Not saying something like "mom" and "dad"

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Eloa
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27 Dec 2011, 6:45 pm

I never said something like "mom" and "dad" to my parents, but since I can think I addressed them with their first names. I had to turn 30 years old to realize, that everyone called their parents somehow "mom" and "dad" (or other common forms of that). So I started to call them "mother" and "father", but I know, that this is just a term of their relation to me. Their first names were, how other people called them, so I guess, I just copied it. To me, the words "mom" and "dad" are not exsisting somehow. I cannot build any relation to that terms.

Is there anyone, who cannot do it either?
And if you call your parents "mom" and "dad", what do you feel with those terms?
Why am I unable to do it?


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27 Dec 2011, 6:50 pm

I don't ever call them those. It's mama, papa, mother, father... and the occasional mommy/mummy. :P Never their first names, though. They told me it was disrespectful.



Jory
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27 Dec 2011, 7:03 pm

There are certain words I never use. It's not that I choose not to say them, it's just that it makes me uncomfortable to say them, and I realize that there's no rational reason why. I never call my parents mom or dad, and I rarely call people by name. I also find it very difficult to say thank you or thanks, which makes me afraid that people will think I'm inconsiderate. It's weird, it's just like a total block, like it's not even an option for me to say these words. Kind of hard to understand if you don't actually experience it yourself.



RW665
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27 Dec 2011, 7:04 pm

I've never been able to call my mother "mom". I don't know why, it feels too weird to me.


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jmnixon95
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27 Dec 2011, 7:05 pm

Jory wrote:
There are certain words I never use. It's not that I choose not to say them, it's just that it makes me uncomfortable to say them, and I realize that there's no rational reason why. I never call my parents mom or dad, and I rarely call people by name. I also find it very difficult to say thank you or thanks, which makes me afraid that people will think I'm inconsiderate. It's weird, it's just like a total block, like it's not even an option for me to say these words. Kind of hard to understand if you don't actually experience it yourself.


I experience that, but haven't really been able to put that feeling/experience into words. "Mom" and "dad" are words I can say, but it's hard for me to say a lot of other things (relevant recently "Merry Christmas"/"Happy New Year"; sometimes "hey"/"hi"/"hello"/etc.) It's so weird.



melvin-z
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27 Dec 2011, 7:09 pm

I always called my parents by their names. My father seemed to understand that he was my dad, but Patrick to the rest of the world. It still drives my mum crazy.



Eloa
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27 Dec 2011, 7:28 pm

jmnixon95 wrote:
Jory wrote:
There are certain words I never use. It's not that I choose not to say them, it's just that it makes me uncomfortable to say them, and I realize that there's no rational reason why. I never call my parents mom or dad, and I rarely call people by name. I also find it very difficult to say thank you or thanks, which makes me afraid that people will think I'm inconsiderate. It's weird, it's just like a total block, like it's not even an option for me to say these words. Kind of hard to understand if you don't actually experience it yourself.


I experience that, but haven't really been able to put that feeling/experience into words. "Mom" and "dad" are words I can say, but it's hard for me to say a lot of other things (relevant recently "Merry Christmas"/"Happy New Year"; sometimes "hey"/"hi"/"hello"/etc.) It's so weird.

Yes, this is what I experience too, that there are just words, I am not able to say. I pointed out "mom" and "dad", because everyone I know has this sort of - is it called nickname? -for their parents, but I do have difficulties with other words too. Plus I have selective mutism quite often, that I don't know what to say at all.


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diniesaur
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27 Dec 2011, 7:30 pm

This isn't really an issue for me because I never think of people as their given names or whatever I call them when I talk to them. I just have a name for each person that I make up. Sometimes it's a phrase like "Curly Hair Guy" or "Jesus Guy" or "Beard Guy" or "Gay Guy" or "Necklace Girl" but more often I identify people based on their smells, how they look, the sounds of their voices, or the feelings I get when I'm around them. These can't really be translated into words. Because of this, I have to remember to call them whatever I'm "supposed" to call them, and it makes me take longer to learn names. When I first meet people, and I just remember what I named them, I am most likely to say something like "Hey, Pretty Girl!" (of course, this creates confusion, since almost all girls are pretty :wink: ).

Sometimes this causes trouble for me because a lot of times I identify people by their hair, so when they get it cut, I can't recognize them visually. This was frustrating recently when my baby brother (who I am like another parent to) got his hair cut and I couldn't recognize him except for his voice and the fact that he was wearing the same clothes he had on before he had gotten his hair cut. My mom thought I didn't like the hair cut, but I was fine with it; it just confused me because I couldn't recognize my brother correctly.

But, in answer to your question, I call my mom "Mom" or "Mama" and my dad "Dad" because it's just like another description that I might use for someone else, like "Curly Hair Guy." I would feel just as comfortable calling my dad by his first name or calling him "Tall Hairy Nice Guy" but this is what people want me to call him, so I call him that.



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27 Dec 2011, 7:59 pm

I've never said either Mom or Dad. Those names just conjure up images of stereotypical parents in movies who never seemed to be very loving or idiosyncratic like real parents.



liv_via
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27 Dec 2011, 9:14 pm

Jory wrote:
There are certain words I never use. It's not that I choose not to say them, it's just that it makes me uncomfortable to say them, and I realize that there's no rational reason why. I never call my parents mom or dad, and I rarely call people by name. I also find it very difficult to say thank you or thanks, which makes me afraid that people will think I'm inconsiderate. It's weird, it's just like a total block, like it's not even an option for me to say these words. Kind of hard to understand if you don't actually experience it yourself.


I completely get this. It feels awkward or forced and incredibly uncomfortable to say things like "a lot", "won't", ""you're welcome", "that's too bad", "see you later" or call people by their given name. Even those I've befriended or have become very close with I refer to as "this/that one", "this/that person", or simply "it". However, people in a position of authority or part of a professional setting are always addressed as Sir, Madam/Ma'am or Mr., Mrs., Miss. Calling someone by their given name, or worse, by a title such as "Mom" or "Dad" feels incredibly personal or maybe somehow inaccurate?

Once it finally feels appropriate, I'll pick a letter from their name and call them that, or make their name into an adjective. Some of the names I've used include: Caraling for Cara, Pammish for Pamela, Alyssity for Alyssa, Chelle for Chelsea, Androsis for Andrew, J'roid for Jared, Trivvs for Tristen, Joshable for Josh
Then again, lately I've just been addressing my friends by the suffixes I initially attached to their names.
As for my parents, I've always referred to them as Mom-ish and Dad-ish as they objected to me calling them Mr. and Mrs., one of my grandmothers was Grandmommen and the other was Grandmammen, and my grandfathers were Pappen and Popsen.
Most people dismiss it as a harmless (but childish) "quirk".



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27 Dec 2011, 9:28 pm

Interesting. I think I tried calling my mother by her first name once. Once. I was told I didn't know her well enough to call her Mary. I could call her Mom or Mrs ******. My daughter took forever before she called me by anything other than my first name. She still calls her father by his first name. Neither of us chose to fight that battle.


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27 Dec 2011, 9:35 pm

It never ceases to amaze me, how many times things like this come up -- I don't remember it myself, but Mom told me that I started out in life calling her by her first name, because my dad did. It wasn't a problem for her, she thought it was cute, but my aunt thought that this was disrespectful, took me aside one day and gave me a talking-to, and after that I never called my mother by her first name again, just "Mom". I have no memory of it, or of what my aunt said.


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MakaylaTheAspie
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27 Dec 2011, 10:02 pm

I say mom and dad all the time. :shrug:


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TenPencePiece
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27 Dec 2011, 10:44 pm

Yes.


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28 Dec 2011, 3:01 am

My Aunt (and her brothers and sisters) referred to their parents by using their first names.



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28 Dec 2011, 3:41 am

I say mom and dad, but I absolutely hate "mommy" and "daddy" and wouldn't use them.