It’s just the culture you grew up in but it makes no sense to me not addressing someone by their name and instead rank them by seniority.

I’m portuguese. Family is very important for us, even more than for italians, I risk.

Two generations back, no child would dare address a parent as such. It would always be “sir” or “madam”. And the same would happen for any older people. It was enforced through religion and socially because we were under a dictatorship that wanted to “elevate” the country, so social status and ranking had to be constantly displayed and reinforced. Being a father or a mother was a function, in the name of god and for the advancement of the state and country.

Poor, humble, people could not care. Children were treasures by themselves and being mother or father is a previliege only few deserve. Being addressed as such was precious. It made their petty lives meaningful. And when the dictatorship was toppled, that notion pushed out the “proper”, religion fed, state supported, socially enforced, status quo.

Children nowadays address parents in the second (“you”) person, the same for grand parents, great-grandparents, uncles, aunts or any relative. Mother and father carry belonging and closeness. A family title implies care for the other, a bond that crosses generations, that binds people together. Blood truly runs thicker than water, here.

If a relative gets our formal second person, added to their family title, that immediatly signals that person is not a close relative nor a person we are at ease with. If a relative gets an added “Sir” or “Madam” it’s implied the family tie is recognized but nor trust or closeness are granted and the other person will have to earn it.

This also bleeds to social interactions. If introduced to someone, most will stick to the more neutral formal second person. It can easily evade titles and passes as polite but only out of courtesy, as we have no previous connection towards the other. The informal second person can be earned between work colleagues or someone we interact on a daily basis. If the formal second person is enforced, that is distancing being put between people and that denounces they don’t get along. Demanding a title is close to stating two individuals only deal with eachother by necessity.

However, it is considered polite to address someone by their professional title, especially in health related context.

Back to family.

A family is only as strong as the individuals that make it up. My children address me as father and that is an honor and privilige they grant me. But my name in their mouth is their recognition of my individuality and the same is true in reverse. I do not admit to anyone demand from my children an addressing by “Sir” or “Madam” without giving them the same deference. And if I refuse formality and insist being addressed by name is because I want to be recognized by who I am. It saddens me to hear close relatives and people that work and collaborate on a daily basis hide behind titles or enforce artificial social distance. We all rely on each other. In a broad sense, we are all related.

I almost always called family from the previous generations by title and first name, or just title. So, Grandpa, Aunt Sue, etc. Cousins and siblings got first name only. My kids call their immediate parents mom and dad, and their step-parents mom or my wife’s first name. I rarely associate with my ex or her husband, and they refer to him when talking to me by his first name. If they were close enough to him to refer to him as dad, I’d be happy for them to have that good a relationship.

The douche kid we didn’t really like on swim team in HS called his dad Jeff. A teammate was like “you call your dad by his name?” “Yeah. It’s his name.” “But, he’s your dad.”

To me, it makes it feel less like a happy family and more like a boss/employee relationship. His logic was sound, but there’s more to it than that.

I used their first names until I was 18.
When I went to college, nobody knew who I was talking about when I said their names, and it got me in the habit of saying “mom” and “dad”, and it stuck.

My child, who is young, calls my wife and I by a rotating set of terms, like mom/dad, mommy/daddy, and our actual names. Same with the grandparents. There is no intention behind it, it’s just whatever comes to mind first.

No, my kids call me mom and yes I’d think it kinda rude if they first named me.

But

My step-kids call me by my first name, and my kids call my husband by his first name, and that is fine with both of us somehow.

When kids are small here, they usually call adults Mr. or Ms. First Name. Older kids to teachers Mr. or Ms. Last Name, but my kids who are older still called me Ms. First Name. Not much Sir and Ma’am anymore but I still hear it sometimes.

Speaking as a white person of mostly Italian-American ancestry in my late 40s from New York, USA.

My mother and father were always called “Mom” and “Dad.” They divorced, my dad remarried first, and my stepmother has always been called by her first name; my sister and I were never asked to call her “Mom,” and it would have been very weird for anyone to ask us to do so when we already had a mom who wasn’t her. When my mother remarried, he was an immigrant from a Spanish-speaking country and we briefly fell into calling our stepfather “Papi” which is Spanish for “Dad.” That was a little weird, though, and we went back to using his first name.

The cliche’ you mention from Western TV and films of a child calling a mother or father by their first name is often a standard joke about the kid acting rebellious and rejecting their parents’ authority, and usually is depicted as a brief goofy phase which passes by the end of the episode, and not meant to depict a realistic ongoing relationship between parent and child. Alternatively, it could be illustrating a more nontraditional “hippie” family culture as noted by some others in these replies.

As for uncles and aunts, calling them “Uncle (name)” or “Aunt/Auntie (name)” is generally the norm in many Western cultures. I generally call my own “Uncle/Aunt (name).” However, it does very much vary.

Sometimes the formal “Aunt/Uncle” address is more of a thing for children, and when one reaches adulthood they might drop the “uncle” or “aunt” title and just use first names as their relationship transitions from one between a child and adult to a more equal dynamic between adults.

In some families the dynamic may even be different for individual aunts or uncles depending on how close the family relationship is; if it’s a family member who lives nearby and you see all the time and have a very close personal relationship with, or if it’s a distant relative you may only meet in person and communicate with rarely over the course of years, one may find the individual relationship (and, consequently, the form of address) develops differently with that family member. I call my close aunts and uncles who are regular presences in my life “Aunt/Uncle (name),” but if I encountered a distant relative from far away who I haven’t seen or spoken with in 30 years I’d probably just use their first name.

Also, in some families “Uncle” or “Aunt/Auntie” can be a form of respectful address for older adults even if they are not family relations. In my childhood some of my mother’s closest friends who were regular presences in our lives were addressed as “Aunt/Uncle (name)” despite there being no blood relations between us, though when I grew up the “Uncle/Aunt” title was dropped and we just call them by their names as our adult-to-adult friendship continued. This was not the case on my father’s side of the family, where adult friends were always just called by their first names.

Particular mention must be made of the use of the terms “Uncle/Unc” or “Aunt/Auntie” among and toward elder members of the Black community with which one is not related. It is a very delicate issue, and as a white person I don’t use it and don’t claim any authority to speak on the subject, but I think it’s important to learn more about. Some more info can be found starting here and here, but it should be discussed with members of that community if you wish to know more.

Our children do, mostly, call us by our proper names. I guess it comes from us never talking of ourselves in third person.

I’ve seen where people will use their names instead because of emotional distancing or relationship issues. If you don’t feel close to the person, why use a nickname?

I started using mother more often when i was a younger adult. I still use mama some times but unless im trying to bother her or outright piss her off ill use her first name.

Scottish here, pretty sure that my mum would come down from heaven and fucking smite me if I tried that with my dad, gods or no gods.

I’ve always done that with both my parents, but then again I’m Danish. It’s a radically different culture. Families are not seen as particularly inherently important here. It’s usually not even a meritocratic assessment of the family as a unit - it’s an individual one. You might like some people, you might dislike others. Either way, is has almost nothing to do with whether a blood relation exists or not.

“An asshole’s an asshole.”

Edit: Along similar philosophical lines, there’s no particular veneration of age. Age and wisdom might be proportionally related, but one does not guarantee the other. Some people manage only to grow more foolish with age. Precocious children exist.

I’d be very interested in exploring the differences between cultures more with you, assuming you’re willing.

My nephew does that. I think it’s weird.

I DID do that with my step-father but that’s different, I think, because when my mom was dating I wasn’t going to call him Dad. And after years of calling him by his name it felt weird to start calling him anything else.

My second son calls his mother and I by our first names and has done since he was 5. None of our other kids do that, it is something he decided to do, and has continued. He is now 16

I mostly call my moms by their first names. I almost never directly refer to them as “mom.” When talking about them to people who know them, I refer to them by their names. Basically only call them my mom to people who don’t know my parents.

I’m in the US. But I think part of the reason I do that is having multiple moms. OTOH, they are trying to teach our niece to call them grammy and nana and I know my cousins have a similar way of differentiating their moms.

I only use my parents’ first names when trying to get their attention from a distance.