Adults calling their parents by their names

[lunchingwithladies]

Inspired by the Aunty Emma thread, my brother (in his 40's) calls my mother (in her 80s) by her first/Christian name, often in a slightly patronising way.

It gives me the absolute rage. Anyone else encountered this??

AIBU?

My mum called her mum by a shortening of her name for at least the last 15y of her life. DB calls our dad by his first name and our mum by the full version of her name (she’s known to everyone as the shortened version). There is no disrespect about it, just naturally happened

My 3 adult children call me and their Dad by our first names, and have done since their late teens. No particular reason, and it wasn't a conscious decision by anyone, it just sort of gradually evolved. Everyone's fine with it, and absolutely no big deal.

I think that is more the issue. I'd be annoyed if a relative spoke like a sales person, or an estate agent.

I know one child like this. She’s a precocious child anyway and apparently it’s cute joke in their family that she calls her Dad by his first name. She’s 12.
She does it to shock and they indulge her. I find it disrespectful but it may be they are picking their battles.

I recall my late husband getting upset when his granddaughter called him by his first name. She was about 17 - had said "Grandad" and her grandmother's 3rd partner had responded.

In order to clarify, she then addressed my husband by his first name. He didn't show that he was upset to her, but he was.

Never heard anyone call this parents anything other than mum or dad at the age of 40+!

I find it a little disrespectful, especially as you said she doesn't really like it. But I wouldn't let it fill me with rage!

But why was he ‘upset’? She didn’t habitually call him by his first name, she just used it to clarify she meant him, not someone else. Is he normally this doctrinaire about how he’s addressed? I’m not sure what the relevance of how many partners your granddaughter’s grandmother has had to your husband being upset.

There's a long backstory. At the time, both the ex's partner and my husband were very unwell. DH had had a stroke, which meant his emotions were more to the fore. He didn't show his upset in front of his granddaughter.

His ex was very controlling. She broke up the marriage by acquiring a work colleague as a boyfriend, but told all their mutual friends that DH had walked out on her. (He did. After she spent the night with the boyfriend on a work trip.)

When I say that the ex was "controlling", you have no idea... She even tried to gatecrash our honeymoon - but that's another story.

Because she kept the family home, their adult children stayed with her when they visited. Each of her partners became "Grandad". I married DH 8 years after he left his first wife. The grandchild was born 6 yrs after we married.

When the baby arrived, DH's daughter announced that I was too young to be a grandmother and declined DH's suggestion that I be an honorary aunty - so I was always called by my first name. Absolutely up to Dh's daughter and I never queried that. Neither did DH, though he was upset when he realised that the affair partner was "Grandad". (The ex's first boyfriend was also younger, but the ex always got her way and all of her partners have been "Grandad.")

Paradoxically, the daughter's partner was older than her - the age gap between her and her partner was the same as that between my husband and me, so I reckon that there was something more at play than my age - I think she'd believed the ex's narrative.

I think if the granddaughter had said "I meant John..." it would have been all right - but she just turned to my husband and called him by his first name. There was no ill intent whatsoever, but DH was hurt. He'd already been pushed out of so many things by the ex's affair partner that this mistake hurt when it shouldn't have. As I said, he was unwell, but he didn't tell his granddaughter that he was upset.

And no, he wasn't doctrinaire about how he was addressed at all.

Mummy and daddy said by adults to or about their parents make my toes curl.

It should be illegal.

aaaaaaaand there we have it.

I'd be prepared to bet a small but significant sum that a non-zero percentage of people calling their parents by their first names do it to stop the absolute MOANING from people like you

sorry, what?

It's the rudeness that's the issue. DSis (DC4) started using DMs first name sometimes when she was little because Mum had stopped responding to 'Mum'. She also called her 'Mrs D' when at school (Mum worked there and was OK with that). But as adults we all call her Mum 99% of the time.

My 20yr old still calls me mama, and his dad dada. It’s what’s he’s always called us (as has his 16yr old sister). I think if talking to others he would probably say I’m going to see my mum, but he calls me mama to my face. I don’t know why people have an issue with people calling parents mummy & daddy. I used to think it was childish. Until I grew up and realised many people do it, and so what.

If mum doesn't mind, why do you? Lots of people do that in a friendly, gentle way, they also have nicknames. Why worry, life is too short.

My mother-in-law's name was Winifred (Win), and my late husband used to call her "WinWin" sometimes because he said it as a small child, she didn't mind at all, it was nice. I did get annoyed with him when he called her, "Grandma", because, although she was a grandmother she wasn't his. It didn't stop him :-).

You shouldn't visit Ireland then. Mammy/Mummy and Daddy is completely normal for anyone of any age to say.

Usually when they are teenagers it switches to Ma and Da/Mum and Dad for a while, but usually reverts again

well, having spent years being told that "Mummy" is simultaneously weird, pretentious and babyish it's a strong-minded young woman who doesn't look for alternatives.

People always bring up the Irish countries during these discussions, but it’s not the same thing. Irish ‘mammy’ doesn’t sound anything like a Home Counties ‘Daddy’ (Jack Whitehall comes to mind).

Yes. ‘Mammy’ is absolutely not akin to ‘Mummy’. The only adult I’ve ever heard using ‘Mummy’ in Ireland was an elderly Anglo-Irish woman who’d been presented as a debutante in the 1940s, and she was talking about a woman who’d been killed in the Blitz.

Is it okay when a Royal uses it? I recall the then Prince Charles addressing his mother as “Mummy”.

This. I only refer to myself as mummy with the dog. With the kids it’s been Mum and Dad from the start.

I don’t mind Mammy if you are Irish (but I am not)

nope.. i am MUM! no ifs or buts.. i don't care what the whole woke generation makes of it! my children will call me MUM until i am no longer walking this earth.

my daughter went through a faze of trying to call me by my name when she was in uni cos all her 'to do' friends did it.. told her straight.. i'm mum.. get over it

Its odd as fuck. I heard a woman shouting Kev Kev over the back fence and it turns out it was his 30 odd year old daughter. I mean what the fuck?!?! Maybe its a thing pretend posh people do. It sounds insane.

How odd. Don't come to Wales, then. Very normal to call parents Mammy and Daddy here.

The royals are a whole other level of infantilisation…

Double post!