Family Matters
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Do you have this in your family? Please share your experience

Hello Nesties! I have lots of questions on various topics but will start with one:)

I have a lovely daughter who is grown up and has moved out(she is in her 20's). Being a single mom meant that my daughter (lets call her Mary) and i are the best friends and have a really close relationship( we talk about almost everything). Since becoming an adult, Mary has started calling me by my first name.She has mentioned to me on couple of occasions that she prefers 'Meg' to 'Mom' as she thought i was more than a mother to her ( being her bestie)

Iam thinking of having a chat with her on this as I would prefer being called Mom on a regular basis, though its okay is she calls me by my name occasionally

Am i being old school? Do you have similar situation with Adult children? I do  have some friends who like their adult children addressing them by first names.

Love,

Meg

 

 

 

 

Re: Do you have this in your family? Please share your experience

  • I remember when this was common in the Seventies. 

    Call yer old lady or your old man Mary or John! It's really cool and "in'!

    This is probably a generational thing. Let her call you by your first name; it is no big deal.:)
  • I'm close with my mother, but I could never call her by her first name. It would be too weird for me and she's my mom, so it doesn't feel right to call her by her first name.

    One of my cousins supposedly calls his parents by their first names - I've never heard him do it, but my mom told me he does....he's only 17. I guess if they don't care, who am I to say anything?

    I also have a friend that calls his mom by her first name. I remember asking her if that bothered her, and she explained to me that he started doing that when he was a baby and when people would try to correct him and say he has to call her mom, he was adamant about calling her by her first name....it was a losing battle basically.
    Obviously at this point, she's okay with it....40 years later lol
  • Start calling her Schnookie-wookie-panties both in private and in public. Then when she calls you on it be all "Oh! I uh.... I thought we were just calling each other whatever we wanted now."

    Then tell her that you get that she likes to call you by your first name but it actually makes you feel uncomfortable and you'd prefer it if she'd go back to calling you 'mom'. Meg didn't push your gigantic head out of her yee-ho, 'mom' did. I earned that title, dammit!
    image

    Chronically hilarious - you'll split your stitches!
    I wrote a book! Bucket list CHECK!
  • Still call my mom, Mom. Occasionally I'll call her by her first name to get her attention or snap her out of a crazy moment :) 
    image Nicholas loved for 28 weeks, 4/11/10
    Baby Boy loved for 15 weeks, 5/31/11
    Baby Girl loved for 16.5 weeks. 3/1/12
  • It's your name and therefore you have the right and ability to decide who and when people call you that. You aren't JUST her bestie, you are her mom too and you have earned that privledge to be called MOM.
  • If you are actually "besties" as you say you are, then you should just ask her why she feels the need to call you by your first name instead of referring to you as "Mom."  I think you should also think about why you are uncomfortable with her calling you by your first name.  Do you feel it shows a lack of respect?  Does it make you feel like she doesn't value the "mother-daughter" aspect of your relationship and only values the "bestie" aspect?  Be honest with her and talk it out with her.   

    One thing you might think about is that you can't have it both ways.  You have proudly proclaimed that you and your young-adult daughter are "besties."  Well, most people don't call their best friends "Mom."  They use first names.  If she wants to call you "Meg" instead of "Mom," it's possible that she thinks of you as more of a friend than a mother.  

    In answer to your question about whether other families deal with this: I am fortunate enough to have a close relationship with both my mom and my daughter.  But I would consider neither of them to be my best friend, or even a friend at all.  I consider one to be my mom, and I refer to her as "Mom" even though I'm in my 40s and she's in her late 60's.  And my 13 y/o DD, in turn, calls me "Mom."  We each have our own best friends.  The mother-daughter relationship is special, and I would never categorize it as merely "best friends."
  • I love my mom like a friend, and we don't really have a parent-child relationship now that I'm in my late 30s, but I still call her mom. It's a special role and I can see why you'd still want her to call you that. There aren't many people in the world who can legitimately call you by it, so ask her to keep using it!
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