What I Now Call My In-Laws!!

What I Now Call My In-Laws!!

November 15th, 2006 @ 9:32 am by Mrs. Hibiscus

If you missed my previous post about my awful dilemma of what to call my in-laws, I’ll sum it up for you. Well… I didn’t know what to call my in-laws (hahaha). I would just avoid saying their names and look them in the eye when talking to them. I let this go on for almost six years! I felt weird calling them Mom and Dad, calling them by their first names made me uncomfortable and calling them Mr. and Mrs Hibiscus made them uncomfortable. It was quite an uncomfortable situation for everyone.

I couldn’t believe the number of responses I got to my dilemma. I didn’t know so many people were going through the same exact situation. I guess I just assumed I was the only one. They should really have a universal name for “in-laws.” Future Sis-in-law and I were going to come up with something and put a patent on it.

I don’t have a solution for everyone but I can say if you’re comfortable enough you should talk to your ILs about it. Bringing it up with my future MIL helped me a lot. We sat there together and tried to figure out something we were both comfortable with. It was funny and some good bonding time.

For this post’s sake let’s say my FMIL’s name is Lori and my FFIL’s name is Matt. (Although, he said I can call him whatever I felt comfortable with so he wasn’t really part of the discussion.)

Names that were scratched off the list: Queen Mother (NOT my idea), Matka (Mother in Polish), Mamacita, Momsies, Mother Lori, Mama Lori, Big Mama (hahahaha - NOT her idea)

After a weekend of joking about the names and testing them out we came up with MaLori. It’s said like the Middle Ages term “Milady” so it sounds cute. It still has her name in it so she’ll respond, but I am guilt free because I have the “Ma” in there. She was happy with it and I was happy I could finally call her something. I seriously addressed her A TON that weekend. I never realized how much I left unsaid because I wanted to avoid calling her anything. It was seriously liberating. As for FFIL, I now call him Papa Matt. He likes it and I’m happy. I would like to thank everyone for all your support. For those of you who are still stuck, seriously talk to in-laws. It feels so darn good now that I have names for them!

On to my questions. If you didn’t answer before, what do you call your in-laws? And just for fun, do you have any ideas for universal names everyone can call their in-laws?

Tags: family, los-angeles, oc |

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7 Responses to “What I Now Call My In-Laws!!”

Guest

Johanna

I call them by their first names actually, because they begged me to practically after several months of Mr. and Mrs.’ing them. However, when im talkin with Karen, she refers to herself and Mike as Momma and Daddy, which her children call her. I doubt i’ll ever call them that though

11/15/06 @ 10:07 am (reply)

Guest

joy

I tried for a while to call them Mr. and Mrs. X, but that didn’t stick so now we just use first names and I think everyone is happy.

11/15/06 @ 10:11 am (reply)

Guest

Jenny

My FMIL had names for us when we announced our engagement (I don’t know if it was a creative moment or if she had them stored, waiting for the moment):

Future Mother In Law = Fumala (foo-mah-la)
Future Sister In Law = Fusila
Future Daughter In Law = Fudala
Future Husband = FuHu
Future Wife = FuWi

We do refer to each other by those nicknames and I guess after my Fiance and I are married we’ll drop the “Fu” part.

11/15/06 @ 10:11 am (reply)

Guest

Style Graduate

I call my boyfriend’s parents by their first names. We are all adults, so it seems the only rational thing to do. He calls my parents by their first names also.

11/15/06 @ 11:20 am (reply)

Guest

Pepper

I just call the FIL’s by their first names. In fact, I’ve never called them anything BUT their first name (we skipped right over the Mr. and Mrs. stage).

11/15/06 @ 1:34 pm (reply)

Guest

Jennifer

In conversation, they are Debbie and Keith to me, but in print (birthday cards, emails), they are Mom Debbie and Dad Keith!

11/15/06 @ 5:17 pm (reply)

Guest

Future Mrs. G.

My MIL actaully brought it up to me after we got engaged because she never knew what to call HER in laws… for over 20 years! She said that once, when they were younger, she and my FIL were driving when they saw his father walking home from somewhere. My FIL told her to roll down the window to ask him if he wanted a ride, so she did but could not figure out what to call him in order to catch his attention… by the time she got her act together they had already driven by… So, I call them the same things their kids call them- Ima and Abba. Those are the hebrew names for “mom and dad”… I could not call them mom and dad, (that would be weird) but since they are the only people I call Ima and Abba, it’s not too difficult. Incidentally, my husbands brother married an Israeli woman who calles her own parents Ima and Abba and so she calls the in-laws by their first names.

11/15/06 @ 11:27 pm (reply)