How do you address your IL's?

[Sign Of The Fish Burger]

I've always been curious about this. What do you call your IL's?

My mom always called my grandmother (her MIL) by her first name, and same with my Dad (calling his MIL by her first name).

It wasn't until I married my DH that I noticed my SIL calls her MIL "Mom". So she'll answer the phone "Hi Mom!" even though it's her husbands mom. I donno it just seems a bit off to me.

I call my MIL by her first name and I've often wondered if she would want me to call her Mom? I couldn't bring myself to it. She isn't my Mom, could never replace my Mom and certainly dosen't act as Motherly as my Mom does. But because my husband is the only boy, I'm her only daughter in law so I don't have other married into the family females to compare myself to. Non of the sons in law (3 of them) call her Mom, but I'm wondering if a daughter in law is different?

 

[marezee]

i agree...i don't call my MIL mom because she is not my mom.
I call her by her first name...same with my FIL.
My DH will sometimes call his own mother by her first name! which i find offensive...i would not want my boys calling me by my first name!! DH always calls his dad "pop" so why not call his mom "mom" or "ma?"
anywho...i only call my own mother mom.

 

[Redguard]

I call them by their first names. If it wasn't for them requesting me to stop, I'd still be calling Mr. and Mrs. So'n'so. My parents raised me to do that and had the expectation that my friends do the same when addressing them.

This caused a problem for my wife, who did not want to be formal with them. But it took my parents a while to accept the idea of her calling them by their first names. As far as they were concerned, it was just another example of disrespectful Canadian culture.

But they've outgrown their old-school/country mentality and have come to accept it (from Mrs. Redguard). But my friends and my sister's friends will still use the Mr. and Mrs. titles.

 

[gracepaints]

I call my MIL and FIL "mom" and "dad". After almost 8 years, my Dh STILL doesn't call my father by ANYTHING. I have no idea how he has managed this for 8 years, but I swear it is true.

 

[felinity]

I don't really know what to call my in-laws, and I've been married for two years. I just had this conversation over on the WD board about how children address adults; I never really got a lot of guidance in that area, and I don't always know how to proceed.

I sometimes call them by their first names, and I sometimes call them Mom and Dad, depending on the context. Mostly, I come up with awkward sentence structures to avoid having to use any name at all. It's kind of exhausting! Fortunately, they aren't the sort to be offended either way.

 

[snoochface]

I call them by their first names. When I'm talking to my husband or his brother about my father-in-law, I call him Dad, but just for ease of discussion.

 

[Gods4me]

i dont see my in laws so i ont call them anything.

kevin on recenty managed to call my parents ther first ames before that it was nothing, he just kinda ignored calling them anything. he ever had there number saved in his phone as lynn's mum and dad. now he has there first names.

although he does joke with my mum about being his mum cause some one once thought that she was the parent of him, me my 2 brothers and our son...

 

[moonkitty]

I call my in-laws by thier first name. Every now and then when I'm joking around with my MIL I call her mom.

 

[GolfingMom]

I call them by their first name. I'm the only DIL that does that though. Everyone else calls them mom/dad.

 

[Kelly]

MIL - When I am around her w/ my kids she's "Grandma", just us "Mom" or her name. Same with FIL.

 

[Beautiful Fireball]

I call my MIL by her first name. Though I've never had to address DH's dad and stepmom I would call them by their first name as well.

Dh calls my parents by their first name. My parent's each referred to their inlaws as mom or dad

 

[Rebekka]

I call them by their first names - but I usually avoid it, because they never refer to themselves (to me) with their first names, they say "Mother & Father Lastname", which they see as a compromise between first names and mum & dad. They would like me to say mum and dad, but I can't. They're not my parents, and I don't like my MIL, so I don't think she deserves the title of mum.

The first couple of years I didn't call them anything, because Mr & Mrs Lastname was way too formal IMO for a family relationship (it would make me feel secondrate - my MIL has a way to make me feel secondrate anyway), and they never invited me to call them by their first names. It's their job to do that, but they didn't. I got tired of waiting and avoiding, so I asked them if it was alright to call them by their first names. They said yes. But they seem a bit uncomfortable about it.

My inlaws only have one other child-in-law, and I have no idea how he addresses them - I think he avoids it, too. I've never heard him address my MIL or FIL - and he's been around them much longer than I have (about 10 years). So I couldn't follow his example.

My husband has called my parents by their first names from the beginning. They have no problem with that.

My parents called their inlaws mum and dad.

 

[Oblivious]

I was calliing my MIL "Mom" before I was even married.

As far the other ILs, I considered them as my family too and refer to them as Uncle, Aunt, etc.

 

[jelvenko]

I refer to both of them by their first names.

There's been a few times I've called my MIL "mom" by accident... But it's not something that I plan on making a habit of.
With my FIL I don't ever call him dad. I think part of it is because he's my hubby's step-dad and my hubby also calls him by his first name.

With my hubby's little brother, I find it easier at times to refer to him as my little brother when people ask how old my son is. (He's going to be 7 in a week. And when DH and I go to the store with the IL's people automatically assume that he is our son, and that my IL's are his grandparents. Very annoying to explaing all the time.)

And I call his aunt and uncle, aunt and uncle as well.

 

[invisiblebabe]

I call them Mom and Dad, although I usually don't need to address my FIL by name so it's not an issue lol. When I'm talking about them to other people, I just call them my in-laws or "[husband's name]'s mom/dad."

 

[Antje]

I grew up hearing my parents call their respective in-laws "Mom" and "Dad", so that's what I would probably feel most comfortable with if I had my choice.

However, when I married into DH's family, they already had a son-in-law who called them by their first names, and so I just followed his example. I think my inlaws feel a special connection to their biological children and wouldn't be comfortable with me and my brother-in-law sharing the words "mom" and "dad".

My husband never grew up with any family members calling their in-laws "mom" and "dad", so it would feel very unnatural for him to call my parents that. My brother's wife also calls my parents by their names. I think my parents would prefer to be called "mom & dad", but it's not a huge deal. My mom routinely refers to "all 5 of my children" meaning 3 biologicals + 2 in-laws.

 

[Million Pieces]

I call them Mom and Dad, . . . When I'm talking about them to other people, I just call them my in-laws or "[husband's name]'s mom/dad."

This is how I am too. They're just Mom and Dad, and to others they're "the inlaws" or "his/[DH name's] parents".

 

[Xinnamon]

I call them mom/dad in Chinese. In my culture it's considered unacceptable to call your in-laws by their first names. During my grandparents' era they used specific Chinese terms for "Mother-in-Law" and "Father-in-Law" (different terms depending on whether they are the wife's parents or the husband's parents), but we don't do it anymore.. it's just Mom/Dad now.

 

[OrangeHope]

I call them by their first names and so does my DH with my parents, the only one my DH doesn't call by the first name is my Grandma, he calls her grandma too cause we're really close to her and she considers him as one of her grandchildren.

 

[EbonNelumbo]

definitely going to go with first names, if that friendly.