To call them by their first names?

[continuousever]

Not really my story or problem.
My friend is dating a very lovely guy who we all think is the one for her. He is very liberal and easy going. His parents, less so. They are very conservative.

They want my friend to call them Mr Surname and Mrs Surname. She says this makes her feel like there is a big authority and importance gap between them. In her family everyone is treated equally and her partner calls her parents by their first name and is one of the family.

I don't know all the ins and outs but if I were in that situation would I be unreasonable to just call them by their first names and state that we are al equal? Or is there another boundary she can set signifying that she is just as equally important. She says that it's very important to her that she won't accept an inferior position in the family.

She says that it's very important to her that she won't accept an inferior position in the family.

They aren't family yet though, she's just going out with him.

Why do so many here think formality is negative?

There's no moral superiority in being informal or casual.

Oh come on @Qazwsxefv in Rome you do as the Romans do. My father was German and a non medical Dr. He didn't expect anyone to call him Dr x. Not even at work (multi-national pharmaceutical) either in the UK or in the States. He certainly didn't expect DH to call him Dr, it would have have been plain rude.

Should also ask that although they use my first name day to day when introducing me to their friends FIL and MIL call me Mrs Qaz and before marriage as Miss Maiden-Name so it’s a thing in their social circle (and weird as I’d never been called miss maiden-name before) but I’ve never found it offensive that they choose to use surnames - it’s just their culture.

Very formal and quite odd for adults to address each other that way in that situation. It feels like they want to create distance and formality rather than be friendly. It can't be the only formal behaviour? I guess I would do it but I wouldn't feel v welcome.

@RosesAndHellebores i don’t think I ever said they lived in the uk????

it’s their culture. They are generally great in laws and very welcoming. This is just how they refer to each other (I don’t think I have ever heard MIL refer to FIL by his first name actually or at least not in English)

I'm not sure it's just formality people are against. It's inequality.

In the same way that I work in housing and 'match' the writers' address. If someone sends a letter or email to Ms. Pratchett, I reply in the same vein. If they say, "hi Terry" I'm the same too.

This is weird because I'm sure they aren't calling OP Ms. anything.

Everyone is the same, all fine.

I've been with dh 24 years and have probably used my IL's names half a dozen times.

I love this x

The woke bit is in making this about equality. It’s a particular mindset, to think someone wanting to place some distance between you and them is about equality. It’s not - at least not to me. It’s about not wanting familiarity, yet, or ever. Maybe they just have boundaries, for whatever reason. Maybe they’re uptight. Maybe they don’t think much of OP’s friend and are conveying that to their son and the friend (cackhandedly, but no more or less than making this about equality).

I go with whatever the convention is wherever I am. I try to act respectfully to everyone, and expect the same. So sometimes I call people Mr/Mrs, sometimes by the first name, sometimes Auntie/uncle. Whatever the circumstance dictates.

This is bizarre behaviour. I wouldn’t call them anything. But if it’s mentioned again I would say ‘well since we’re all living like we’re in a period drama in 1914, you can refer to me as ‘Miss ‘INSERT SURNAME’. Who do they think they are? My parents are fairly well to do and in their 80s, they would roll around laughing if a 28 year old called them Mr and Mrs so and so.

My kids are all now young adults and above and every single one of their friends call us Mr and Mrs Rockstar until we tell them to call us Economy and Economy Plus. I wouldn't ever do it the other way but I know plenty who do. In some cultures (including the US), it's just basic manners.

I’d be demanding the same level of respect and asking to be called Ms Velvetween.

They’d soon realise how ridiculous they were being.

“Would you like a jammy dodger with your tea Ms Velvetween?” How could anyone keep a straight face with all that nonsense.

They want my friend to call them Mr Surname and Mrs Surname.

Not as bad as …

The poet John Betjeman, who married the daughter of a Field Marshal, recalls a conversation with his future Father-In-Law that went, "Look here, we'd better discuss what you're going to call me. You can't call me 'Sir', that's too formal.
You can't call me 'Phillip', that's too familiar. You'd better call me 'Field Marshal'".

John Betjeman's Formal Father-In-Law

Are there other reasons that your friend feels they have inferred superiority or tried to exclude her?

This alone doesn't feel like a hill to die on. She's met a wonderful man, his family are either a bit old fashioned and formal, they come from a culture where this is the norm or both. None of those things are personal to her.

I'd say just get on with it and use the names they prefer and hopefully a pleasant relationship will develop. This isn't conclusive of any bad intent.

It isn't a good idea if you love someone to go picking fights with their family and putting them in an awkward position without good reason. Take this in good faith and see how things go. She probably doesn't have to see them all that much anyway.

If it were simply about distance and formality then they would also be calling OP’s friend Ms Whatever (which they are possibly doing, but the analysis on here about it being an equality issue is assuming not).

The boyfriend’s parents aren’t simply asking for formality, they are asking for formality from their son’s girlfriend to them, while being informal when addressing her. If they just wanted distance they could address her as Ms Whatever and would instantly achieve it with out asking her to change how she addressed them at all.

If you are going to look at this through a supposedly “woke” lens, it would be more reasonable to see a demand that OP’s friend call them whatever they wished to be called and friend feeling obliged to acquiesce to that regardless of her own feelings about it as being more in keeping with recent cultural pushes often labeled “woke” in a derisory way on social media.

@EconomyClassRockstar my DC are grown up too. Their friends have always called us Roses and Phil. When they were at school our experience was that the more we paid, the less formal it became, particularly with school staff. DS's housemaster used to air kiss both cheeks by 6th form.

Both children's headteachers were Andrew and Jane by 6th form - not to the DC just us.

I would do what they wanted but I certainly wouldn't like them for it. Especially their reasoning of being superior. Tbh I don't call my in-laws anything I just speak to them, I e never addressed them by name.

I would expect out of respect to be called Miss op.

Anything other I would view as rude tbh. They are not more important than her. To expect to call her by first name and them mr and Mrs is disrespectful to op.

it’s not 1920

Honestly, I'd think your friend was being rude for no good reason to insist on asserting her "equality" of standing with her partner's parents. Of course they're no more important than she is, but it's only polite to use Mr/Mrs if that's how you've been introduced to someone.

I'm another who prefers to avoid addressing people by name when I'm with them, anyway. It's rarely necessary.

I suppose from the parents' point of view, your friend isn't family or a friend to them yet. They don't have any kind of relationship. She is just a woman their son is dating.

If she can't address them in the way they prefer, then she shouldn't address them at all. As someone who doesn't like to use people's names ever, it's quite easy to avoid.

My kids are a similar age to the OPs friend, and none of their partners have called me Mrs Forever. It is ridiculously outdated. The only times in my life I have experienced similar is when it has been a power game by an older person trying to create a teacher/child dynamic.

It's pompous and stuffy but ultimately you have to go by what they have wished for.

What hogwash that this has anything to do with "inequality."

Some people aren't interested in instant intimacy. I can be on a perfectly equal social footing and still prefer to address someone as Mrs Smyrhe rather than Evvie, because we aren't family or close friends.