Ask Lemmy

I've always done that with both my parents, but then again I'm Danish. It's a radically different culture. Families are not seen as particularly inherently important here. It's usually not even a meritocratic assessment of the family as a unit - it's an individual one. You might like some people, you might dislike others. Either way, is has almost nothing to do with whether a blood relation exists or not.

"An asshole's an asshole."

Edit: Along similar philosophical lines, there's no particular veneration of age. Age and wisdom might be proportionally related, but one does not guarantee the other. Some people manage only to grow more foolish with age. Precocious children exist.

I'd be very interested in exploring the differences between cultures more with you, assuming you're willing.

My second son calls his mother and I by our first names and has done since he was 5. None of our other kids do that, it is something he decided to do, and has continued. He is now 16

I've never called my parents by their first names, and I've never known someone who did.

I called my grandparents "Grandma and Grandpa [Last Name]". But my aunts and uncles were "Aunt [First Name]" and "Uncle [First Name]". I would say that's pretty standard for the USA.

I mostly call my moms by their first names. I almost never directly refer to them as "mom." When talking about them to people who know them, I refer to them by their names. Basically only call them my mom to people who don't know my parents.

I'm in the US. But I think part of the reason I do that is having multiple moms. OTOH, they are trying to teach our niece to call them grammy and nana and I know my cousins have a similar way of differentiating their moms.

I've probably done it occasionally, when calling them in a public space shouting 'Daaad' as an adult feels a bit weird. Same with talking about them to a third person, I might use their names rather than say "my mum" the whole time.

But face to face, talking with them? It'd feel pretty weird, too impersonal and distant. If I saw someone else doing it tontjeir parents, I'd probably note it as unusual, but would be shocked.

The only one I know personally has a very bad relationship with her mother, so she intentionally keeps a distance.

I know some do it even if they have a great relationship. It feels weird to me because it’s not the norm. Are they making a statement of some kind?

But basically only parents and grandparents are not called by name here. Uncles and aunts only when you’re young.

I'm German and switched from Mama/Papa (mom/dad) to their first names sometime in my early teens as did my sister. I couldn't say how exactly it happened—just felt too old to use the former. But that's not universal here; I know people who still use the nicknames in their forties.

particularly Americans, apparantly are on first-name basis with parents... like either because they are very close, or very distant...

American here - I've known a couple of people that used their parents' first names, but it's pretty rare. I'm no/low contact with my father, and I've thought of just using his first name because I don't feel like he deserves to be called "dad," but I've called him dad my whole live and I think it would just feel weird to call him by his first name.

I only use my parents' first names when trying to get their attention from a distance.

I call my parents 'Mummy' and 'Daddy' to their face, or 'my mother' and 'my father' to others, unless they specifically ask what their name is. I call my grandmas 'Grandma [name]', and my grandfather by a cultural title. Aunts and uncles I call 'Aunt [name]' to differentiate them. Siblings and cousins I call by their name.

I am from the UK

Stopped using "mom" and "dad" at about the same time as I moved out. Can't really explain exactly why, just seemed like part of growing up amd becoming an independent adult of my own.

/Swede

Europe.

I'm very close with my mom, I call her interchangeably her name or "mom". My friends know her and I speak of her often at work and in general because we hang out a lot, so most people have met her and/or know her well by her actual name.

I am not as close with my dad and call him dad most of the time, unless trying to get his attention - he is very bad at reacting or responding to anything but his name if he isn't listening fully. I mostly spend time with him in family situations, unlike my mom who I consider friend as well as family.

It's not the most common to call your parents by their name here, but it's not super unusual or disrespectful either.

I have called my dad by his first name almost my whole life.

I call my mom, "Gestating progenitor" as an inside joke but anytime I call her by her name she calls it out. Tho, I get it. Worked pretty hard not to get called mom

My kiddo calls me by my first name

Yeah i do. My mother told me that when i was young, other moms judged her for it, like it means she is not my mother or some shit. But also she told me, at the public pool, every time a child yelled mom/dad ALL parents had to look to see if it was their child while she could relax until she heard explicitly her name.

I'm an American. There definitely are some people who call their parents by their first names, but I have never done so (in a serious manner). I used to have a friend who would call her adopted mother by her first name, but that's the only time I've ever witnessed it personally. If someone were to refer to their parents by first name, I would assume they're very distant.

Even though I've had complicated relationships with both my parents (as they were both abusive), I would never consider calling them by first name. I did so once in a joking manner with my dad many years ago, and his response scared me into never doing that again, lmao. It's strictly "Mom" and "Dad" for them, even if I were to go no-contact in the future

It's different with other family members, though. I similarly call my grandparents "Grandma" or "Grandpa," but I'll say "Grandma [First Name]" for example if I need to clarify whether it's my maternal or paternal grandparent. I've only ever called aunts and uncles by their first names, but I'll also clarify with "Aunt [First Name]" if the person I'm talking to isn't familiar with them by name.

There's definitely some level of respect expected to those of older generations, especially when blood-related, but I'm really against the whole idea. I despise the entire maternal side of my family; like, if I don't like them, then I don't like them. I'm not gonna put up with someone who's a dick just because we're "related."

I do! I have a pretty good relationship with both my parents, but when I was around 9 years old I felt weird calling them by this "special" name unlike everybody else. They don't seem to mind?

One friend of mine does that. I think it's because his parents weren't very close when he was growing up.

I used their first names until I was 18.
When I went to college, nobody knew who I was talking about when I said their names, and it got me in the habit of saying "mom" and "dad", and it stuck.

My child, who is young, calls my wife and I by a rotating set of terms, like mom/dad, mommy/daddy, and our actual names. Same with the grandparents. There is no intention behind it, it's just whatever comes to mind first.

Yeah I do. Mainly it's because my dad was always off working and so my grandparents, or his parents, did most of the work of raising me. And since he was their son, of course they were in the habit of calling him by his name. It stuck.

First name is very rare here in The Netherlands, but these days it is quite common to use the "casual" form of you (je/jij) rather than the polite form (u). That was very different some 70 years ago.

Our children do, mostly, call us by our proper names. I guess it comes from us never talking of ourselves in third person.

My brother does it to my mom specifically in crowds. He picked it as a scout during crowded meetings and it stuck. He’s in his 30s now.

My oldest child is the only one who calls me by my first name. When I adopted her, I told her she didn't have to call me "dad" unless she wanted to. I've heard her refer to me as "dad" when she thinks I'm not in earshot.

I almost always called family from the previous generations by title and first name, or just title. So, Grandpa, Aunt Sue, etc. Cousins and siblings got first name only. My kids call their immediate parents mom and dad, and their step-parents mom or my wife's first name. I rarely associate with my ex or her husband, and they refer to him when talking to me by his first name. If they were close enough to him to refer to him as dad, I'd be happy for them to have that good a relationship.

I would often use both the title and the person's nickname, but never just the name. So, for example, "Papa Mike" but not "Mike" or "Michael". It made more sense for grandparents because I had two of each, but I did it for my parents too.

The douche kid we didn't really like on swim team in HS called his dad Jeff. A teammate was like "you call your dad by his name?" "Yeah. It's his name." "But, he's your dad."

To me, it makes it feel less like a happy family and more like a boss/employee relationship. His logic was sound, but there's more to it than that.

My nephew does that. I think it's weird.

I DID do that with my step-father but that's different, I think, because when my mom was dating I wasn't going to call him Dad. And after years of calling him by his name it felt weird to start calling him anything else.

Speaking as a white person of mostly Italian-American ancestry in my late 40s from New York, USA.

My mother and father were always called "Mom" and "Dad." They divorced, my dad remarried first, and my stepmother has always been called by her first name; my sister and I were never asked to call her "Mom," and it would have been very weird for anyone to ask us to do so when we already had a mom who wasn't her. When my mother remarried, he was an immigrant from a Spanish-speaking country and we briefly fell into calling our stepfather "Papi" which is Spanish for "Dad." That was a little weird, though, and we went back to using his first name.

The cliche' you mention from Western TV and films of a child calling a mother or father by their first name is often a standard joke about the kid acting rebellious and rejecting their parents' authority, and usually is depicted as a brief goofy phase which passes by the end of the episode, and not meant to depict a realistic ongoing relationship between parent and child. Alternatively, it could be illustrating a more nontraditional "hippie" family culture as noted by some others in these replies.

As for uncles and aunts, calling them "Uncle (name)" or "Aunt/Auntie (name)" is generally the norm in many Western cultures. I generally call my own "Uncle/Aunt (name)." However, it does very much vary.

Sometimes the formal "Aunt/Uncle" address is more of a thing for children, and when one reaches adulthood they might drop the "uncle" or "aunt" title and just use first names as their relationship transitions from one between a child and adult to a more equal dynamic between adults.

In some families the dynamic may even be different for individual aunts or uncles depending on how close the family relationship is; if it's a family member who lives nearby and you see all the time and have a very close personal relationship with, or if it's a distant relative you may only meet in person and communicate with rarely over the course of years, one may find the individual relationship (and, consequently, the form of address) develops differently with that family member. I call my close aunts and uncles who are regular presences in my life "Aunt/Uncle (name)," but if I encountered a distant relative from far away who I haven't seen or spoken with in 30 years I'd probably just use their first name.

Also, in some families "Uncle" or "Aunt/Auntie" can be a form of respectful address for older adults even if they are not family relations. In my childhood some of my mother's closest friends who were regular presences in our lives were addressed as "Aunt/Uncle (name)" despite there being no blood relations between us, though when I grew up the "Uncle/Aunt" title was dropped and we just call them by their names as our adult-to-adult friendship continued. This was not the case on my father's side of the family, where adult friends were always just called by their first names.

Particular mention must be made of the use of the terms "Uncle/Unc" or "Aunt/Auntie" among and toward elder members of the Black community with which one is not related. It is a very delicate issue, and as a white person I don't use it and don't claim any authority to speak on the subject, but I think it's important to learn more about. Some more info can be found starting here and here, but it should be discussed with members of that community if you wish to know more.

It was "Mom" and "Dad".

The one time I called my Mom by her first name was when we worked at a nursery/garden center together. A customer asked me a question and my Mom was close by working on something and I didn't want to call her "Mom" in front of the customer.

It was one of the most awkward things I've ever done. My Mom ended up not caring, she understood.

I had a college friend who did that. Their family seemed pretty chill overall from what I could tell ¯\(ツ)/¯

I don't call anyone by their family relation except my grandparents, everyone else (including my parents) gets called by their name. That said this is absolutely not normal where I live and nobody does it other than me and my immediate-ish family. I think it's because I didn't grow up with, say, mom calling dad "dad" or anything of the sort.

/Middle Eastern

Am American. I have always called my dad by his name (as far as I can remember), but not my mom. I don't know why. On reflecting over the years, I can only theorize that I must have heard my mom calling him by name, but he's not really someone to call out to others by name. So I think I just learned to refer to him by his name and it's always felt 'right' since.

His mother actually got angry at me over it when I was little. It's (unfortunately) the strongest memory I have of that grandmother. It made me feel really bad and confused. I only stopped around her, though. No one else seems to have cared that I call him by his name to this day. He has never commented, and his sister and my mom have only ever seemed bemused by it.

Chinese

When I play with my kid, he call me by my nickname.平时都喊爸爸

I don't call my parents by their first names. Neither do my siblings.

My kids also use "mom" and "dad", and we also use "mom" or "dad" when referring to each other parent to the kids.

My wife would call her dad by his first name, but only when she was calling him out for being goofy. In response to a dad joke, for example.

Personally, I don't consider it a nickname. More like a title that I've earned. It's like calling someone "doctor". If my kids used my first name, I'd probably give them a raised eyebrow in response.

My daughter likes to call me by my first name because she thinks it's hilarious

My step-parent has always been referred to by their first name. I was like 9 when they got married so.. it just felt better than the alternatives.

My mother was always either mom or mother, I prefer mother now. She died in my early 20s, so I can’t discuss all my neglect-based trauma and get closure, and I deal with that by using the colder, less affectionate moniker.

My sperm donor (father) never really made an effort to be in my life so I don’t refer to him as anything most of the time. Doesn’t come up.

As for extended family, I don’t have much experience there either but my grandmother was nana, and my aunts and uncles are all title followed by first name, so uncle bob, aunt Cindy, that sort of thing. Cousins get dicy, because some of my cousins are my parent’s age. Anything iffy is just first names.

(USA, Los Angeles)

Now that you mention it, I call my parents Mom and Dad (unless they really need to listen), but my kids call me by my first name. I just thought it was a generational thing, who cares.

Vietnamese Canadian here.

I'd rather die than call my dad by his first name 😂