AIBU to think that is is completely normal to call your parents Mummy and Daddy as an adult.

[MillicentSmythFortescue]

I read a thread yesterday where someone mentioned people calling their parents 'Mummy and Daddy' in parenthood. A couple of people said they called their parents 'Mummy and Daddy too'. I associate this name with young children, when I was a child everyone converted to Mum and Dad around the age of 7. Trivial I know and none of my business but I was wondering how widespread it is?

AIBU - it is normal to call your parents Mummy and Daddy in adulthood in a non-ironic way.

I’ve only consistently heard “Mummy” & “Daddy“ from upper middle class women who work in publishing.

Can’t see anything particularly offensive about it, just one of many class signifiers.

I'm also welsh and I know a lot of people who refer to their parents as mammy and daddy, and we're definitely not posh! Obviously a few will just say mam and dad but I definitely hear mammy and daddy more often.

Agree with you @wellthatsunusual I’m from a working class/lower middle background and we’ve always called my grandmother granny! Believe me it does not sound posh when we say it 😂
I call my parents mummy and daddy sometimes if I’m being affectionate, sometimes mama and papa, sometimes plain old mum and dad. I do think that it’s a little odd when people refer to their parents to others as “mummy and daddy” though

I have an Irish friend who does it and she's not the least bit pretentious. My best friend also still says Mummy and Daddy but only when talking directly to them. I do find it unusual but it's just what some people do.

We’re mummy and daddy. My husband and his siblings call their mother mummy. Most of our friends do too.
Perfectly normal.

I do if I want something
I call my Df. Daddy if I'm tipsy and I use Daddy a lot more than I say Mummy

Another from NI to say that it's pretty normal here to call your folks Mummy and Daddy and you don't have to be posh at all

Not where I'm from it isn't a thing you'd hear. (North east England, working class small Town)
At a minimum any adult heard doing so would be met with at least a raised eyebrow :)
Children maybe 10 and under do say Mammy and Daddy but pretty much everyone I know, myself included, actively encourage dc to stop using it around the 10yrs mark if not sooner as it sounds childish somehow and the kids at big school would tear strips off them if heard saying it.
It doesn't offend nor bother me, I'm not arsed really. If others are comfortable with it then that's up to them. Different area's have different norms.
Upper class or Irish is only who I've heard it from.

I had a boyfriend in my early twenties who still called his parents mummy and daddy. He said it was because he had younger siblings who still referred to them as that. He was also terribly posh.

I called them the male and female parental units.

Much less pretentious than 'mummy' or 'daddy' and kept them in their place.

If I am having a light evening meal it,s supper, if I am having a main evening meal it,s dinner and yes I say Mummy and Daddy.

It's totally fine. LOL. How could it be otherwise. It's your own private family relationships.

No one is being pretentious when they talk to their own mother. Pretending to what. For whom?

By pretentious, do you just mean people of a particular social class? Because those two things aren't actually the same, you know. Using language the way you've been brought up to use it is not pretentious.

Oh it very much can be the same thing. It is a very nice way of indirectly indicating your social class in front of others.

I'm guessing you haven't experienced being talked down to and judged much because of your accent and upbringing by people who still use "mummy" and "daddy" as adults.

My parents were mum and dad - my kids at 10 and 12 still use Mummy and Daddy - I was expecting it to change it wasn’t yet

DD is 14 and still calls us Mummy and Daddy. I think we've gone past the stage where we'll become Mum and Dad (although that's what she calls us when she's with her friends). She also says Granny. I like being Mummy, but would be equally happy to be Mum. Don't care, don't give it any headspace.

Didn't realise it was a "posh" thing - that made me smile because we definitely aren't posh.

@CherryPavlova

We’re mummy and daddy. My husband and his siblings call their mother mummy. Most of our friends do too. Perfectly normal.

What part of the UK are you in?

As I said earlier, it is becoming apparent that this is a regional thing. You would really get the mickey taken out of you for calling your parents mummy and daddy past the age of about 6 or 7 in my part of South Yorkshire.

In NI it’s totally normal as pp have said. I have a cousin who calls my aunt and uncle by their first names and I find that mega weird

@Hopoindown31 It's for pretentious upper middle class people in the South East isn't it?

Do you actually know what pretentious means? It's from the same root as pretend. People who aspire / pretend to be something above their "class".

Upper middle class people calling their parents mummy and daddy is normal for their social background.

I am finding the total acceptance that's it is absolutely fine to be a reverse snob on here really dreadful.

Now I’m in the mood for a steak to go with all the chips on here

SIL calls/called her parents Mater and Pater. The thing about an indication of social class is if that is the terminology you grew up with it’s ingrained and what you are used to so it is an indicator but not deliberate. It’s like the difference between dinner, tea, supper etc. I moved from the South to the North and was judged for using the terms lunch and dinner etc. Deemed far too posh at the small primary school DS went to because of just this sort of thing plus having a different accent. Once the other Mums had got their heads round how different I sounded they were lovely. Our dc are 19 now and I am still a close friend to two of them.
.

It depends on your 'station in life' I think. Ordinary working class types like most of us say Mum and Dad, posh types say Mummy and Daddy inme.

'Pretentious' is a word I think some people use often without knowing full well what it means and infers. If anything, in many cases it probably shows the insecurity of the person using it and that's no one else's problem.

I couldn't begin to imagine how saying mummy and daddy could mean showing off when it's something you've always said. It's as silly as someone telling you that saying mum/dad is pretentious.

It’s clearly normal to the people who do it. I doubt they give a flying fuck what you think is normal.

I call my dad daddy but call my mum mum.... I think its because my mum tried to insist I call her mummy when I was a teenager so I used to call her 'mother' to piss her off lol now its gone to mum...
I hate being called mummy it makes my skin crawl. Its nice when a toddler says it of course but im not keen on the word in general.. makes me think of a bandaged mummy

Working class North Yorkshire checking in here, I didn't know English people actually did this.
Irish friends saying mammy is normal but if I heard an adult use the word mummy it would be very odd here. It's my mum or me mam when discussing them and mum or mam directly. I don't care about the idea of being common, judged for the accent etc, I love Yorkshire.
Personally I call my mum 'mother dearest' as a joke when I want something.
I had a Nanan and a Nana.
My children have Granny, Grandma and Nana. It possibly is a class thing though as Granny and Grandma both think of themselves as a bit fancy.
What you call your grandparents wouldn't be commented on, but mummy/daddy would definitely raise eyebrows.