P's Grand Revelation... brace yourselves

[tea_and_ink]

Names are important. There.

Last night Jared and I had a conversation over the phone (the love that guy has for his phone is really creepy sometimes) where certain event that I was not informed about surfaced. Apparently my tow dads had a discussion over the fact that Jared and I referred to our father by his first name. In R's view, that was a lack of respect for the parental figure, it allowed the children to have certain control over the parent with whom they were in fist name terms, under-minding of authority might ensue and subsequently the parent's duty was unfulfilled. 

In my dad's opinion, it is a sign of both respect and appreciation from his offspring to address him that way, it meant that they recognized him as the person, the human being, instead of just as the father role. According to dad, it had nothing to do with respect issues because we still shut our mouths with a mere glare from him, the same way we still turn to him when a more experienced-person's advice is required. Besides we still called him dad or daddy on a regular basis, so it wasn't as if we didn't recognize his part in our conception and upbringing, it was more about us accepting his condition of human being, of citizen even...

This discussion kept going for quite a while after this particular encounter took place. I'm kinda kicking myself for not picking up on it, but in my defense, I did notice that R was a bit stiff about my ways with him. I've never called him by his first name, at first he was Mr. R, then when he grew on me he became dad, he's never been daddy for me, but eventually I'll forget the "sir" part and he'll give me this look... now I know why.

My daddy, folks, is a hero. But that's my opinion on the subject which we have to agree, is more than a little biased.
My question to you (as somebody's kids and in certain cases, somebody's parent) is what do you think? I mean, your answer is most likely to have no affect on my treatment of my dad, since well, he's okay with it, but it will open my mind some more.

P.S.: is official, I'm back being "Scout"! ::is happy::

Comments

[1grl-revolution.livejournal.com]

When I was in my first year or so of college I started calling my dad by his first name. I thought it was funny. My dad didn't though and said to me one day after I called him by his first name, "And it's DADDY". So I've never done it since. I think that if your dad is ok with you calling him by his first name, then by all means, do it. He obviously sees it as something very respectful, and you do still call him Dad/Daddy occassionally. It sounds like something special between you guys. In my case, it's really important to my dad to be called Dad/Daddy, and I respect that. I think that if I had kids, I wouldn't want them to call me by my first name, I would want them to call me Mom/Mommy. Those are my two cents. *g*

[penandnotebook]

::collects cents::

I don't really remember when did I start calling my dad by his first name, in fact I've convinced myself that Jared started and since he's my big brother, everything he did I had to do as well. And clearly I had no idea why the man let us call him that. It was never really an issue, he calls us his offspring often times, others we're his chillun, others we're Pao and Jar-Jar, so really is our way of telling him he is reciprocated.

I found it odd that the other dad had issues with that. I understand his position, I probably would my hypothetical children to call me Mom/Momma/Mommy or any other variation thereof, I just never imagined it would be such a big deal for him, yanno? Good thing tho, I learned that the Father respects our ability to respect him.
As I see it, for him that we use his first name means that, like he said, we see him for who he is, but more importantly, we're not afraid of what he is...