to cringe when adults call their parents mummy and daddy?

[Milly848]

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...

Nope - in my thirties and can’t imagine calling my mum anything else other than mummy.

Mammy and Daddy here, I’m mid 40s and not posh. DH the same but he’s Irish where it’s more usual.

I know a lot of people who still do this. Not posh either

*I’ve only ever heard posh people do it.

Mummy?

Yes Bunty....*

That makes me think of veruca salt

Daddy I want it. Daddy get me it right now

I couldn't care less what anyone calls their parents. It's a personal choice.

I call mine Mum and dad. Although slip up and refer to them as mummy and daddy as thats what i refer to myself and dh as to our children😅

Think i was about 7 before i realised my parents had real person names- not just mum and dad

I call my mum mummy - she’s 72 and 4’11’’, it suits her!

If you need something else to cringe about, OP, as an adult I called my parents by their first names, or nicknames

It’s really none of your business though is it?! How does what I call my parents affect you?! And yes. I call my mummy and daddy. As do my siblings. My brother is 40 btw.

agree each to their own but just to chip in, I think grown adults calling their parents mummy and daddy sounds twee. Only know a few people who do it and they are very upper class so i suppose associate it with class.

I refer to myself as Mummy. However, the cat doesnt speak back to I don't actually get called it but I speak to her like, who's a good girl for mummy or I'm Mummy cat.

I'm Irish for context, growing up everyone inc me, had Mammy and Daddy.

Then as we hit our teens, it became Ma, etc Then as a young teenager, it became first name terms

but when she was ill and dying, some of her visitors came to see Mammy even though they were older than her. it was a mark of respect

My best friends mother was my Mammy 2 - and vice versa.

It meant I got yelled at and punished if I did something at theirs in exactly the same way as home. At home, I was the youngest of 2 by many years whereas she was the youngest of a large family.

" Do feel free to cringe at that linguistic outcome of my traumatic sudden childhood bereavement though hmm"

Of ffs. I'm surprised that took as long as two pages.

Doesn't bother me what other people call their parents. I refer to them as random names I came up with as a child that are not mum, dad or their real names.

My family is from the Caribbean and we refer to our parents as mummy and daddy so do a lot of my friends.

I agree. It sounds odd. My MIL calls my DH (so her son) 'daddy' since we've had kids. It actually sounds so wrong and inappropriate.

I can't say it'd make me cringe; it's up to them. What does make me cringe is when couples refer to each other as mummy or daddy e.g. 'Mummy, what shall we do today?' - why not just use their name?

I’m fairly sure it’s a class thing. My mother is from a quite upper class family and it is normal in her family, so it feels normal to me. It’s what she always called her mother too.

I have a gruff Yorkshire accent ‘what’s for tea, mother?’. Maybe that’s just from old black and white films!

A very posh colleague referred to his 90 year old dad a daddy.

Interesting... I’m really surprised at how many adults still call their parents mummy and daddy.
I still call my dad “daddy”, and thought that was extremely weird and uncommon (I’m 23). The reason being that my parents divorced and I lived abroad with my mum & sister; saw my dad once or twice a year. Quickly grew out of saying “mummy” but daddy just stuck...

It makes me cringe although I have only ever heard it once in real life (from an English person) in my 36 years.

My Irish parent said Mam but some of my other Irish relatives say Mammy and Daddy. Is it a regional thing in Ireland too? Although I couldn't swear to it I think my relatives from Cork use the shortened version but my relatives from Mayo say Mammy and Daddy.

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.

I'm quite the opposite, I asked my DD at around 3/4 to stop calling me daddy, gave her the choice of dad or Fred (or is it George), I am glad she chose Fred. Even if it certainly seems many people do find that strange.

I don't cringe at other people calling their parents anything, you have to assume everyone agrees - I did cringe at being called daddy (more so when other adults followed the child's cue and called me it)

Fine, cringe away. Your problem not mine.

I call mine mother on occasions if I'm having a laugh.

Just different ways.

JellySlice

I cringe because I am so unused to it. I don't hear it the same when Irish people say it because I am used to that.

I'll be honest I am judgey about the one English person who I know who does this. I have never considered my feelings behind this but you're right, it's stupid to have any feelings about it at all. I'm going to knock it off.

I do think it's a bit of reverse snobbery for me as I mainly associate it with posh people on telly but the person I know who says it certainly isn't posh.

My father called his parents Mother and Daddy all their lives.
More weird was that my in laws referred to each other as Mummy and Daddy.