Time and Taid

[steepholm]

My cousin Vicky (daughter of my mother’s elder sister) visited my mother yesterday when I was there, and in telling of some cute thing that her granddaughter had said, inadvertently revealed that the girl addresses her as “Flo(w)”. The reason, apparently, is that her daughter-in-law’s parents had already bagged the titles “Gran” and “Grandad”, and they had to find an alternative. “What about Nain and Taid?” Vicky suggested, these being the Welsh equivalents. Her husband, however, who is very English, complained, “Taid? She may as well call us Ebb and Flow!” And so it was decided.

I suppose this must be a common problem, and potentially a tricky diplomatic one. Vicky seemed to believe that the mother's parents always (and rightly) had first dibsies, but is that a widespread convention? There was no such competition in the case of my own grandparents: they were Nana and Grandpa on my mother's side, but my paternal grandmother died before I was born, and my grandfather on that side preferred to be addressed in Esperanto, as "Avo". (To be honest I thought that was his name until years after he died.) The conventions for my own children's grandparents were dull enough, but evenhanded: Grandpa/ma + First Name. It seemed to work.

Vicky is always stylish, and on this occasion was wearing a very nice Alexander McQueen cardigan. When my mother admired it, she gave it her - and I think it suits her well.



My mother turned 94 the other day.

Comments

[calimac]

Grandpa/ma + First Name is what we used, dropping the first name when there was no possibility of confusion in context. I've also seen + Last Name.

One gets the impression from pop culture that it's more common to have a designated opaque term, e.g. if your father is Dad, your grandfather is Pop, and your other grandfather is some other synonym. But I never encountered this among other children in my childhood.

Nor, despite our being Jewish, did anybody in the community use the Yiddish terms like Bubbe.

[cmcmck]

It was 'wor gran' and 'wor gramp' on one side and 'nanny' and 'grandad' on the other although my Snape Staffordshire granparents always addressed one another as 'mam' and 'dad' which is very West Midlands.

Eh oop me dook! That's what you get for having complex ancestry! :o)

Your mum is looking wonderful! :o)

[redbird]

It was always Grandma/Grandpa firstname in my family as well, to the point that I was surprised to come across the "Nana and Grandma" approach. This may have made things slightly simpler when my maternal grandparents had all three of their daughters, and five grandchildren, visiting: they were Grandma Mia and Grandpa Sal (short for Salomon) to all of us.

[the_rck]

We did Grandma/pa [last name], including for my step-father's mother, but it's more complicated for my daughter. My husband's parents have older grandchildren and had established preferences with my husband's father going by 'Papa' (which is what I call my father, just for added complication). None of my parents are local, and we do a lot with Scott's sister's in-laws as part of the group, and we had to figure out what to call them. Scott's sister's MIL just wants to be called 'Nana' the way she is by her grandchildren, but her husband wants to be 'Uncle' instead of 'Grandpa.'

My father and step-father have ended up as Grandpa [first name], mostly because I call my step-father by his first name and didn't think about it. My father was a bit disconcerted. His current wife had a title already being used by her pre-existing grandchildren, so we've gone with that. My mother is Grandma [last name] or just Grandma (since no one else is using that title).

[joyeuce]

My daughter has six grandparents. Two of them were already Nana and Grandad to other grandchildren, so it made sense for her to call them that as well. Then my mother-in-law decided she and her husband wanted to be Nana and Grandad as well, so they're all Nana or Grandad Firstname. Fortunately my parents chose something different!

[lilliburlero]

I've never heard of mother's side having first dibs: in my case it was my father's mother who felt strongly, so she became Gran and her husband Grandpa, and my maternal grandparents were Grandma and Granddad.

[larryhammer]

Another Granma/Grampa $firstname family here. Or at least now we are, ever since TBD settled on using English titles: for their first couple years, they insisted on calling all grandparent-aged men "Baba" (Chinese for Daddy). We assume there was an older man at her group home who was called that.

[thistleingrey]

I didn't know about dibs, but then, I am of enough distinct traditions (none anglophone except where I grew up, Los Angeles, and that a bit dicey) that convention need not come knocking. Reason uses my mother's childhood language's term for "grandmother" and my ex's mother's preferred term, which is not quite her own dad's childhood language's term but compatible thereto. (Umm, the lang of my ex's mom's dad.) Ex's mother is allergic to the idea of being called a grandparent in the clear, despite being well into her seventies--ain't no one can help her there.

[yalovetz]

My sister is currently pregnant and my parents are currently in discussions about what they want to be called. My mum has decided she wants to be called Nana rather than Grandma, since it's more Northern. If the baby's other grandmother would also like to be called Nana then my mum is happy to be Nana [Personalname]. My dad is happy to be either Grandpa or Grandad, he's not too fussed.

With my own grandparents it was pretty easy. Each of my parents lost a parent young, so I had a Grandma on one side and a Grandpa on the other, and their respective spouses who we called by their personal names.