titles for in-laws

[Starling]

Hi, all!

The Goat asked:  "I'm late on this thread, but I'm curious about another
social conundrum:
what do you married people call your parents-in-law?"

Well, i'm not married yet, but i've watched my parents fumble thru this for
years.
My mom's parents were Grandmommy and Grandaddy, my dad's Gram and Poppop.
Relationships between parents and children were always delicate, between
inlaws even more so.  So the "grandparents" titles were generally used as
all-purpose names, with the exception of my dad and his father in law.
Grandaddy was scottish, and somehow, long before I was born, they started
calling each other McTavish (Grandaddy) and McDougal (Dad). ( My grandmother
was sometimes "that old bat" and dad "ungrateful boy" but that was also a
long standing joke.)  On the whole, dad got along fairly well with his in
laws.
Mom and my paternal grandmother were sometimes a bit strained, so mom used
"Gram" exclusively, to avoid having to clue in we kids that their might be
any strain.

I know this is fairly common amongst my college friends, I've heard most of
their parents refer to both their parents and their inlaws but their
"grandparent" titles when talking with my friends.  And if you're curious,
Mike, we're almost all of us New Yorkers. :-)

PS -- Mike, for a goat who can't read, you type very well <g>

Abbie, who does not draw and picked her screenname long ago but is
occasionally confused with Starling the artist and wishes all to understand
she can only draw stick people <g>
starling823 at yahoo.com
69% obsessed with HP and loving it
"Ah, music," Dumbledore said, wiping his eyes.  "A magic beyond all we do
here!"
          -HP and the Sorcerer's Stone








Mom and Dad? First
names? My (Swiss) wife and I have been married for six years now, and I
still haven't figured it out. Younger Swiss parents would want to be called
by their first names, whereas the traditional solution would be Mom and Dad.
Sue's parents are fairly traditional and in their early 70s, so I *think* I
know what they'd like--but I just can't get the words through my larynx
without choking.

When we were married I couldn't speak enough German to request a first name
grant, so I settled into the habit of starting conversations with a two- or
three-syllable mumble-grunt. (It sounds something like an Albanian
translation of a bus accident between "Mom" or "Dad" and their respective
forenames.) Strange way of addressing an adult, sober human, but we've
actually developed it into an accepted protocol.

Anyway, since Sue and I have managed to produce two children, the whole
family (including my wife!) is presently shifting to Grossmeti and
Grossvati, which solves the problem. Still not the way I'd have liked to
have done it, but better than the status quo.

Is this a normal problem or a unique cross-cultural difficulty--or am I just
socially inept??

(On a related tack, deciding whether to use the formal or friendly form of
address with strangers is a pretty complex calculation in both Switzerland
and Italy. Each country - in fact, each region of each country - requires a
different social algorithm.)

Baaaaaa!

Aberforth's Goat (a.k.a. Mike Gray)
_______________________

"Of course, I'm not entirely sure he can read, so that may not have been
bravery...."





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