Mom and Dad not Mommy and Daddy

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Pandora Box, I think you are assuming that parents are modeling and encouraging the youthful terms, but in my experience that isn't usually the case. School age kids often make their own choices in these areas, and they should be allowed to. Kids get to decide how fast they want to grow up, and shouldn't be forced to grow up faster than they are comfortable with.

I actually use a whole variety of terms, no idea why some variations roll off my tongue at certain moments. If my kids find it an inappropriate usage for the context, they laugh or roll their eyes.

If a parent was trying to FORCE their child to stick with the cute terms, you would have a point. But I think that is really rare. In most cases it's just a pattern unique to a demographic.

I disagree, but whatever floats your boats.

I was not really talking to you guys about your parenting. Just parenting in general.

To me Mommy and Daddy should be thrown out the window at 3. Period.

Good parents would never dream of making such a hard and fast rule about something so completely unimportant in the big scheme of things. It isn't life threatening, it doesn't play at the emotional core of the child, and it doesn't affect their ability to function in society. Thus, completely unimportant in the big scheme of things. One of the top rules of parenting: pick your battles.

sounds like very black and white autistic thinking. there are a lot of shades of gray as a parent, tho. lots and lots of gray.

also a rather ironic conversation, given how common pedantic language is within the spectrum. it tickles me that my 4 yr old sometimes calls me "mother" instead of mommy. im not about to force him to change that either. he is who he is, and that comes out in his speech. i love him even more for his quirks.

So where do I stand, then? I've called my parents Mum and Dad for years, but my father prefers to be called "Daddy," and is extremely pleased when I refer to him as such or address something (for instance, a gift) "to Daddy."
Should I stop treating my father in his preferred manner because it bothers you that he enjoys such a simple facet of language - something that reminds him of when terms like "Daddy" came naturally to his children's speech?

I was never allowed to call my parents "mommy" and "daddy".

That's for a two year old.

Not a twenty year old, not a four year old.

I just think that your comments are not really appropriate here on the parent's forum. What you describe is an issue between you and your parents. A common theme I see from adults and young adults on the spectrum who post here is that they wish their parents had done things differently than they did, not advice that we should follow in their parents' footsteps. I see no sense at all in your suggestion that we insist our children stop referring to us in a particular way at the age of three. How arbitrary can you possibly be?

It sounds...wrong.

Mom and Dad or Mum and Dad. Is fine. Papi or Mami is fine too. I understand the cultural ones.

But Mommy and Daddy...no.

And this has nothing to do with my parents. See unlike most people's parents my age, my parents treated me like a growing adult. That I was to grow up as an adult.

I get tired of the cutesy parenting.

"Mommy is going to make you lunch," or "Don't do that to daddy"'

There is a cut off point, where mommy and daddy don't work. It doesn't make you sound professional, it doesn't make you sound like an adult, it doesn't sound at all appropriate.

i dont expect my children to sound professional OR adult. its unrealistic to expect a child to act in that manner, and any parent who expects such things is doing their children a huge disservice. children are called children and not adults for a reason.... its because they are children and not adults. they arent growing adults, not adults in training, not little adults.... they are children.

my children also dont give a lick if i sound professional. in fact, im sure they would hate me to act professional when what they want, and need, is a mommy.

btw, i asked my 4 yr old, and according to him, there is a difference between being a mom and being a mommy. he says i am his mommy. so apparently, he disagrees with you.

And it made an impression on you, apparently.

Well, I prefer that when I make an impression on my kids, it be about something I consider more important.

Children are likely to prioritize what they believe their parents prioritize.

When my AS son was two, we were busy with biting issues. I cannot imagine focusing on what he called me and detracting from the focus on not biting, or running away, or pulling everything off the grocery store shelf. I had to pick my battles, and that was one I would not choose to pick. Ever. It isn't that important to me what my kids call me as long as it is happy and positive, and I've never understood parents who do make an issue of it. But, you know, everyone is different. Just my personal opinion.

What my kids call me depends on what they need, as I noted before. When they are really upset, it's mommy, because they associated the affectionate mommy with comfort. When it's normal conversation, it's mom. When they are annoyed, it's the overly formal mother.

As for cutsey parenting from my mouth - pretty rare, not that I have a problem with it. Just that referring to oneself in the third person isn't what I do. I don't ask my kids if mommy should make them a sandwich, I model proper English and ask if they would like ME to make a sandwich.

My thoughts exactly. The examples the OP gave were really weird. I'm thinking, "Who talks like that to other than preschoolers?" Perhaps that is her problem. My 50 and 60 year old aunts and uncles called their father daddy up to the day he died. I call my father Daddy as do pretty much all the kids I grew up around. There probably are southern U.S. roots with the terminology. Nobody talks in third person like that to their kids like that. At least not on my "planet".

I'm male.

And I live in California.

And this does seem like a common occurrence when I walk around everywhere, everyday. I hear it from a lot of people.

Especially young mothers.

Sorry for the wrong assumption. I don't usually do that unless I'm sure.

Well my little girl (4 in February) told me the other day for the first (and only) time that "I love mummy" . There was no prompting, I wasn't talking about love or anything, it was completely her doing. You know what - I'm glad she does. We've not got a firm diagnosis so we're still in the stage of making lots of mistakes (does that ever go away?) but now I have that affirmation I feel much better - for her. It's not mommy because we're English so its the over the pond equiv of what you were saying. She has significant speech delays so she can damn well say what she wants and if she sounds ret*d as a result that's your look out.

What? I've always called my parents mommy and daddy or mother and father. Mom and dad sounds very impersonal to me, and I dislike hearing it let alone typing it. I don't even use the second person when talking to my family. I talk in the third person with their names.

They are all variations of the same concept... I do not understand why you feel so passionately about a variation of a word that is even acceptable or the norm in some dialects, which of course change.

My son pretty much makes these decisions. He doesn't like "baby words" either and will angrily correct people who refer to us as "mommy and daddy." I find it rather amusing, since he still uses a blankey.

While we're talking pet peeves - I really hate the use of the word "ret*d" as it was used in the original post and I imagine many parents of special needs children feel the same.