How Did You Refer to Your Parents as A Child?

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Mom/dad for me. That's interesting about your theory, about how you started using their names because that is how they referred to each other. My parents almost never used each other's names. They either used pet names or called each other 'mom' and 'dad'. Which in hindsight is weird. It wasn't even "your mom" or "your dad," which would have made some level of sense.

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Last edited by wornlight on 11 Feb 2013, 7:50 am, edited 8 times in total.

I simply referred to them as Mum and Dad.

I called my parents by their first names until I was about 6 and figured out that made me weird.. Filipendula, are you an only child? I am and the thought struck me that if you have siblings you would be used to your parents being called Mom and Dad or whatever your preferred variant is. Only children would be coming up with terms from scratch.

I called them by their first names. The people at school thought I was weird and so I stopped.

This is me, exactly.

My husband and I are a little like that - we hardly ever call each other by our christian names - never have and so now it's either 'babe' or if talking to or around the kids, 'mum' or 'dad'. First names are so formal I guess - I hardly ever call my kids by their proper names either, it's usually a pet or nick name. (definitely an Australian thing, everyone uses abbreviations or nicknames).

As a side note, Aspie or not, there is no way I would ever allow my children to call me by my first name

Last edited by Shellfish on 12 Feb 2013, 4:19 am, edited 1 time in total.

Mother or father. I am just that straight laced.

I answered varied over time, since I referred to my parents as mom and dad when I was very young, but from about 10 or so it felt wrong and I started addressing them by their first names.

I have two older siblings (8 and 12 years older) which still to this day refer to them as mom and dad and always has, but I stopped doing that when they no longer met the expectations I have of what parents are suppose to be. It just didn't feel right.

Mother and Father. Yes, I said the whole word.

When I got into high school I had a friend who was british, and I picked up "Mum" for a little while, but as a child it was Mother and Father.

Exactly the same for me. I did it since I was little.


I was asked directly why I did so but I never changed it. When I was 10 or 11 I knew it was weird, so I tested it out on my mother's birthday card, and wrote "to mom" on the side and "dear mother" on the top. Both felt very wrong, and my attempt stopped there.
I still say their first names now, at 35.

Edit: KaraStarbuck and Filipendula, I'm also an only child BTW.

Last edited by Skilpadde on 11 Feb 2013, 11:08 pm, edited 1 time in total.

Interesting thread! Actually my 6 yr old son (dx mild PDD-NOS and ADHD) calls me both Mom or Mommy.... and sometimes by my first name. He also calls his father Dad or Daddy but sometimes he will use his first name as well. This has gotten better in the past 2 years since we have corrected him many times, and told him that it is not respectful to use our first names. We also teach him to address other adults that are fine being called by their first names as Ms. or Mr. before their first name because we are trying to teach that adults deserve respect from children and they should not be casually addressed.

I noticed DS usually uses our first names under 2 circumstances: 1-when he is mad, he might yell at us using our first names or maybe try to put us in time out like we do to him (as if that would be an appropriate punishment for an adult doing something he didn't like, let alone the fact that it is inappropriate for a child to think he could or should discipline a grown up. Can be funny at times when it happens, but really its more annoying IMO.)

2-When talking about us to others in front of other people who would know and/or normally call us by our first names, not "mom" or "dad". I think DS thinks this makes perfect sense, because after all, we aren't THEIR mom and dad, and if he referred to us as Mom and Dad they might not know who he was talking about! LOL (he just does not realize that other people would understand who he meant if he said his Mom and Dad) He also might use our first names when trying to get our attention in front of others who of course know and call us by our first names as well, but I'm not totally certain that is not just because he observed others doing it so he also thought it was appropriate for him to do at those times. After being corrected about 1,000 times by various people, he will sometimes self correct in these last 2 situations.

I don't think it ever bothered my mother being called by her first name. I think people asked me about that on occasion and I'd tell them I called her that because that is her name. I didn't see any reason to call her anything else. It didn't say "mother" on her birth certificate or id. It's not like she called me "daughter" all the time.

When I was little I called dad "Daddyo" as in Dig It,
I wateched too many beatnik movies, well, dad watched
too many so I did as well.

I called mom Miss Mom a coople of times
after starting school because I was confused
having to use the Miss and Mr designater.

I had such a difficult time switching from Mommy and Daddy to Mom and Dad, and I didn't do it until high school. My parents encouraged me to switch for a long time, but I didn't like to have to make that sort of change. My sister, who is four years younger than me, switched over a year or two before I did. What finally made me switch was that when I had to call my mom from school every day to arrange pick-up and I was embarrassed to say Mommy in front of the other students.

First it was mommy and later mom and same for dad, first he was daddy and then dad. To me when kids call their parents by their first name it always seems out of sorts and strange.