What do children call you?
My husband and I decided that we'd like to be called Mr B- and Mrs B-.* We decided this because we expect our own children to call adults by their last names. But we didn't realize just how difficult this would be!
First you have the parents who don't instruct their children to address you any differently than they do. They may feel like Mr and Mrs is too formal.
Then you have the kids who just assume they can call you by your first name. This is the case with some of the kids in our neighborhood. It's a bit comical when a ten year old rings the doorbell and asks, "Can Greg come play?" I feel like he's asking if my son can come out and not my husband! Luckily most of the neighborhood kids don't call us anything (with the exception of my husband's basketball buddy) and so we've mostly dodged this one.
[I feel like that's how I handled it as a kid - I never knew what to call adults (other than teachers) and so I just awkwardly avoided addressing them. I would rather that not be the case for our children. My husband grew up knowing that he was supposed to call adults Mr and Mrs and that was that. So much easier!]
Then you have the families that call you Mr or Miss Firstname. I can understand this because sometimes last names are really hard to pronounce. Miss Elizabeth is certainly an improvement, though it also makes me feel like a daycare teacher again.
Finally, the toughest of all are the adults who don't want to go by Mr or Mrs X! I carefully make sure to get their last name so Miriam can call them by it and then they say "Oh, she can just call me Sally." I'm sorry, Sally, but we'd actually prefer her not to. You're not her playmate - you're an adult and we'd like her to treat you with a bit more respect.
But is that being disrespectful to Sally? Is that being hypocritical of me, to prefer to be addressed one way in spite of what the other adult usually does, but disregard their own preferences? Or do people just slide into whatever mode of address is used by the people around them, and they don't care either way and I'm just overthinking everything?
So far our strategy has simply been to instruct Miriam to "Say hello to Mr Doe," "Say thank you to Mrs Smith," etc. Obviously she can't actually say any of this yet. But it conveys to other adults how we'd like for her to address them, and hopefully subtly indicates how we'd like to be addressed as well. It hasn't worked perfectly, and I'm still debating how or if we should say something in those other instances.
What do you prefer to be called? How do you handle it if children call you something different? And are we stodgy old stick-in-the-muds for wanting to be addressed as Mr and Mrs?
*I suppose I could also go by Dr B-. But I'd rather people not be confused and turn to me in the case of a medical emergency! So Mrs B- it is.
Ahhh, this is a tough one! My friends' kids (who I don't see very often) call me by my first name or a nickname that my cousins called me when I was their age, since my name is hard for little voices to say. I don't mind this, nor do I find it disrespectful, especially as I know their parents super well and are almost like siblings to me. In this case, with your & your DH's close friends, what would you prefer Miriam do? What do your friends' kids call you guys?
ReplyDeleteThe kids on our street don't call us anything yet, and the few times we've been referred to in front of them, it's been Mr or Mrs "Smith." AKA: "Sally! Please do NOT walk on Mrs. Smith's flowers!!" Or "Billy, say thank you to Mr. Smith for the tomatoes."
We don't have kids yet, but for our neighbors, unless we suddenly become close with them, we'll probably ask them to call our neighbors Mr & Mrs. Hopefully the neighbors will respect this. I know one neighbor prefers to be called "Uncle Andy," but that bothers me since he isn't related to anyone. IF the neighbor persists on "Call me Mary/Bob/whatever" we might relent.
I do like the tradition of Miss/Mr First Name, which I believe is Southern--I didn't know about this until college, but yeah, it does sound very preschool-y. That might be better in our case for older people, like my parents' friends who, when I reached adulthood, instructed me to call THEM by their first names. I might be OK with calling them Linda or Peter NOW that I'm an adult, but I don't think I could have a child call them that.
OK I think I said enough, lol.
I might be in the minority here, but I really (REALLY) prefer not to be called Mrs. For some reason, it makes me feel terribly awkward, like I should be much more standoffish or 'above' the kids who are adressing me. I know it's supposed to be respectful, but still...just my reaction :) My friends' kids call me Sarah, which I feel is quite appropriate. Like we're family.
ReplyDeleteI don't mind being called Miss Sarah, though, by strangers. It feels reminiscent of 'Miss Elizabeth Bennett' or something, you know? A title, but nothing superior -- just an identifier.
I'm interested to hear more!
Haha, first of all, I first thought this post was about what your own children call you (Mom, Mommy, Mama, etc.) And when I saw you prefered Mrs. B I was like say whaaaaaaa-?! But then I realized what the post was about.
ReplyDeleteI grew up saying first names, but I came from a very close, TINY community.
Ryan grew up using Mr. and Mrs. until they said, "Oh you can call me Bob." or whatever.
My opinion is to always start off using Mr. or Mrs. because it's polite and respectful. But if they say it's OK to call them by their first name then to start using that. It shows respect for their wishes and I know some people loathe being called Mr. or Mrs.
Friends of ours that we see all the time and she hears us call by their first name are Aunt/Uncle to her; everyone else is Mr/Mrs last name unless the adult prefers their first name in which case they become Mr/Mrs/Miss first name.
ReplyDeleteWe use titles at our house. My children are to always address using Mr. and Mrs. for non-family adults and Aunt or Uncle if it's family. It's just what my kids do.
ReplyDeleteMost of the adults we interact with do the same, so it's never been a big issue. At our school, all kids address adults with Mr., Ms. or Mrs. and our priest as Father (last name).
I grew up using titles, also. so maybe that is why it's worked out the way it has for us.
Right now, with a preschooler we have let him get away with just calling our friends & close neighbors by Ms. or Mr. "First name". Maybe I'm being idealistic, but I'd prefer they call them Mr. or Mrs. "last name" in the future (once they hit 1st or 2nd grade) but I understand that it is hard for my little guy to pronounce a lot of our friends' last names. Again, this is just with people we are close with (friends who are more like family, but aren't technically aunt or uncle)... anyone who is more of an aquantaince is Mr. or Mrs. "last name".
ReplyDeleteI think I'd prefer to be called Mrs. C******i by my child's classmates... heck, as a wife I've earned the M.R.S. It reminds me of my mom reminding my high school friends (we lived in the South) that she was never a Miss. with her current last name so she expected to be addressed as Mrs.
Growing up my parents referred to their friends by their first names so we grew up referring to them by first name too... if my parents introduced us to Mr. or Mrs. X then we called them Mr. or Mrs... I really think it depended on how close my family was to them (and maybe even our age).
Wow, I really don't have a straigh answer on how we'll handle this... Yikes!
This is a tough subject all the way around. I can handle "Mrs. Basi" b/c I got used to it working at the Catholic school...but "Mr. Basi" sets my teeth on edge. Christian wants to be called that, though. I am fine with "Miz Kate" but I definitely want an honorific from kids, whether it's "aunt" or "Miss/Miz." There are too many kids who think they're the center of the universe, and it seems like they're the ones who always want to treat me as if they're as experienced and smart as I am. I often want to hit them.
ReplyDeleteAt our playgroup all the kids call the adults Mr or Miss First Name. And I'm comfortable with that. Honestly I feel incredibly awkward being called Mrs. Embry. Maybe it's because I'm still so young, I don't know, but it feels really weird to me. There is one family that have their children call us Mr and Mrs Embry, but I haven't asked them not to, because it seems like something the parents really wanted them to be doing. I've considered talking to the mom privately about it to see if she would mind them calling me something a little less formal.
ReplyDeleteSo far with our kids my husband teaching them to go with the last names in most situations, but I haven't been enforcing it much since they are mostly only around the adults at our playgroup and first names usually are much easier especially for younger children. But I'll second what Maggie said about going with Mr or Mrs unless the adult prefers otherwise. I think older gernerations will especially appreciate this.
At what point do you determine that people are "adults" and to be addressed with special titles? I ask because this was the thing that sort of toppled my parents' strict rules. Close friends of my parents were always "uncle/aunt first name," other married people were "Mrs/Mr last name" and single adults were "Miss/Mr first name." But then my parents had 20 years between their oldest and youngest children and it started to be absurd to insist that friends of siblings would be called anything other than their first names.
ReplyDeleteAs a young teen I thought it was horrible that Mr. MD married to Mrs. PhD were referred to as Dr & Mrs. and so I started calling them both Dr. But my older siblings corrected me and told me that according to good old-fashioned New England snob rules or whatever only MDs were called Dr. That worked for me since we didn't call any of the male PhDs "Dr." ... but then I went to college in one of the ultimate New England snob towns and I realized that MDs turned SAHMs were all called "Mrs." whereas the retired male MDs were still "Dr."
Anyway, I'd probably teach children to call people "Mr/Ms" unless instructed otherwise. I still try to call people my parents age and older Mr/Mrs/Ms until they tell me not to.
So far I am usually just "*mykidsname* mommy", but the few times people have made their kids call me MRS ****, it makes me feel so awkward, not me at all. I would lean towards everyone calling me by my first name, I consider kids equals, so why can't they call me the same as any other person. My parents insisted that we call anyone over the age of 18 mr or ms or mrs, and it got weird sometimes when you were technically close in age but still had to address them by a title, and I remember some people literally begged us to call them otherwise, but we had to call them by their title regardless. It got kind of silly sometimes.
ReplyDeleteIn introducing someone to my kids I think I would just ask what they prefer to be called and then repeat it to my children. I want them to learn how to respect that each person has a different preference. My kids call our neighbors by their first names, call the elderly lady down the street "amma" and her husband "mr smith", so it's different for each person.
I think where you live plays into this as well. When I was little, we lived in Washington State, and I called my friends' parents by their first names. Then we moved to Illinois and everyone was Mr. & Mrs.
ReplyDeleteWe aren't at the stage of having many friends with kids yet, so this hasn't really come up, but I prefer first names, myself. It would make me sad if my close friends' kids called me Mrs. _____ because that would make it seem like our families didn't have a close relationship.
Also, I'm still friends with my whole friend group from middle school/high school, and their parents have started insisting we call them by their first names, now that we're all adults. It's really difficult for me to make that kind of switch in what I call people (e.g., I plan to be called "Mama" because I had such a hard time making the "Mommy"/"Mom" switch with my own mom).
I am so with you! I actually grew up calling everyone Mr./Mrs. lastname and a few of my parents close friends (mainly ones who didn't have kids or get married until after I had known them for a long time) were just first name - but that was the exception.
ReplyDeleteAround here, I seem to be the minority though because if I ask my kids to address my friends as Mr. or Mrs. I usually get scoffed at or asked to please have them address the adult by their first name or, if I insist, they prefer Ms. Kate or whatever. One case I can think of that makes sense is I know several sister in laws (you probably know who I am talking about) who live in the same community as their mother in law and they are Mrs. with the same last name. The SILs all prefer to be called Ms. first name.
As we enter school, I find more parents willing to allow our children to refer to them as Mr./Mrs. and their last name, which is good. We are moving in that direction:).
It drives me nuts when a 4-year-old runs up and refers to me by my first name only. I just find it very rude, but have not figured out how to address the issue yet.
Good discussion:)
oh, this makes me nuts too... we live in the south where every adult is "miss firstname." but i grew up in atlanta (which apparently plays by different rules than the more rural south!) and called all my parents' friends by "mr. and mrs. lastname." so i'd also prefer my kids to use last names, but it is hard when nobody else is doing it around you. i still just refer to them by last name to my kids. i used to dodge it and say, "tell matthew's mom thank you for having us over," but that gets tedious, especially once they have other kids and you're saying "matthew, sally, alice, and ben's mom." when i was a teenager and babysat, one family asked me to call them by first names... as a teenager who's working for somebody, that made sense, although i still felt awkward about it at first. i do still feel weird when i'm using a last name for somebody and she's using "miss erin" for me... when i was a kid, no adult ever referred to my mom as "miss nancy." everyone used last names.
ReplyDeletei also don't think it's a good idea to try to convince parents to get their kids to call you something else than what they prefer. if another mom prefers "miss erin" for her kids to use to address me, then i'm not going to tell her to make them call me mrs. lewis, and i'd hope she wouldn't insist that i have my kids use her first name. it shows respect for the way the other parent chooses to instruct her children. when they are teens/adults and get told, "oh, just call me firstname," then it's different.. it's like a sign of growing up, a coming-of-age type thing, in my opinion. as long as the parents are referring to you in front of their kids by an actual name... i mean, your last name w/ title is just as much your name as is your first name, so it's their decision which to have their children use. if people insisted my kids called them by first names, i'd feel like my kids were learning to be less respectful of adults. but that's because of how i was raised myself and doesn't mean i think people doing otherwise are disrespectful.
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