An Auntie/Uncle One

[TheOutlaws]

For context: PILs are mid/late 70s but a bit more ‘1950s teens’ than ‘1960s teens’. Fairly working/lower-middle class upbringing but socially mobile.

Yesterday, in conversation, I enquired after their niece. ‘Obnoxious, as usual’ came the response from MIL. ‘She refuses to call me Auntie M, and just uses my name. It’s disrespectful to her elders.’ FIL piped up, ‘children should respect their elders’. Niece is 57

DH says they’re old-fashioned and there’s a lot more to their upset than just the presenting issue of Auntie-calling (he’s right, of course). But this just isn’t a concern in my family, IMO it’s disrespectful of PILs to take offence and pull rank. Additionally, I feel bad for calling them by their first names for 20 years, because they must think I’m disrespectful and impudent.

YABU: even 57 year olds should call their elders Auntie/Uncle.

YANBU: this is stupid, first name terms in this context is in no way disrespectful.

im in my 50’s

depends which side of the family one side I address any older generation family member/family friend as auntie or uncle as does ds

ds calls some very close friends of mine auntie

my other side just the very old family members I address as auntie/uncle my actual auntie I call her that when talking about her but call her by her name when I talk to her

I'm 46 and still call address my aunties and uncles as such and my siblings kids call us auntie etc, some of whom are in their 30's

I've never looked at it from a 'respect' point of view though. It's just what we do. I know my friends my age also refer to their aunties/uncles as such.

Not sure why their 'class' status had to be referred to though. People are bloody obsessed with class on this forum

I grew up in the 60's; all my parents' friends had a deferential "aunty" or "Uncle" tacked on. DM's siblings were quite a lot older than her, so died when I was quite young, I probably dropped the Aunty/Uncle for their friends around late teens/20s.
When my best friend had her first child, I made it very clear that I did not want to be "Aunty" anything!
Quite weird to expect it from adults, but probably wasn't in the 70's - they should have moved on a bit though.

I don't know what I'd call my uncles and aunts as we so seldom use first names in conversation with people we know.

My kids are 30 and 33 and my sister (69) still insists they call her Auntie X. She even tried to correct me last week when I said to my daughter "Can you give this to X" It was met with a very frosty "AUNTIE X"

Ridiculous

My aunties asked me to use their first names once I got to about 13 years old.
Some of my nieces call me Aunty, some don’t. I’m not bothered either way. We are all adults.

I call my parents siblings aunt/uncle, as do most of my cousins.
My partner calls 3 aunts/uncles by name, but one by aunt x. The aunts partner isn’t uncle x though. He is closer to the one who he calls aunt than the ones he uses names for.
I don’t have any nieces or nephews; my partner has two who were born before I met him so they never started calling me “aunt” and they only occasionally call him “uncle”
My kids have got two aunts and one uncle through marriage. They always call them aunt and uncle. Nobody would be offended if they stopped; but since we are such a small family it’s nice to use titles. My kids are young and may drop this as they grow.

This is cultural really but I can understand their upset as the cultural way in which I was brought up also is that using first names is both a) disrespectful and b) also oddly detached from the family relationship that is there.

I respect obviously that's not how all people/families feel about this and don't care what others do though. I'm almost 30 and even much older cousins are auntie uncle. I don't see what my age has got to do with any of it either, I can understand families using first names from the get go but not sure why a title like auntie or uncle would suddenly be dropped when someone reaches a certain age, they're still your auntie or uncle after all, just as I don't think many people suddenly start calling their parents by their first names at a random age in adulthood?

i refer to my sister as Auntie XX to my own adult dc

Do your kids also call you by your first name then now they are too old to use family titles?

I’m in my 50s and I have 14 Aunties and Uncles (my parents are the youngest of big families!). I only ever called the ones I liked ‘Aunty and Uncle’, the ones I didn’t know so well or straight up didn’t like got their first names.

One of my first cousins who is about the same age as my Mum, tried to get me to call her and her husband ‘auntie and uncle’ recently. Yeah that sure as shit isn’t happening you’re my generation love 😂

My DH calls my DPs mum and dad but not in English, in a different language. One of my DPs is an immigrant and in that culture that's the done thing and is what they wanted to be called. I think he would have felt weird about it if they'd asked him to call him the names he'd used for his own parents in English tbh but as it's different words it's never bothered him and he appreciates it as a sign of family closeness too.

My FIL I've never really had contact with so topic never arose (his choice), my MIL asked me to call her mum. Again I feel I might have found that odd if I'd called my own DM that, but I didn't, because I used a different language name, so I felt fine calling her mum. However DH cut contact with her years ago anyway so I myself haven't seen or had any contact in many many years now anyway.

@WeightoftheWorld no they don't.

Funnily enough I carried on calling them Aunty/Uncle etc, but my brother made the switch quite young to just using their first name. I feel awkward because I'd like to just use their first name, but it feels almost as bad as calling a teacher by their first name when you bump into them 40 years after you left school haha.

I have a weird thing with aunties and uncles, on my mum's side I have always called them aunty or uncle.

On my dad's side there is not much of an age gap, I think one uncle is 10 years older than me and the other 8 so I've always just used their names.

@Kangaroobrain my mum used to call my grandad 'dad', her own had died before she got married. It was slightly confusing as a child.

I'm 60 and still call my aunts and uncles 'Aunty Flo' etc. It's honestly never occurred to me not to. My own children (in their 30s) do the same, and my nieces and nephews call me Aunty Chaos!

I guess it's just how you're brought up? Not sure it's about 'respect' particularly, as I'm very sure those people who don't use the 'aunt/uncle' moniker still respect their relatives. It's more how your parents modelled things to you as a child I suspect.

A few posters have commented on how/why someone would stop using auntie/uncle at a certain age. I'd imagine it is similar to going from saying Mummy to Mum... just an evolution in the family.

I don't think either way is right or wrong, and I think saying it is disrespectful isn't fair. There is a lot of love and respect in our family, regardless of the name we use.
In our case, my mum's sister didn't want to be called Auntie, so it would have been more disrespectful to ignore that.