Calling in Laws "mom" and "dad"! Dilemma

• megm1099
• 3 years ago

• Wedding: June 2019

Just explain it to them. 

*drags out cheerleaders*

DON’T DO SHIT THAT MAKES YOU UNCOMFORTABLE 

• yourhandinmine
• 3 years ago

betyl :  After being with my SO for 6 years now, and engaged for 5 months, his parents recently asked me to call them by their names. Now, I’ve been lucky enough to become very close with his family these past 6 years. I met SO attending college out-of-state from where I grew up, so his family became my “family away from home.” I’ve been calling them Mr. and Mrs.____for six years now. And while I see their request as well-meaning (because it shows they’ve officially embraced and accepted me) I just CAN’T DO IT. 

I’m 25-years-old, and I still can’t help but think calling them by their name is disrespectful. It would be funny if it wasn’t so frustrating. SO gets a serious kick out of it. He laughs when I continue to call them “Mr. and Mrs.” because he almost feels like it’s me not registering that I’m an adult, and it’s not disrespectful to call a fellow adult by their name. 

But, hell, I still can’t do it. I can’t help you here.  

• missyjz
• 3 years ago

I’m also from a culture where you’d never call someone older (like parents age) by their first names, it’s always uncle / auntie or grandma / grandpa, as a term of respect. Even to strangers. So I had to get used to calling fiance’s Parents by first name when we were dating. Sometimes I talk to him like “your mum said xyz” cos I’m just not used to saying their first names. he would be like “NO YOUR MUM” as a joke lol because that’s how people joke about prople’s mums right?

So now we’re engaged I just drop the “your” sometimes and say “mum”. It’s not that I want to call someone that’s not my parents “mum” or “dad” but it feels easier and feels like a term of endearment almost, I mean we all know they’re not my parents so it’s not like anyone is going to get confused lol… it’s funny because  fiance’s Brother and sister like to call their parents by first name (would’ve never fly in my culture of course). And I think as much as fiance’s mum from a different culture to me, she likes it when I say “mum”. I think it does make you feel closer to them.

I think you should just try and see how you feel. I think don’t feel like you need to be set in one way you know, try a few different ways of calling them and see what sticks. It might feel natural after a while who knows.

• sparkosity
• 3 years ago

• Wedding: June 2018

I struggle with this too! My husband and I are both American, but he grew up in California and I grew up in the Midwest. I NEVER called anyone from my parents’ generation by their first name, whereas my husband always used first names for his parents’ friends and friends’ parents. He immediately started using my parents’ first names when he met them, and it actually startled my mother quite a bit. I’ve just avoided calling my inlaws anything at all… 

Funny enough my mom told me she went through the same thing when she married my dad. She avoided calling my dad’s parents anything until they had kids, and then they became Nana and Papa.