When I was growing up, I called nearly every one of my friend’s parents Mr. or Mrs.
(Ring, Ring)
“Hello, Mrs. Smith, is Julie home?”
If I was closer to a friend’s parents, I may drop it to one letter, i.e. “Hey, Mrs. I.”
For as long as I can remember, though, my mom ALWAYS went by just her first name. She definitely was the “fun” mom amongst my friends, probably because she was a lot younger than all of their parents. Plus, she owned a tanning salon and half of my friends either worked there or tanned there during high school. Oh, the good old ignorant days.
By the time I got to college, the Mr. and Mrs. was dropped for most parents, particularly my roommates. I don’t think I’ve ever called Missy‘s mom anything other than Michelle.
Frankly, last names can be too confusing. My parents got divorced when I was 4, and when I was 9, my mom remarried. People were always calling her Mrs. My Last Name. I know she didn’t mind necessarily but it was probably easier to just be Eva. I can also remember a couple of my guy friends calling her Jackie’s Mom, again, probably because they knew she had a good sense of humor and would find it funny.
When I was in junior high, I also started discovering that some women never changed their names after marriage, including my stepmom. So are they a Miss? A Ms.? A Mrs.?
I’m starting to think, though, that we may be entering a more casual time. I guess it’s a Southern thing to attach “Miss” to any adult (growing up in Pennsylvania, I don’t think I ever called anyone “Miss So-and-So”) but E’s friends have never called me anything other than Miss Jackie. To be honest, besides maybe a hotel front-desk receptionist or perhaps Bright House calling to see if we’re happy with our service, I can’t think of anyone who’s ever called me Mrs. Jovi.
It could also be because E’s in preschool, where all of their teachers are Miss Jessica, Miss Nancy, etc., and well, I just can’t imagine a 3- or 4-year-old calling someone Mrs. Jones.
We hang out with four sets of friends pretty regularly, and all of our kids call the adults by their first names. We also spend a lot of time with one of DadJovi’s high school friends and his wife and two kids, and our kids call the parents Aunt or Uncle. That’s also the case with my BFFs from college — I’m Auntie Jackie to them.
But as E. gets older, I’m starting to wonder if I should start encouraging a more formal greeting for adults. For example, this week, E. and her Daddy were getting ready to go for one of their training runs (she’s running a 1-mile kids’ race this fall and he’s cracking the whip helping her build up to it), when Victoria aka The Running Peanut and her husband walked by our house. What, you didn’t know that all bloggers lived in the same neighborhood? It’s our super secret world. Kind of like “The Truman Show”
I said, “E., you remember Victoria. Come say hello.”
But after they left, I suddenly thought, “Crap, should I have E. call her Miss Victoria? Or Mrs. Peanut?” I think I felt a little different about it because E’s not friends with their children like she is with most adults she knows. But perhaps when their baby girl arrives, they will be friends!
And what happens when E. gets to elementary school in just over a year (sob) and meets many new parents? What should she call them?
I frankly could care less what the kids call me. Miss Jackie. Jackie. The Hot Mom. You know, any of those will do.
But do other adults take that as a sign of disrespect?
If you have kids, what do they call adults? If you don’t have kids, would you be offended if they didn’t call you Mr., Ms. or Mrs. Last Name?
I’ve talked to my co-workers and husband about this before. I grew up either calling adults by their first names or Mr. or Mrs. last name. I think it is a southern thing to do the Mrs or Mr. first name. I hear it a lot here and all my Southern co-workers that have kids were saying that they taught or are teaching their kids to do that. My husband, who is also Southern, said he grew up calling everyone Mr and Mrs last name.
So I guess it’s a combination Southern/current thing. I also wonder how much of it is an age thing. I’ll be curious how it changes once E. reaches elementary school and beyond. All I know is I never heard Miss Jackie growing up in the North but even then, I remember that my cousins living in Alabama called all adults Miss first name. It’s so interesting how things vary from place to place.
Growing up, I called all of my mom’s friends by their first names, but all of my friends’ parents by their last name (you know, when I was old enough not to just call them “so-and-so’s mom”). My friends still call my Mom “Mrs. Lastname” even though she repeatedly asks them to just call her Maryellen.
My kids currently call all of my friends by their first name, but their teachers in school (even Livie’s daycare) go by their last name.
That said, I don’t necessarily think it’s a sign of disrespect – unless of course they are being disrespectful to you 🙂
I grew calling everyone “Ms. Smith” or “Ms. Mary,” but it depended upon their preferences. It is definitely a southern thing to call people “Ms. First Name.” But my parents are Yankees and so they wanted us to say “Mrs. Last Name” because that was the proper thing to do, in their opinion.
I grew up in a tight-knit neighborhood and all the kids called all the parents by their first names. For my school friends, I called their parents “Mr” or “Mrs”…which I do to this day, even though I am 35! I am not sure why it happened in the first place, and as an adult I figure they would tell me if they preferred me to call them by their first names, but none ever have! All my friends called my parents by their first names growing up, bc that is what my parents preferred.
I would never want a kid to call me “Mrs. Davis”. When kids used to do that to my parents, they would always use that line “Mr. Kisiel is my dad, you can call me Frank”. So I guess if I had kids, to be o nthe safe side I would probably introduce them to people as “Mr.” or “Mrs/Miss/Ms.” and hope that if the person wanted them to go by first name, they would immediately correct me. like my parents would do. That is what I plan to do if any of my friend’s kids ever tries to call me Mrs. D! Right now, I am Chris or Aunt Chris and that suits me just fine 🙂
Yeah, I think that’s a good call — let the parents correct it if they prefer. And it’s funny, I still call so many of my high school friends’ parents Mr. or Mrs. Smith too and they haven’t corrected me either yet! When I was at a wedding recently for one of my college roommates, whose parents were the exception that I always called Mr. or Mrs. Last Name, they corrected me too and said to call them Pat and Tom. Maybe 35 is the magic age for us? 🙂
I also have no interest in being a Mrs. Jovi. Maybe when they’re younger, I’ll still stick with the Miss Jackie but once they get older, just Jackie is fine by me! Besides, I’m sure there will be other things that I much more strict about!
haha, I have an idea – I think you could talk about Mrs. Jovi/Jackie in the third person. Like if E and her friends are having a sleepover and it’s 3 am and they are housing candy, you could say “look, Jackie it totally cool with this, but you know how Mrs. Jovi can be. Time for bed” or as they get older and want to go to whatever will be the equivalent of a rave in 10 yrs you can say “girls, Jackie is all about this plan, but that Mrs. Jovi is so tough! She’ll never go for this, gonna have to say no.”
If you’re REALLY Southern, even as an adult you still call all adults by Mr. or Mrs. So-and-so. My sister lives in a very rural part of north Florida, and she calls her own in-laws Mr. and Mrs.
I like this topic! My parents are probably some of the most informal parents you’ll ever meet, and I think that tracks back to them starting with kids at 20 and being a bit rebellish and hippy-ish. When I was growing up my mom never told us to refer to anyone as Mr. or Mrs. She always referred to her friends by their first names only, so that’s what I always called them. Even to this day Peggy is still Peggy and Donna is still Donna. But, for my friends’ parents, I would always refer to as Mr. or Mrs. because, honestly, when does a kid introduce anyone to their parents beyond saying “This is my mom” I think at that point it gets confusing because even the kid doesn’t know what their friends should introduce their parents as.
I have the same problem. I grew up in NJ and called everyone mr or mrs whatever, I still have a hard time referring to my elementary school friends’ parents by their first name (with their permission). I now live in the south and everyone is miss first name or mr first name. Most of my 6 year old’s friends call me G’s mommy. I tell them they can call me Nikki (without the miss), but I don’t think it going to happen. Oh well, as long ad not Mrs. (my last name), I’ll be ok. I feel like my mother in law when referred to as mrs…