Interesting comments. Thanks all for your input.

I guess my views are because of my old fashioned New England/Italian upbringing. Acknowledging a person when they speak to you, was always as important as a please or thank you. With this fast paced world, these most basic responses, seem to be left behind all too often. Not expecting (or wanting) a response to every sentence, but a simple acknowledgment at the end is all that's needed.

With my DIL - maybe it's just a carryover from her life when she was growing up. She despised her stepmother (still does), and ignored her whenever possible, from what she has told me. I have also brought up her lack of response to me in a lighthearted manner, but it still continues, so I suppose I might just as well get used to it.

The "Mom" thing is really no big deal - I just threw that in to see what others did. I was closer to my best friend's mother, than I was to my own, and I called her Mom E. till the day she passed away at 95.