Talking to relatives about relatives, what do you call them?

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venuseagle
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02 Dec 2011, 5:01 am

How would you refer to relatives when talking to other relatives?

When talking to your neice about her Mum (your sister) would you address your sister as "my sister", "your Mum" or just your sister's name?

Just wondering if it's an Aspergers thing to refer to the person as you would usually refer to them from your own perspective (eg "my") rather than translating it so that it's easier for the receiver of the conversation to understand (eg "your").

I have to make a conscious effort to translate things so that it is easier for someone else to relate to what I am saying. Yet it seems so natural for NTs to automatically know how to refer to people. Is it a theory of mind thing?

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02 Dec 2011, 5:43 am

I think it comes down to who the person we are speaking about is closest too. I will say 'My Mum', when I'm speaking about her, no matter who I'm speaking to. If I'm talking to a cousin about my aunt/ their Mum, I'll say, 'Your Mum'. But, I have to think about it, it doesn't come naturally.


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02 Dec 2011, 11:21 am

My youngest brother always refers to our mom as 'my mom' and me and my other brother told him he could just say mom when he's talking to us about her because she's our mom too. lol but yeah I have never really thought about how to refer to family members and it can vary for me......like if I am talking about one of my aunts I will either call them my aunt or 'moms sister' 'dads sister'.


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hanyo
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02 Dec 2011, 11:31 am

I call them by their names. There are some people that have the same name in my family. My mother's siblings are referred to by their names and my grandmother's siblings with the same name are referred to as Aunt/Uncle "their name" to avoid confusion.



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02 Dec 2011, 1:04 pm

If I talk to the child of someone, I'll always say "your mother". Even if it's my aunt, it's their mother first...if that makes sense. Same for children, your son is your son before he is my nephew.
When speaking to my mother in law, I'm somewhat reticent to identify my husband as "hers" or "mine", so I just call him by his name...



Joe90
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02 Dec 2011, 2:18 pm

Oh for Christ sake how is it an Aspergers thing? People call relatives all sorts of things, it depends on the person.

When one of my cousins talks about my mum, she says ''your mum'', when my other cousin talks about my mum, she says my mum's name. When my other cousin talks about my mum, she says ''Auntie [name]''.

I usually say ''your mum'' when talking about someone else's mum, even if they aren't my relatives. I don't think it's because of having Asperger's, I just think it's just what I say.


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MrXxx
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02 Dec 2011, 2:23 pm

Joe90 wrote:
Oh for Christ sake how is it an Aspergers thing? People call relatives all sorts of things, it depends on the person.


8O

Whoah! Chill pill anyone?

A agree though. This doesn't have anything to do with Asperger's. I've known a lot of people who stumble over what to call relatives when speaking to relatives.


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jackbus01
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02 Dec 2011, 2:24 pm

I always say "my sister's kids" or "my sister's son" or "my sister's daughter" instead of nephew and niece. I am not sure why I do this, but for some reason others find it awkward or unusual. Of course, most think that I speak awkwardly anyway, so I guess it does not matter.



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23 Dec 2018, 3:51 pm

In our family we don't have kids yet so it's easy, closest relatives. And the child (I mean offspring) always says 'mum' and the husband always says 'your mum' not 'my wife' or her name.
I call my stepdad his name. No matter how much I dislike my dad at times, my stepdad isn't my dad and my dad isn't absent. And to his daughter I call him 'your dad' and she calls my mum 'your mum'. (because she has a mum)
The only aspie thing about me - which doesn't seem aspie just posh but my logic is aspie - is that I had ages where it was mum and daddy because daddy lived in Spain and it didn't seem fair that he had less times called by the baby name.
Looking back on it, what was unfair was that someone who shouldn't have had kids because he was incapable (not just because he's aspie, he has mental health problems) had me and left me to be raised by mum. I'm glad I exist, he means well, she loves me, but still...
Pets and immediate family who I sort of live with and sort of don't and our pets go between two places, the difficult ones are 'my cat' and 'mum's dog' and the ones who behave for/like anyone are called 'our cats'.



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23 Dec 2018, 4:03 pm

I always say my mum, my aunt, whatever.
I have terrible trouble with pronouns, though, it's like a pronoun disability so I try to be very consistent so I don't confuse anyone, but that often confuses people more.


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