32

A friend of mine still calls her parents mummy and daddy. She's 27, and she does it in public.

I asked her once (casually), and she said her parents have always insisted on it and thought mum/dad was disrespectiful.

Fair enough and I know it's none of my business, but I can't help but cringe a bit when I hear adults call their parents this. It just sounds childish and makes me think they're still treated like a child. Then again her parents do still finance her...

OP posts:
greenpop21 · 02/12/2018 19:11

My DH will say to our DC who are 18 and 15, "Where is Mummy?" and it is totally normal for us, not posh. He is English.

Pieceofpurplesky · 02/12/2018 19:11

I call my dad daddy when I want something. I am 50 and have done so since I could talk.

He wouldn't have it any other way.
Mum is just Mum

ItIsChristmasTime · 02/12/2018 19:12

It is an upper class thing, not just Irish.

YABU to cringe or even think anything of it.

CherryPavlova · 02/12/2018 19:14

We’re mummy and daddy. My MIL is mummy to her very adult children. Most of our friends are mummy and daddy to their young’s adult children. They refer to us as their mother and father when speaking to others.

greenpop21 · 02/12/2018 19:17

I know its upper class and not just Irish. I am aware that my Irish roots are not obvious when speaking in a southern English accent and 'mummy' sounds posh. Mammy would be better!

UAEMum · 02/12/2018 19:18

I hate this and i especially hate, with a passion, when husbands and wives call each other mummy and daddy!

LordProfFekkoThePenguinPhD · 02/12/2018 19:19

Prince Charles calls his mum ‘mummy’

Rockbird · 02/12/2018 19:19

A) it's none of your business what other people do
B) people who use the word cringe should be kicked up the bum
C) get a life

LordProfFekkoThePenguinPhD · 02/12/2018 19:20

I find it odd when parents call each of their mum and dad.

greenpop21 · 02/12/2018 19:21

I find it odd when parents call each of their mum and dad.

I find it odd when posts don't make sense.

woodhill · 02/12/2018 19:21

I mist admit I cringe too. My mum used to call her dad "daddy" all his life which I found odd.

FuzzyCustard · 02/12/2018 19:22

How do you feel about Mater and Pater?

SylviaAndSidney · 02/12/2018 19:23

Weird that you'd cringe if it's not you being called it.
My mum (which I call her) called her own mother 'mammy', right up until she died this year.

Mookatron · 02/12/2018 19:24

I suppose cringing doesn't hurt anybody any more than calling your parents whatever the fuck you like does, so cringe away.

slowco4ch · 02/12/2018 19:29

Zzzzzz

silkpyjamasallday · 02/12/2018 19:30

I doubt I'll ever call my parents anything other than mummy or daddy, I'd refer to them as my mum or dad when talking about them to other people but I don't like the shorter terms personally.

chockaholic72 · 02/12/2018 19:38

My parents died a few years back but I always called them Mummy and Daddy because I can't seem to refer to anyone with a shortened name - I've never shortened anyone's name (to me it's a completely different name!) - my brother is David, and I'd never call him Dave. Working class family - parents worked in a post office and a newspaper print room.

BumDisease · 02/12/2018 19:40

Agreed OP, even reading it makes me squirm a bit. It's just so... twee. Sorry mummies and daddies!

YolandiFuckinVisser · 02/12/2018 19:50

DH calls his parents Mummy and Daddy. They are posh, all the cousins etc call their parents mummy & daddy. I found it odd and slightly amusing at first. I'm used to it now, not a major cause for concern.

Cherries101 · 02/12/2018 19:53

Amongst South Asians it’s the norm.

MarieVanGoethem · 02/12/2018 19:55

YABVU to have somehow reached adulthood without realising that the usage of mummy/daddy is perfectly normal for much of the population & the only thing that should be read into you having an adverse reaction to it is that you’re an intolerant judgypants.

I once saw a wee Guide getting picked up from a joint Guide camp get properly snarled at by her mother for addressing her as mummy because “what’s a great lump like you calling me that for?” Said barely-10yo had been camping for a week with a mix of my Guides, whose cultural backgrounds meant they tended to use mummy-not-mum; & a Unit from the bit of our County “where the posh people are from” (to quote several Guides on the subject) where the Guides use of mummy/daddy = class-not-cultural marker. The wee girl whose mother had the head of her for not saying mum had clearly been relieved that it was not, after all, An Actual Law you had to stop saying “mummy” at a certain age. Sadly her mother was obviously firmly in Camp Cringe.

Probably also wise not to forget there’s a subset of adults whose parents died while they were still wee enough you’d not have cringed to hear them call them mummy/daddy & they still refer to them as such because obviously they didn’t get to have their relationship evolve. I might well have included the mum[my] change in my code-switching as I moved to secondary school if my mother had been alive then. As it is, to me she’s just mummy. Do feel free to cringe at that linguistic outcome of my traumatic sudden childhood bereavement though Hmm

DarthLipgloss · 02/12/2018 19:58

My 21 yr old twin DDs still call me Mummy...

Life0fBrian · 02/12/2018 20:04

I’ve only ever heard posh people do it.

Mummy?

Yes Bunty....

Tbh I find it much stranger when people call their parents by their first names. I can’t get my head around that. My kids are the only people who can call me mum, I’d hate it if they used my first name instead.

PookieDo · 02/12/2018 20:06

My DC choose to call us mummy and daddy. We don’t ask them to! 14 and 16. It’s stuck. Sometimes it just sticks

WeaselsRising · 02/12/2018 20:08

oh goody, a couple of weeks since the last one of these.

I hated the word mum and switched from mummy to mother. We called our father a selection of rude names instead.

I still hate the word mum. My DC1 didn't switch from mummy, so neither did DC2. The younger ones picked Ma instead, which I prefer to mum.