What do you call your in-laws

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La Chiara:
Hey folks, of course it’s awkward to call people who are not your parents “Mom” and “Dad”. It is for all of us. But it is respectful and a sign that you view your spouse’s family as your own family. I feel very strongly about it.
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Every family is different. My parents would not want to be called mom and dad by my husband. They love my husband dearly but they are very formal people. My husband actually doesn’t know what to call them, so he avoids calling them anything. Most of the time they’ll sign their cards to him Mr and Mrs “…” or they’ll use a German term since my dad is German.

I call my mother in law by her first name because when I was dating my husband, I worked with my mother in law (at the time boyfriends mom ofcourse) and everyone at work went by their first name. It was weird for me at first because I was raised not to call elders by their first names.

My father in law told me to call him by his first name after we were married because I called him Mr. “last name”. I could never call him dad. He was an abusive, controlling father to my husband. He wanted his mom to have an abortion and tried to force her to give him up for adoption after my husband was born. And we’ve had to tolerate bouts of nastiness from him during our marriage. Nope he’ll never get the title dad from me unless he starts acting like one.
 
I wouldn’t dream of calling someone other than my parents Mom and Dad. Seems disrespectful to MY parents. They earned the title…in fact GOD gave it to them.

I call my in-laws by their first names. Of course, since they are divorced and remarried, my husband calls half of them by their first names, too.

Now that we have children, we often call them by their grandparent title, Mammaw, Pappaw, Granddad, etc.

I also can’t stand it when a freind of mine has their children call me Aunt… I am not their Aunt. Mrs… will do fine, thank you. I have yet to figure out how to get them to stop. I make my kids call them Mr. and Mrs. I would think they would get the hint…guess not.
 
Our biggest problem was coming up with a name for my husband’s current step-mother when we had children. We tried to give each grandparent a different name because I don’t like the grandma (last name) thing. Each grandparent has a different name: mammaw, pappaw, grandma, grandpa. We could not get the step mom to pick a name. She thought she was too young to be a grandma (she is only nine years older than me). We called her nothing for a few years when finally she asked what her name was. We told her grandma (first name). She accepted that and that is what it has been. Still strange though, I think that the use of a first name puts her in the outer ring. My husband’s step-father is pappaw. We wanted the step-mom to be Nanna or something non-grandmother like. She wanted grandma but My Mom already had that title. Thus we just tacked her first name on it.

The benefit of providing the first grandchild is that we got to name the grandparents. hee hee hee. Now they are stuck with my titles. hee hee hee.
Aren’t families great?
 
I call my MIL “Gramma” when she’s visiting, along with the kids. (I’ve apologized in case I make her feel old.) I find it hard to call her Mom, and her first name doesn’t feel right, either. I don’t think she knows either, because cards and letters are sometimes signed with her first name, and others with Mom.

My in-laws are divorced, so FIL and SMIL are called by their first names.

My husband calls my parents by their first names.
 
I didn’t vote, because I call my FIL “Pop,” and my MIL “Irene.”
 
I am not married, but both my sisters are, and my brother has been twice. Both my brothers-in-law call my mother Miss (first name). It is what my mother prefers. She does not want to be called Mom, because they already have mothers, and she does not want to be called Miss or Mrs (Last name) because she is divorced from my father and does not really like the reminder of his name. Both of my ex SIL’s refused to call my mother ANYTHING, and I can tell you it hurt her deeply. (She even said at one point that she would respond to ‘hey you’, if only because they FINALLY addressed her directly!) She says it made her feel as though they did not see her as an individual worthy of proper address. So for those of you who choose not to address your in-laws by anything, please reconsider-- they may not tell you that you are being hurtful or disrespectful, but you are.

Have a great day!
Judy
 
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juno24:
I So for those of you who choose not to address your in-laws by anything, please reconsider-- they may not tell you that you are being hurtful or disrespectful, but you are.

Have a great day!
Judy
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I’m sure that can be true for some people but in my particular case I think my parents are hardly aware that my husband doesn’t refer to them by any name. He does speak to them directly, he just avoids any name reference. That would be very offended being called by their first names. I have a friend that I’ve know since we were young children (my parents were friends of her parents as well) and she’s taken to calling my parents by their first name and they hate it, they find it very disrespectful.

They them themselves do not know what they are comfotable being called by the way they sign greeting cards to my husband. Those that are hurt by not being called anything should inform their daughter/son in law what they would like to called.
 
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rayne89:
I have a friend that I’ve know since we were young children (my parents were friends of her parents as well) and she’s taken to calling my parents by their first name and they hate it, they find it very disrespectful.
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I also find it disrespectful to call an elder by just their first name without being invited to do so. Growing up, all the kids in our neighborhood called the adults "Mr (First name) or Miss (First name). None of the adults had a problem with it. Maybe it is a regional thing; I don’t know.
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rayne89:
They them themselves do not know what they are comfotable being called by the way they sign greeting cards to my husband. Those that are hurt by not being called anything should inform their daughter/son in law what they would like to called.
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My mother also had a difficult time with deciding how to sign cards and such, and it was due directly to my SIL’s refusal to call her anything. She told both of them that she would like to be called “Miss (First name)”, or even just “First Name”, but both refused to ever address her directly by any name at all. They spoke to her-- don’t get me wrong-- but they never addressed her by a name. She did tell them how she felt, and she spoke to my brother about it as well. Apparently none of them cared that it hurt and disrespected her, but perhaps that is another issue.

Have a great day,
Judy
 
This is one of my favorite stories -

I called them Mr. and Mrs. the entire time we dated. While out to dinner two weeks before the wedding, I asked my then-future father-in-law what he would LIKE to be called after we married.

He gently reached across the table, put his hand over mine, and replied, “We’ve only got one daughter. It would be nice to have two.”

AWWWWWWW…(BTW, they’ve been Mom and Dad since that moment!)
 
I call my MIL by her first name, but call her mom on greeting cards and gifts. Same with the FIL. Both our parents are divorced and remarried… so lots of first names floating around. My dad just died this past August, so I would find it very difficult to call any other inlaw “Dad.”

My MIL calls me her daughter, then corrects and says ‘in-law’
She realizes I call just my mom, “mom”… even my step-mom I call by her first name. always have. But she is touched that we refer to her as a step-mom instead of ‘stepmother’ .

The kids call all the grandparents by Grandpa or Grandma followed by the first name.

Oh what a tangled web is woven by divorce.
Kids question who is my mom and who is dad’s mom, and why arent they married to your dads??? But that’s another story.
 
I call my MIL by her first name and my FIL what my children call him, Poppy. 🙂
 
Well, my MIL didn’t even want her kids calling her “mom” so they called her by her first name. I do the same. She tries to put that **** on my kids too but I won’t allow it. They call her grandma.
 
I call them “the late Mr. and Mrs…” since they’re both dead.
 
I couldn’t answer the poll because I call my mother-in-law mom (she asked me to) but I call my father-in-law (old-fashioned kind of guy) Mr. X which always was kind of akward, I thought. However, the problem got solved when we had kids–now I call him Grandpa!
 
I call them by their first names, but to be honest, I didn’t want to. I wanted to call them “mom and dad” because once married, I took my vow to my husband to mean that we are now part of the same family, being two halves of one whole. So, I was hurt, at first that they didn’t want me to call them “mom and dad.” Now, I realize that my mother in law is a bit selfish and persnickity 🙂 and my father in law is distant… and calling them by their first names sort of relieves the pressure because it gives me emotional distance from them. I think it’s sad however, personally, that they would not choose for me to have a closer relationship with them, because I did want that at first. But, now I have learned to accept them as they are and have much fewer expectations of them being close with me. I just pray for them, and when it is time for them to need my help in their old age, I will be there for them by God’s grace.

God bless,
-Amy
 
🙂 I love my mom in law. I call her Mom or Ma. I love her as much as I love my mommy. 🙂 When I refer to her, I refer to her as my mom in law. 😃

My dad in law is in heaven (well, we pray for him to be there, he passed away 31 years ago). He was a very special man, and I will be SO blessed to meet him one day there, where we can praise God and celebrate together the love of our Lord. 🙂

When my dh and I were married (16 years ago), we became one…that includes one family. I love his mom, he loves mine, and we respect and love each other’s families very much.

Hope this helps!
Blessings and Peace,
Tracy
 
Although I never met my father-in-law (he died 2 years before I met my husband) My mother in law was always “Mama”, she herself died Aug of 2003. For over 27 years she was always there along with my mother I was so fortunate to have both a wonderful mother and mother-in-law. In fact MIL did something above and beyond. When my daughter was born and was blessed with 2 grandmas, my baby sister (who is only a few months older then my daughter) started calling her grandma and she was so proud, that when my little sister had her first child shortly before she died she proudly displayed pictures of her “great grandaughter”
 
When I (hopefully!) have in-laws one day, I’ll call them Mr. and Mrs. Lastname.
 
My FIL passed away 7 months before my husband and I married. He was quiet and I wish I could have gotten to know him better. I call my MIL by her first name and wouldn’t have it any other way. My parents gave birth to me so they are the only ones I will ever call Mom and Dad. But that is just me, everybody is different.
 
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