PenPenWrites

The name Mom or Dad is loaded. It's what our children called us when they were small and what they continue to call us–or some variation of that name. So it can create a little ball of hurt to hear a son call his mother-in-law Mom or hear a daughter call her father-in-law, Dad. For some of us, it's just the surprise of the moment–then we get over it. After all, we know who's who. But some of us take it more to heart, as a recent Dear Abby letter suggests.

To a Mom who wrote that she resented  hearing her son call his mother-in-law mom in front of his very own mother, Abby writes: "Let it go. Your son was probably calling [his mother in law] "Mom" because he had been asked to do so. ("'Sonny,' we're family now. Please call me 'Mom.'") It would not, however, be confrontational to tell your son that hearing him do it was hard to swallow." 

I can see letting it go. But bringing it up with the son or daughter? I'm not sure about that, and neither is Susan Adcox at About./com's Grandparents. She makes the very sensible suggestion of letting it go, period. "Friction with a daughter-in-law is one of the swiftest routes I know to becoming estranged from a son. Having a son with two moms is much better than having no son at all."

One of her readers added this point: "I believe my sons call their MIL’s by their first name, as my DIL’s call me. I do know though that it seems whichever Mom you are, you are only entitled to agree or there’s trouble."