Addressing the In-Laws as "Mom & Dad"
 

This has sort of been a small bone of contention between my in-laws and myself over the last year. A little background:

My husband's parents divorced when he was 2 or 3, and both had remarried by the time he was 6, to their current spouses. There is no drama, everyone's friends, holiday events are pretty surreal with all the ex-spouses and the non-fighting. My husband calls both sets of his parents "mom and dad" which is understandable since both sets had a hand in raising him and he doesn't really feel closer to either side, which is great and I love that. Even though it leads to confusion when he says something like, "My mom..." and I have to ask him to clarify "which one?"

My problem here is, my parents are also "mom and dad" and I have a hard time addressing 3 women as mom, and 3 men as dad, so I call his parents by their first names (all 4 of them), and they have told me "call me mom/dad, you're family now" and I can tell it bothers them a bit that I don't (some more than others).

Blended families are now pretty common, how do you deal with the in-laws as "mom and dad" situation?

I would quite simply state that it's confusing to you to call three people Mom and Three people dad. that it's no disrespect to them, but it's just easier for you... My guess, once/if you have kids, you'll be calling them grandma and grandpa - all of them, and to clarify, it might have to be Grandma Mary and Grandma Jane (for example).

I've been married for 18 years and I cannot IMAGINE calling my MIL "mom" or "mama" as she's not and thankfully, I think she would hate it. I call her by her first name.

I call my in-laws by their first names and my husband calls my parents by theirs. It did get a little easier when we had kids since the kids called one set Grammy and Grampy and the other set Nana and Grampa. Eventually we followed suit so it was less confusing for everyone.

My MIL wanted me to call her mom, but I just couldn't, it felt disrespectful to my mother. My mother understood my concerns and told my husband to call her (almost!) anything he was comfortable with. It worked for us.

My in laws are not divorced so my answer may not help but I call them Mom and Dad, and have since before our engagement (as soon as we knew we were going to end up married).

My husband calls my dad and my moms current husband by first name, but calls my mama "mama".

I say whatever makes you comfortable. Talk to them about it if they get upset about it.

I just couln't bring myself to call my in laws Mom and Dad although they expected it. I solved that by making them grandparents and then called them Grandma and Grandpa.

Well, I am not married so I can't speak of "in laws", but with my ex's parents, I always called them by their names. Now, with my boyfriend, I call his mother by her name (his dad is dead :( ), but I wouldn't mind calling her "mom". First, because my boyfriend is Scottish and I am Uruguayan, therefore my first language is Spanish and I talk to my parents in Spanish (so I call them "mami" and "papi" or "papá" y "mamá"), so I could perfectly call her "mom" without it feeling weird. Besides, her name is actually a bit difficult for me to pronounce, so that would make it easier...and frankly, I think she would like it :D

We initial.

When I'm talking, "Mom" is my mom.

And "Mom B." is my MIL. I call her anything from Mom (if there's no other moms around) Mom L. (if other moms are around), crazy lady (affection), and Nana Banana (if there's grandkids around)

When DH is talking, he goes with "My Mom" is his mom and he calls her "Mom." He calls my mother "Mom" if there is no other moms around, and "Mom A." if there is.

A.

:lol: I always called my inlaws "hi" and "how are you"

Although my parents are divorced, I have no contact with my biological father right now. My husband did meet him but I can't remember what he called him.

I call my husband's parents as mama and papa. It felt natural to do. My husband calls my mother mom. My stepfather is called by his name by both my husband and myself.

I call my stepmother by her first name (and when my stepfather was alive, I called him by his first name), so I didn't naturally start calling my mother-in-law "mom" (my husband's father is deceased). I always use her first name.

Of course, she hasn't asked me to call her mom, I suppose if she did, I would try. If it means a lot to someone, why not?

Hahahaha me too!
My SIL asked me what I call my in-laws, and I said "I don't!"
When talking about them I will say "your mom" and "your dad" to my husband. But I've never had to actually call them anything. If I did, it would probably be their first names - even though we get along great and I love them dearly, I don't feel comfortable calling them Mom and Dad.

It would feel very strange to me to call my in-laws Mom and Dad. I don't like the thought of it at all. :) I call them all (also divorced) by their first names, and if I'm talking to my husband about them, I say "your mom," "your dad," or "step-parent name." If I'm talking to my kids about them, I use their grandparent names.

Well, my husband calls me my mom "Mom", but that's because we live together and when me and my man got married, she told him to call her whatever he feels comfortable with. Since his own mom died when we was 10, it was as if he got a new one when he married me :)

On the other hand, I call my husband's father by his first name. He has little to do with us as a family, not that he is bad or anything, but he just doesn't care much. My twin girls are his only grandchildren, they are nearly 11 months now and he only saw them once. He never seems to have time. So we are not close at all, hence the first name has to do!

If I were you, I'd just politely explain that it's confusing for you to call three people "mom" and "dad". They shouldn't be offended, and if they will be, they will get over it :devil:

My inlaws aren't divorced but I call them by their first names. With my divorced and remarried parents, they have always been "Mom and Rick" and "Dad and Janae".

Kept confusion to a minimum then and now!

I call my in-laws by their names. They aren't my parents so I don't call them mom or dad. They don't have an issue with it.

This is the second marriage for my husband and I. Our 4 kids got tired of saying 'my mom and your dad" or "my dad and your mom" or "Dad and Sue" or any other combination thereof so they just call us "the JPU". (joint parental unit!)

I call my in laws mama and dad, cuz my parents are persian and we say maman and baba for mom and dad so it doesnt bother me lol

I call my MIL by her first name, when I don't call her "B*tch."

And generally, I end every sentence of discussion with or about her with ". B*tch." in my mind.

Kinda like ending fortunes with "in bed."

Just comes naturally to me after 14 years of having the.... well you get the picture.... in my life.

Oh, and I call my FIL Carter. :)

OMG I JUST LAUGHED SO HARD I SNORTED lollllllll Im sorry, you just took what I usually think and wrote it down.

I call my in-laws by their first names, even though I find it SO awkward. I have grown up with people mostly calling their in-laws Mr. and Miss First Name (or occasionally Mr. Mrs. Last Name, but only with VERY formal, distant in-laws), so that feels natural to me. In-Laws WILL NOT HAVE IT. Awkward.

I could not call them Mom and Dad. Sorry. I have a Mom and Dad. If that feels natural to other people, fantastic. Happy for you. But for me, it does not.

I call them by their first names. They sign cards to me "Mom and Dad" and even then it feels odd. I can understand if you feel particularly close to your in-laws calling them Mom and Dad, but that's not me.

I didn't call my ILs anything either until I had children, then they became the kids nickname for them.

I only have one mom and one dad and have never called the in-laws by either, weird to me. Never even called them by their name either, when I saw them just said Hi and that was about it. My DiL before her and my son were married made the mistake of calling me Mom without ever taking into consideration what I wanted her to call me or ever asked wha I wanted her to call me. She has never called me mom again and calls me by my name. She also has 3 step-dads that she calls dad and when she refers to her Dad I have to say "which one?" Very confusing to me.

I would never call them mom or dad.

I don't really have my dad in my life, I do consider FIL to be "my dad", I would go to him for help & advice before my own mother! But I still call him by his first name 'cause I don't want DH to call me sis ;)

I'm not married yet, but I call my boyfriend's parents by their first names and that situation will not change when/if we get married.

I call my MIL mom, but I can understand where you come from. Calling three different people mom is confusing. Maybe address them as mom to their faces, and when use their names when talking to your husband? Its cool that everyone gets along though.

Everyone calls my MIL "mom". She lives with her husband (step-father to my husband) and his children (who are now in their early 20s). Whenever their friends come over, they all call her "mom" or "ma" as she has the super mothering and nurturing to every person kind of attitude. However, I just feel odd calling her Mom because I feel as if I would be disrespecting to my own mother. Is that odd? Maybe I should ask my mom how she feels about it LOL. As for my FIL, I call him Doug as he is very formal and would feel really awkward if I called him "Dad".

I am another who doesn't call them anything usually. If it came down to a necessity, I would call them by their first name. It just feels weird, though and it rarely happens. I have never and would never call them Mom and Dad. After the kids were born; it was more common to call them mammaw and pappaw. But, I still don't usually use a name when talking to them and would say your mom or your dad to hubby if I was talking to him about his parents.

I had a very long term relationship with an xbf as a tween, teen and even off and on in college. His mom loved me (more than he did, I think, lol) and always asked me to call her "mama." We were pretty close, much closer than I am to my MIL and it still felt a little weird to me; even with calling her mama instead of mom.

I call my future in-laws by their first names. We've never discussed anything otherwise and they don't seem bothered by it. I noticed that my fiance's mother calls her husband's parents by their first names so I guess they don't care if I do that too. My fiance calls my parents by their first names too.

I don't know, it would be pretty weird for me to call them Mom and Dad. I could, considering that my own parents are still Mommy and Daddy :P ...I don't know why I never stopped calling them that :lol:

My inlaws are divorced and my mil has married 3 times since. So her dh's do not count, especially since she is now divorced again. I used to call her mom, we used to be really close...until I married her son. She has mental issues, and has stated to dh and to much of her family, that I do not love dh, only she does. She reallllllly does not like me, because dh now has a family and she is not the center of attention. I try to understand, I do encourage dh to go see her..but the last straw was a year ago Thanksgiving, when she faked a mental breakdown, and we spent hours at the hospital with her and finally admitted her into a psych hosp. We spent the holiday away from our kids. What really sealed it for dh was if I was not in the room, she was "comatose" but if I walked in she frowned and made snarling noises. He's had it, she can't accept his family, he says he's done.So no, I do not call her Mom.
My fil I do call Dad. In his own way, he does love me like his own daughter. His wife....well dh won't even mutter anything close to mom at her. She really tried to cast a bad image of their own mother as they were growing up. Even though my mil is screwed up, she still will talk bad about her to dh and his sister. So no, she's not mom either. But his grandma is like a grandma to me, so I do call her grandma...and all his aunts and uncles are my family too.

I still call mine mommy and daddy on occasion. I never grew out of that either. My mom calls my dad's parents 'mom and dad' and my dad always called her mom 'mama'... I am having a weird time of it because of what I've grown up with seeing and what I'm comfortable doing are different.

I call my MIL by the same nickname that all of her kids use and I call my FIL "Pops".