Becoming a Parent-in-law - a life transition
By Dan and Mari Greenwood
Postscript - What Will They Call Us?
To call one’s mother or father by their first name could be to give real honour, by honouring their individual personhood. The name Mother or Father or Mum or Dad may carry great connotations of affection, in which case it may continue to be essential. But on the other hand, it may underline inappropriate inequality of relationship between the generations.
These names can link with words like expectations….obligations ...patronising (in both directions)....or manipulation....and be not good!
A name can be a hindrance and influence people’ thinking.
It’s interesting that certain people in the Bible were renamed in the course of their life story, for very positive reasons.
If parents and their offspring have matured into adult/adult relating, the names Mother and Father or Mum and Dad may be comfortable. If the relationships have become adult friendships some people might find it symbolically helpful to be able to set aside all the parent/child connotations that these words carry, and use first names only.
Then the older people can be more easily perceived as individuals in their own right, not Mum as was, not Dad as was, and certainly not to be thought of as a unit called ‘Mum and Dad’ with a kind of corporate personality.
What would you ideally like to be called?