Do your kids call older people Mr/Ms/Mrs?

chinaKat · 09-26-2006, 08:24 AM

What do your kids call adults? Do they use first names or Mr/Ms/Mrs?

I have mixed feelings about this. I want my child to understand the concept of respect for older people, and I'm not always comfortable with the "instant familiarity" of calling somebody by his/her first name.

On the other hand, we have family friends whose kids have always called me by my first name... I can't in a million years imagine having my DD start saying Mr. and Mrs. to them. It would be weird.

Right now we are kind of straddling the line. Older generations (our retired neighbor, *my* friends' parents, etc.) are called Mr. and Mrs.... but DD uses first names for people she meets that are our age (family friends, mostly).

It's going to get even more interesting when DD goes to school and makes friends there. What will her friends call me? "Mrs. DD'sLastname" isn't my name. What do kids call other kids' parents these days, anyway? Hey you?

**annettemarie** · 09-26-2006, 08:27 AM

My kids do. If the adult says, oh, you can call me FirstName, then I say, "It's OK, you can call her Ms. FirstName.

HollyBearsMom · 09-26-2006, 08:31 AM

My kids do unless, like AnnetteMarie said, they are invited to use the persons first name.

Hatteras Gal · 09-26-2006, 08:36 AM

We do the Ms and Mr followed by the 1st name too, unless the person requests it to be the last name. Dd1's preschool teachers use their formal names not their first names.
I feel a little funny having my kids call someone by their first name without the Ms or Mr. My mom has 2 friends and now they have become mine, in a way, and I still slip sometimes and call them Miss Chris and Miss Rosie.

One of my best friend's (daughter of Miss Rosie) told me the last time we were together she still call's my mom Mrs. Last Name.

mama_b · 09-26-2006, 08:44 AM

My dd doesn't address adults yet, but I will not have her call anyone "Mr" or "Ms" unless the person insists. I don't get why older people should get more respect just because their older.

uberwench · 09-26-2006, 08:49 AM

My Ds will call someone by the name with which they introduce themselves. Come to think of it - around here, we're a pretty "first name " bunch, and I can't actually think of a time when someone's introduced themselves as "mr" or "mrs"...the exception being his brief stint at preschool, where the teachers were "miss<first name>" - but again, that's how they introduced themselves. Even I called them that.

Nicole77 · 09-26-2006, 08:49 AM

We do the same thing. My daughter calls someone Ms. or Mr. unless invited to call them by their first name.

chinaKat · 09-26-2006, 08:55 AM

Oh yeah, and we've tried implementing an "auntie" title for close friends of the family... but it doesn't really stick all the time. That was sort of our compromise title.

As far as why give some people more "respect" than others -- it's not totally because of the age, it's more a level of familiarity. Sort of like tu vs. vous.

I mean, you wouldn't run up to the CEO of your company or the mayor of your town and say Hey Jane! unless you already had been introduced, right? Because you are not *familiar* with them, you use a respectful address until circumstances dictate otherwise.

At least, that's my opinion, but of course others will differ.

RachelEve14 · 09-26-2006, 08:57 AM

My kids call other adults by their first names, except our very close friends (2 or 3 couples) whom they call "aunt" and "uncle" even though they are not related. I still call my parents' best friends "aunt" and "uncle" even though I am now a certified adult

**lurable** · 09-26-2006, 09:01 AM

As a private music teacher I ask my children to call me by my first name. I feel respect is given through actions not through titles. That being said I don't mind if kids call me Ms Maxwell and I sometimes welcome the kids by saying "hello sir John or Madam Julia or Miss Rachel, etc" I have been with many of these children for years; they feel like family!

TinkerBelle · 09-26-2006, 09:12 AM

I am almost 39 yrs old and have an instructor at my college who insists we call her by her first name. It is so strange to me to do that with someone who is old enough to be my mother.

mamaroni · 09-26-2006, 09:16 AM

I'm not a big fan of the mr./mrs. thing either, but I agree with chinakat that it's a matter of familiarity. We take the other's lead, and I generally tell my kids friends that they can call me colleen. we have a few friends where we use "miss colleen" and "mr so and so" which I'm also not a big fan of, but it'll work.

desultory · 09-26-2006, 09:33 AM

My kids are on a first-name basis with most of my adult friends, but they use Mr. or Mrs. with more casual adult aquaintances unless invited to use first names. I teach them to begin formally but to respect the person's wishes. They have a lot of "Miss Jane" and "Mr Dan" adult friends. I don't like using titles for myself, so all the kids just call me some variation of my first name, but when I was a teacher we all used titles (I called the children Mr. and Miss, and they called me Mrs). I have mixed feelings about the 'respect for older people' thing. On the one hand, I do respect the greater experience and, I hope, wisdom, of old folks. On the other hand, I believe in equality, including of children, so I hope the practice of using titles dies out. I'm Quaker, and we don't use titles at all at the Meetinghouse, so it can be confusing for my kids to do differently elsewhere. My explanantion to them is simply that a lot of old folks grew up when it was common practice for children to use titles and that we might offend them by being too familiar.

chinaKat · 09-26-2006, 10:08 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by desultory

I have mixed feelings about the 'respect for older people' thing. On the one hand, I do respect the greater experience and, I hope, wisdom, of old folks. On the other hand, I believe in equality, including of children, so I hope the practice of using titles dies out.

Curious, do your kids call you Mama or Mom? Or do they use your first name?

It doesn't feel inequal in our household that DD says Mama and Daddy, but we call her by her name.

roisin84 · 09-26-2006, 10:16 AM

Mine call everyone by their first name (including me), except in the case of particularly elderly friends/neighbours for whom that kind of title/respect thing is important.

wryknowlicious · 09-26-2006, 10:17 AM

they call everyone Sir or Ma'am unless they have been given permission by that person or us to refer to them by thier first name.

**Drummer's Wife** · 09-26-2006, 10:22 AM

nope. If someone were to introduce themselves to my children as Mr. or Mrs. so and so I'm sure they would but otherwise they use first names as that's how they are introduced. I don't remember using Mr. or Mrs. as a child either, it seems odd to me. Oh and I have never used sir or ma'm. Maybe it's how I was raised or the area I live in? Once an adult called me Mrs. M..... and I was like who the heck is that?

But I agree that respect should be mutual, it has nothing to do with addressing someone. One of the many things I love about Montessori is that the teacher's go by their first name, just as the children do. We're all on the same level. Actually now that I think about it my dd did call her lead teacher Ms. Liz on occasion, but otherwise it was just Liz. I have a feeling she picked it up from other children in her classroom who were likely encouraged by their parents to add the Ms. to the teacher's first name.

MotherWhimsey · 09-26-2006, 10:31 AM

the only people that my kid would call mr/mrs are my grandmothers friends, and I don't even know their first name. And she also calls dh and I by our first names a lot. I don't mind if she calls me mom or my name, I find it pretty funny. She also calls my mom MooMoo as well as her first name too. I too don't think that respect comes from a title.

ZeldasMom · 09-26-2006, 10:42 AM

We just use first names. I wonder if some of the differences may be regional/cultural? We used to live in the South, where the Mr/Mrs/Miss/Ms First Name thing was extremely common. If we were still living there I am sure we would be teaching our chlidren to address peole that way.

If we were in a situation where I felt a more formal form of address was in order, I think I would model using Mr First Name.

LovemyBoo · 09-26-2006, 10:58 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by uberwench

My Ds will call someone by the name with which they introduce themselves. Come to think of it - around here, we're a pretty "first name " bunch, and I can't actually think of a time when someone's introduced themselves as "mr" or "mrs"...the exception being his brief stint at preschool, where the teachers were "miss<first name>" - but again, that's how they introduced themselves. Even I called them that.

:

I try to ask the adult what they would like to be called if the introduction doesn't make it obvious. Until then, Mr./Ms. Last Name is the default setting. Though no adult around here wants to be called that. All of our adult friends want to be called by their first name, with a few prefering Ms. First Name.

I think calling anyone what they wish to be called is the most respectful thing to do, regardless of age. I would never insist that my child call anyone something different than what the person asked to be called. That, in my opinion, is disrespectful and rude. I would, also, expect an adult to call my child what he/she wants to be called, whether it's a nickname or otherwise.