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Should Children Address Adults by First Name?

Should children address adults by first name?

  • yes

    Votes: 20 38.5%
  • no

    Votes: 32 61.5%

  • Total voters
    52

Karl_K

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When someone calls me Mr <mylastname> I look around for my dad.
I always introduce myself by my first name and that's good enough for anyone no matter how old they are.
I just shake my head about someone calling me Mr Karl that just makes no sense but if a parent wants to insist their kids call me that I dont make a big deal about it. A lot of people at our church do that with their kids.
The sweetest thing a young person calls me is grandpa even though we are not related in any way.
Wifey4vr is grandma and i'm grandpa.
One day she just decided she wanted another set of grandparents.
 

tyty333

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My kids usually use Mr. or Miss Firstname for my friends. I think it is difficult for them to remember people's last names when they hardly ever hear them (not like in the classroom). I believe the Mr./Miss shows respect. However, if the person introduced themselves to my kids as Mr. or
Mrs. Lastname I would tell my kids to use that.
 
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telephone89

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I don't meet many people that purposely introduce themselves (to me or my nieces) as "mr smith" or "mrs jones", so I go first names. I don't find it disrespectful at all, it's LITERALLY THEIR NAME. In fact, I'd think it was a bit stuffy and stuck up to INSIST on being called mr or mrs (or dr). Titles are dumb IMO lol.
 

smitcompton

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Hi,

Titles confer information and keep boundaries apparent. Outside of close relationships children should use appropriate titles for grown-ups. As Missy stated children do not have equal status with adults and ought not think they do. Titles differentiate that. Mrs, Mr. Ms ect Dr. Judge may be for a respected profession or just adult status. Some call centers have SA calling the customer Miss Annette. I like that. It confers some respect, as my mother used to say, "I did not play in the dirt with them". Friends are a different classification. I knew a small group of moms who lived close to one another and had their children, all girls (about a dozen of them, call them each mom. It worked fine. Each mom was mom to the other moms children. Respect was still there--no first names. I was Aunt Annette to those 12 girls. I would leave for work in the morning about 7.30 and as I walked to the train I would hear, Hi, Aunt Annette coming from the open doors in the summer.

I vote for titles for kids. They learn thru them.
Annette
 

telephone89

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@smitcompton
In the past children did have titles - Miss and Master. Unfortunately that just denoted that they were still to be more "respected" than the staff. Gendered titles are also very sexist. If titles are considered to be about respect, do you respect me more or less when I'm a mrs? Why does one need to specify the difference?
Personally I thank the great blue sky that I rarely hear of people called "Mrs John Smith", as if the woman has no identity of her own. If that's considered respect, I'll leave mine at the counter and go away empty handed, thanks.
 

smitcompton

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Hi,

Isn't that why we started Ms. as a title. We are talking mainly about children. Mrs. John Smith is so 70's. I never see that anymore. A sales associate can call a customer Mrs or Ms. Smith. It creates the distinction between them, as in their roles.. It does not imply unequal. I think you are mixing the equality you seek for all individuals for the particular roles that one plays in our lives. At times we are certainly unequal. My Dr. has more knowledge in an area than I do. As a human being he is not more equal than his patients, but in his role as a doctor I am not his /or her equal.

I understand what you mean, but would like more use of titles than we have had.
Annette
 

AGBF

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@smitcompton

In the past children did have titles - Miss and Master. Unfortunately that just denoted that they were still to be more "respected" than the staff. Gendered titles are also very sexist. If titles are considered to be about respect, do you respect me more or less when I'm a mrs? Why does one need to specify the difference?

Personally I thank the great blue sky that I rarely hear of people called "Mrs John Smith", as if the woman has no identity of her own. If that's considered respect, I'll leave mine at the counter and go away empty handed, thanks.


A friend of mine who was a generation older, my parents' generation, felt the opposite way from the way you feel. She once told me that in her day a married woman was always addressed with her husband's name in her title, and that that custom made her feel protected. Nowadays she felt that her first name was always being bandied about in the street. (I am sure she did not use that phrase, but it fit the sentiment she expressed so well that I could help myself.) She was a dear friend, and once my teacher, later my teaching colleague. She is now deceased. She was, however, a great lady.

AGBF
 

yssie

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Most of the kids in my close acquaintance are military.
Sir and ma'am.
I've adopted this myself.
 

missy

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It's funny because we are all different and there is no universal right or wrong and I see both sides.

My aunt and uncle didn't like it when my sister and I called them Aunt A and Uncle H so they asked us to call them just A and H. Using the aunt and uncle title made them feel old. So we obliged but it always felt weird as kids calling them by their first names without the Aunt and Uncle. Sort of like if our parents asked us to call them by their first names instead of mommy and daddy. That would have been super weird if they did. For the record I still call my mom mom and my dad dad.

We obliged my aunt and uncle because it was their wish and they are allowed to have us call them whatever they prefer IMO. Just funny their reasoning. Now that we are adults it feels perfectly comfortable to call my aunt and uncle by their first names.

My dh and I are called aunt missy and uncle greg by our nieces and nephew and it feels just right to us. Doesn't make us feel old either. But we are old anyway so I guess it doesn't matter.:P2
 

Scandinavian

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Here, only first names are used.
 

YadaYadaYada

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I've been thinking about this a bit and it occurred to me that our neighbors who are originally from FL call me Ms. Stephanie, I was also friends in the past with transplants from the Carolinas that had her kids also call me Ms. and my first name. I do not correct them but I would be fine with just my first name.

My son was friends with this little boy for years and would go over his house and was on a first name basis with his mother but hos grandmother was Mrs. First Name.

So I kind of wonder if it's more of a regional thing as well as generational, like parents my age would have their kids call me by my first name but my parents would be Mr. And Mrs. Just thinking out loud.

Whatever they call me I am much more about manners "May I please have" and "thank you" at all times, we all have our things so guess.
 

missy

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Whatever they call me I am much more about manners "May I please have" and "thank you" at all times, we all have our things so guess.

Completely agree. Manners are critical.
 

canuk-gal

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HI:

Because I was taught to address adults with Mr/Mrs it is ingrained. Fact is, I remember last names BETTER than given names. So I just default to the family name. This is what I taught my son.

In a professional setting I ask people how they wish to be addressed. I never assume.

cheers--Sharon
 

AGBF

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@smitcompton

In the past children did have titles - Miss and Master. Unfortunately that just denoted that they were still to be more "respected" than the staff. Gendered titles are also very sexist. If titles are considered to be about respect, do you respect me more or less when I'm a mrs? Why does one need to specify the difference?

I remember an old episode of "Upstairs, Downstairs". In it one of the household members explains that he believes that the cook, Mrs. Bridges, has never been married. She has been given the title "Mrs." because of her long time serving the family and her her rank among the staff (at the top). :))
 

telephone89

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A friend of mine who was a generation older, my parents' generation, felt the opposite way from the way you feel. She once told me that in her day a married woman was always addressed with her husband's name in her title, and that that custom made her feel protected. Nowadays she felt that her first name was always being bandied about in the street. (I am sure she did not use that phrase, but it fit the sentiment she expressed so well that I could help myself.) She was a dear friend, and once my teacher, later my teaching colleague. She is now deceased. She was, however, a great lady.

AGBF
That sounds like a throwback to the good ole days of women being considered chattel, not able to vote, and their biggest accomplishment in life was landing a husband. I'm much happier to see women these days, valued for their contributions to society for more than that, but to each their own.
 

Lookinagain

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I think it is mainly regional. I went to college in the south and often adults were addressed as Miss (first name). I went to graduate school in the mid-west and I don't recall hearing that nor do I think I've ever heard that in New England. I never wanted to be addressed as Mrs. (his last name). That was not my name as I have always kept the name I was born with. So when called Mrs. (his last name) I didn't even respond as I didn't identify with it. As one of the other posters said, Mrs. (his last name) was my MIL. Professionally, I don't recall ever hearing one professional address another as Mr. or Mrs. They always use first names, at least in my profession, although I think most people still call their medical doctors, Dr., assuming that they are not social friends. As for the children, I always asked my daughters friends to call me by my first name as otherwise they would be calling me Mrs. (his last name) because my daughter has his last name.
 

AGBF

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That sounds like a throwback to the good ole days of women being considered chattel, not able to vote, and their biggest accomplishment in life was landing a husband. I'm much happier to see women these days, valued for their contributions to society for more than that, but to each their own.

It absolutely does sound like that, telephone. Yet my friend was quite an independent woman, quite a bluestocking. She went to Barnard back in the same days that my parents were in college. Not all that common for a woman. But she would not have denied that she was a product of her time. She taught me everything I know about anthropology (which is not much). I learned the tiny amount I know including that everyone is ethnocentric, meaning that everyone looks at the world thinking that his own way of life is the natural and right way of life. Anyone who acknowledges ethnocentrism would hardly deny that she was a product of her time. :))
 

diamondseeker2006

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I'm from the south, so it is traditional to use Mr.. Mrs., or Ms., and yes sir, yes ma'am. However, as others have said, it depends on the closeness of the people involved. Our closest family and friends are called by first names, because that's what the kids heard us call them. Aunts and uncles are called by first names in my family, and that works out so well later when the children are adults and the relatives are not elderly. But teachers, acquaintances, etc. are called Mr. Lastname, etc. My grandaughter's preschool used Ms. Sarah, etc. for teachers instead of last names.
 
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