I started calling them by their first name when I thought I was old/adult enough not to say mom and dad anymore. My sister does the same.
But this has also been different from every side of our family. I speak a T-V language so we have formal and informal. My father and all his family were formal with their parents. And my mother was informal with her parents. In the end, I went in between. I use informal with my parents and call them by their names.
My bother in law noted that and brought it up. Apparently, it’s weird and disrespectful from his point of view. Yet, to me it’s quite normal.
How can a 16 years old teenager feel comfortable saying “mom and dad”? To me, ditching those terms meant that I was not a child anymore.
I’m not American though. And English is not my native language.
But it just felt too close to continue calling them m’man and p’pa while I became an adult. I was a “rebel teenager” and didn’t want to spend time with my family. Much less call them “mom and dad”. And they stopped using the diminutive of my name years ago anyway. So I just did the reverse.
I’ve had people pissed off that I didn’t call my mother as Mom, they thought it was DiSResPeCtFUL. She has a name, it’s a respectable name, and when I called that name in a group or a crowd then she will know it’s me without panicking any nearby moms. Get over it, it’s none of your damn business!
When I was a teenager, I went through this brief phase where instead of saying “dad”, I used his first name. Not intentionally, it was just wires getting crossed in my brain, but he would get so pissed about it.
Don’t recall ever calling my mom by her first name. She wouldn’t appreciate that either… in fact, it bothered her that I said “mother” instead of “mom” for the longest time (we had a strained relationship, so the more formal term felt more appropriate).
On the other hand, my parents never required me to say “sir” or “ma’m”.
Well seing Will Smith and the meme saying “white” I thought it’s referring to the fact that black parents are stricter and it’s unbelievable for a black child to hear someone say that…
I live in Europe and have one friend who does that. No idea where it stems from, maybe the parents felt they could keep more of a personal identity if they were referred to by their name at home or something
How many mothers do you have that it makes a real world difference? I’d guess up until 1000 you wouldn’t really notice depending on your hardware. You could cache them as well.
I’m white, and my and my partner’s families mostly do this in jest or to quickly grab attention because “Meredith!” gets attention in public much faster than “Mom!” does lol I didn’t think it was only a white people thing.
Edit: just generalizing, but I think it might be the idea that a black person wouldn’t do this under any circumstances? Whereas it’s joked somewhat often (at least by my black friends) that white people can get away with more “insubordination” in their families compared to black people. That’s my theory but I’d love to hear other perspectives lol
The trope is your typical suburban, middle class white family are soft parents who let their kids get away with murder. You’ve seen the type - parents whose kids are on an absolute rampage and their response is to squat down and say, “Now Kayydenn, we don’t do that here.” The implication being that if the non-white kid did that their parents would beat the hell outta them.
NB: I’m whiter than Wonder bread and 35 and I still wouldn’t dare call my mother by her first name.
whose kids are on an absolute rampage and their response is to squat down and say, “Now Kayydenn, we don’t do that here.”
Retail workers know this all too well. I have a regular customer at our store’s gas station that actually rewards her kid for this behavior, and the most punishment he gets is her sternly yelling “Keagan!!!”
He once took a squeegee out of the bucket and started splashing his mom, then after she wrestled it away from him he just went and got another and kept doing it. Then when she came back to the window to order her cigarettes, she gave him the change and said “let’s go, sweetie. :)” as she walked away, soaked in blue windshield cleaner. You can’t make this shit up.
Another time he pressed the emergency stop button at the window, which canceled all of the other customer’s orders. When she came up to the window for cigarettes, she said she hoped it wasn’t too much of a pain, and I informed her that refunding all of the discounts was, in fact, a huge pain. All she had to say for herself was “oh. sorry 😬” and then she bought him a Reese’s.
When she doesn’t let him out of the car, he will jump in the driver’s seat and lay on the horn. When she lets him out, he’ll toss the nozzles off of the pump, tear the napkins out of the dispensers, throw the squeegees into the road, knock over our cones, and play with whatever cleaning supplies he can find in our shed, which is unlocked now because he managed to break the lock. All while his mom is trailing behind him, cleaning up his messes half as fast as he can make new ones. At least she cleans everything up, but she is truly pathetic.
I’m genuinely curious how this kid is gonna turn out when he grows up.
Oh yeah. I firmly believe every single American should be forced to work either retail or food service for 1 year. Maybe it’ll teach them some goddamn empathy.
My worst was working for Best Buy. One Christmas someone’s hellspawn decided that if he didn’t get a new PlayStation he was going to knock over the DVDs. All of them. It was like a cartoon; he just sprinted down the aisle with his arm out cackling like a tiny Joker.
Apparently people think white kids do this but I never heard it growing up, so I guess it’s a generalization that my well informed but anecdotal experience doesn’t support
For me growing up in a very mono race state really does helped with making we completely oblivious to race stereotypes. Ether that or just everyone being too preoccupied with antique cars and maple syrup to care about race.
maybe it’s a true story??? I don’t see the meme saying “all” anywhere. it’s a story about a black kid and a white kid. can we not do the “i dont see race!” thing? please?
Absolutely black and I feel you. I’m 38. If I dare call my mom by her first name one, I’ll get obliterated on the spot.
Now that I think about it, the only people I ever heard calling their moms by their first names were white. But it must be like… 2% ? And people I mostly hang out with happen to be white. So it’s kinda biased.
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