It occurred to me: on this forum there are many people in my age group, and are from a variety of different places. So I figure it'd be the ideal spot to bring this up: If you have in-laws- that's sons-in-law or daughters-in-law- what do they call you? Do they say Mom/Dad, a variation of those terms, or your first name? I've been struggling with this for years. I don't think first-name is a modern thing, I think it's a regional thing.
@Janice Martin Beyond in-laws, what about nieces or nephews? My nieces, when they still spoke to me (20 years ago) insisted on "Uncle Frank". My nephews, OTOH, the elder, Dan, only 5 years my junior, up until the last few years, always addressed me as "Frank". Lately, though, it's "Sanoica", when he calls on the phone. The other nephew, Mike, my wife's age, 9 years younger than I, just calls me "Frank". Now, Dan's son Danny, presently serving in the Marine Corps., uses "Frank" exclusively. I have never been "Uncle", or (gulp) worse yet, "Great Uncle", to any of the males. I have never been able to address my wife's Mother as "Ma". In the other direction, she has difficulty addressing me at all! Frank
My ex s-i-l strangely just used to avoid calling me anything.. it was very odd...he neither called me mum nor used my first name.... he just talked to me without using any name at all
I am on a first name basis with nearly everyone I talk to. I called my parents mom and dad, and I had a couple of uncles and aunts who seemed to prefer that designation so I'd use it. She's gone now, but I called my mother-in-law by her first name.
All my nieces and nephew call me Chrissy, I think my oldest niece calls me Christine though. All 5 grandsons call me Grandma. My oldest grandson called me "special grandma" and the other one he called Grandma Lucy. Around age 3 he was told not to do that because it might make the grandma that didn't spend any time with him feel bad.
Our tradition here is to call parents-in-law the way their children call them. My husband calls their parents Papa and Mama so that's also how I call my parents-in-law. My husband is the 3rd son so I call the eldest Kuya Al and the second son Kuya Jojo. We call my mother Nanay so my husband also calls my mother with the same name. One time we had a visitor from UK. The wife is a Filipina married to Michael, a British, who calls his wife's father Vic. Calling a father-in-law by his first name seemed to be disrespectful here. But it's a good thing that my husband had explained to us about it.
I called my in laws "mama" and "papa". Both are now deceased. My daughter-in-law, however, calls me "mother" which makes me uneasy the first time but later just let her.
Jokingly my youngest son would call me 'Mother' like Daffy Duck did when he was in over his head, Daffy Duck that is. There is only one DIL who addresses me by my first name. She didn't feel comfortable calling me 'Mom' as every one else does. When she does it though I feel strange because I'm so use to every one calling me 'Mom.' On my husband's side of the family every one calls me Von or Ms. Von. My nieces and nephews called 'Auntie.' My grandchildren call me 'Granma', 'Granny', 'Mema' which my youngest granddaughter just started saying with emphasis on the 'me.' It's cute when she says 'Mommy' and quickly changes it to 'Mema' I'm called 'Mom' by most of my middle son's friends and cousins. Most of the neighborhood calls me Miss Johnny when they see me. No one calls me 'Gran' because that was taken by my mother.