Parenting Question: What Do You Call Your Spouse's Parents?

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My situation is a little different since my inlaws are arab (yes, catholic arabs in case that struck you as odd!) and apparantly in their culture it is disrespectful to call them by their first names. I call them Mr. and Mrs., but now that I recently had a baby, I will likely start calling her Tayta and him Jiddo as those are the names for grandma and grandpa and it sometimes feels a little weird still calling them Mr. and Mrs.! 🙂
 
I’m so glad that I’m not the only one who has wrestled with this!

We’re married 35 years this year, and have been together since our freshman year in college (married the week after graduation in ‘74.) When we were dating “Mr. and Mrs.” worked fine, but sounded awkward after we married. However, I could no more have called them by their first names than I could have flapped my arms and flown to the moon. So, until we had kids I called them absolutely nothing (of course, we have always lived 1500 miles away, so the problem didn’t present itself but a couple of times a year!) When our girls arrived, they just became “Grandma” and “Grandpa”. Same held true for my dh with my parents, though they were “Nana” and “Grampa”. At my parents’ 50th anniversary party, my dh referred to them by their first names for the first time; he was 45 at the time!

My southern SIL calls me either “Ms (first name)” or “Mama G” (last name). My midwestern SIL is continuing the trend we started and calls me nothing, except in writing or emails, when he addresses me as “Mrs. G.” I imagine that problem will be solved when I, too, become “Nana” or similar.
 
My parents are Jehovah’s Witnesses. They refused to come to our wedding, even though I offered to pay for travel and all accommodations. They have never spoken to my wife of nearly 10 years. I speak to my father through email about once every 6 to 18 months. I have not seen my parents since I was 18; I am now 46.

I call my wife’s parents Mom and Dad. And to the little boy we are fostering they are Grandma and Grandpa.

My wife’s parents, as annoying as in-laws can be, are simply saints. They have accepted me with open arms and love their baby girl’s husband.

I still zing my MIL of course because I find it to be a duty, a responsibility, and a tradition of merit.
 
Mom and Dad. My father in law’s name is Richard, but he doesn’t go by Richard, he goes by D!ck…which I refuse to use as a proper name. It just feels wrong.

So a while back, when I became estranged from my own parents, I started calling my in laws Mom and Dad. My mother in law was honored, as I’m the only daughter in law to call her Mom. They really are, by now, more my parents than my own birth parents. So i feel very comfortable calling them Mom and Dad.
 
I call my in-laws by their first names. I know my husband has never called my parents by their first names… I don’t think he has ever called them anything. He is afraid. heehee. I think my mom is totally fine with being called anything. My dad is scary and he is a professor so everyone calls him Dr. ____. I haven’t heard anyone ever call him Tom except my mom. I still tell my DH to call him Tom.

I wonder what makes this whole situation sooooo awkward??
 
I know this comes up from time to time on this board, and I have never understood this question or why it is a dilemma.

They have names, and that is what I call them by.
 
I call my in-laws “mom and dad.” I never thought I would be comfortable with that, but they are truly like second parents to me, so it works! My niece and nephew, on the other hand, call me Krissy. Being that I was only 11 when my nephew was born and 17 when my niece was born, I have no problem with that.
 
1ke said:
I know this comes up from time to time on this board, and I have never understood this question or why it is a dilemma.

They have names, and that is what I call them by.
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Because many want to be called Mr and Mrs and some want to be called by their first names and some want to be called Mom and Dad.

I just asked. But many newly married people are afraid to ask.
 
My kids are still young, but I think I would be really sad if, when they marry, they call their Mother in law “Mom.” 😦 I am their “Mom” and I wouldn’t want to share that title with anyone else.

I know that sounds petty… :o But it really is how I feel - right now anyhow. Maybe I’ll feel differently when they are grown?
 
yellowbird said:
My kids are still young, but I think I would be really sad if, when they marry, they call their Mother in law “Mom.” 😦 I am their “Mom” and I wouldn’t want to share that title with anyone else.

I know that sounds petty… :o But it really is how I feel - right now anyhow. Maybe I’ll feel differently when they are grown?
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I am grown, and would never call my MIL, Mom. That title is reserved for my Mother. It helps that my MIL doesn’t like me and I very rarely see her.
 
yellowbird said:
My kids are still young, but I think I would be really sad if, when they marry, they call their Mother in law “Mom.” 😦 I am their “Mom” and I wouldn’t want to share that title with anyone else.

I know that sounds petty… :o But it really is how I feel - right now anyhow. Maybe I’ll feel differently when they are grown?
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I call my in laws “Mom and Dad” because they treat me like a loved daughter, unlike my own parents, who couldn’t be bothered to even tell me where my brother was finally buried after they dithered about it for four years. My “birth” parents treat me like ****, but my in laws treat me with love and respect. They have EARNED the right to be called Mom and Dad by me.

And if that makes my mother–who hasn’t bothered to speak to me in five years–sad, then that’s tough on her, I suppose. But she chose to treat me and my husband badly. She forfeited her Mom title.

As for my own kids, it won’t hurt me or disturb me one bit if, when and if they marry, they have a close enough relationship with their inlaws to call them Mom and Dad, if they so choose. I will hope to be secure enough in my relationship with my grown kids to not feel like their in laws are poaching on my territory. 😉
 
DH and I are high school sweethearts, married now almost six years. I don’t think I’ve called them by any name to their face, although if I’m feeling brave, I might use their first names to refer to them around DH’s family. It seems awkward calling them “DH’s mom” or “DH’s dad” in that situation! But that’s what I call them otherwise.

… although his mom has a family nickname. Everyone in the family, her mom, siblings, nieces and nephews, call her Sis. But I think she introduced herself to me as Stella the first time we met. So for the longest time I wasn’t sure what to call her, Sis or Stella. Nobody else calls her Stella in the family, so I felt like such an outsider.

But then again, the first time we met, she asked DH right in front of me, “but you’re not just dating her, are you? You’re dating other girls too, right?” She wasn’t been nasty, just really thoughtless. I was actually DH’s first girlfriend!

I’d actually like to call them Mom and Dad, but I think that might make them uncomfortable. DH’s mom refers to her parents-in-law by their first names, and his dad refers to his mother-in-law (DH’s grandma) as “Baci” - so does everyone else in the family, including DH’s mother.
 
I call my ILs “Mom” and “Dad” because that’s what my DH asked me to call them. (He takes our marital oneness seriously, and I love him for it.)

DH asked me what he should call my mom and dad, so I said, “John and Mrs. ____” because my mom used to freak if my friends tried to call her by her first name. She eventually asked him to call her “Mom.”🙂

But when I talk to my real mom and dad, I refer to my ILs as “Mr. and Mrs. _________.” For clarity and also to preserve their feelings.🙂
 
Since my husband’s family and mine all had very wacky senses of humor,😛 I just called them “Mudder” and “Fadder.” They liked it and it sure was less confusing.

The man I married was 6 years younger than I and ONLY 3 years older than my eldest niece. She couldn’t call him ‘uncle;’ she said she’d choke on the word! LOL
 
My father is from Brazil and I have always called him by his first name. My mother is Mamãe. That is what my husband now calls them, and has since we got married.

His parents are a different story. He calls them Mom and Dad. I call them Mom and Dad, Ellen and David, Gramma and Grampa, your parents, and even James’ parents. It depends on the situation, who I am talking with, and how comfortable I am.
 
yellowbird said:
My kids are still young, but I think I would be really sad if, when they marry, they call their Mother in law “Mom.” 😦 I am their “Mom” and I wouldn’t want to share that title with anyone else.

I know that sounds petty… :o But it really is how I feel - right now anyhow. Maybe I’ll feel differently when they are grown?
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Well, the sad fact is sometimes you have to borrow. My grandfather lived in the house between that of my friend and I (cozy!) so she called him the same thing I did: “Grandpop”. Her grandfather had been long dead.

Similarly, by the time my eldest daughter was 1, she only had one grandparent left, a distant grandfather. My wife’s cousin is 23 years older than her and had grandkids the same age as my kids. Her grandkids called her “Grandma” so my kids have called my wife’s cousin “Grandma” to this day, the only grandma they will ever get to meet. Me, I call her ‘Grandma’, too. My wife calls her ‘Aunt Gwen’ which I consider highly inaccurate.
 
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