Addressing your mum/ mam/ mother

The American culture that I experienced in the days when I called my mother Mom was I Love Lucy, The Jack Benny Show and I Dream Of Jeanie. Incidentally, I still dream of her!
 
When I was young it was Mammy and Daddy and as we got older it changed to Mam and Dad (Mam is said with a very flat west of Ireland accent which I can't help).

A odd time we refer to them by their first names and my brother sometimes calls my father 'auld lad' in light heartned way whereby my father will reply "I'm not old"!!
 
Madangan said:
...It wasnt the american influence I think cos it was over 20 years ago....
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In our case it was the american influence but through our american cousins rather than the TV. Dont discount the effect of TV even 20 - 30 years ago - remember the "Brady Bunch" / Sesamie St. etc in the early 70's
 
RainyDay said:
With our little one, she generally uses Mammy or Daddy, but she will use first names when she gets frustrated.
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I find this hilarious when it's very small children doing that - a friend of ours has a 3 year old who will, when annoyed at not getting as much attention as she demands, revert to calling her father by his full name (eg Micheal James Smith) to get his attention

It was always "mum" in my house (or mother when I was exasperated), but I suspect that was the influence of the beano/dandy/whizzer and chips comics I used to read.

My parents still refer to each other as "mum" or "dad" when they're talking to me about the other (eg mother says "dad is going to Cork at the weekend with work"), and I'm hitting 30?? Mother also still calls her own mother "gran" in front of me. Odd. it's not as if I won't realise who she's talking about if she uses their actual names...
 


I think this is really lovely. Kinda choked up reading it to be honest.

My mother passed away when I was very young and I'd love to be able to address her or hear others refer to her like that
 
My brother and I always said Mam and Dad. My sister went to a private school and she called her Mum (and now uses her first name).
...maybe it is a class thing
 
Mam and Dad were standard until there was a certain coolness in the air

Being told to tell YOUR FATHER his dinner is on the table when he was well within earshot left us kids grinning to ourselves while we passed on the obvious message for peace sake. They/we still laugh about it to this day when we mention those delicate moments
 
PM1234 said:
I think this is really lovely. Kinda choked up reading it to be honest.

My mother passed away when I was very young and I'd love to be able to address her or hear others refer to her like that
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Aw, that's tugging at the aul heartstrings now alright, yeah, I suppose it's kinda nice when you think about it Sorry to hear that, I do feel guilty when I have a little rant about my mother for eg, and someone else is sitting there thinking "I'd love to still have my own mother around so I could give out about her too!".

Sueellen, I had that as well - Tell [heavily sarcastic emphasis] YOUR FATHER [/heavily sarcastic emphasis] that dinner is served if he'd be so KIND as to grace us with his presence, while my dad was clearly in earshot and rolling his eyes to heaven
 
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