Reply to Do you let your children call adults by their first names?

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[quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous]Oh man, this hits home.  I was raised in Texas and would NEVER have done such a thing, it was like spitting in someone's eye.  Now I live here and friends of DH's have taught their 6 year old to call me "Jenny" - no Ms., no Larla's mom - and every. single. time. my initial reaction is "wtf did you just say???"

The kid is doing nothing wrong because her parents literally told her to call adults by their names.  But I cannot get over how upset it makes me, and it makes me think the kid is a brat even though she is obeying her mom and dad.

So no, I don't let my kid do that, not at this tender age.  If she grows into a bratty teen who tries it out to test boundaries I won't be shocked, but a little kid is not on par with an adult and it's weird and off-putting to pretend otherwise.[/quote]

So, given that you're upset, I assume you asked her to call you Mrs. High-and-Mighty and she refused, right? Because obviously if you have a legitimate reason to use a particular title you wouldn't hesitate to correct others.

Did she give a reason why she won't use the title? [/quote]

No, because her mom told her in front of me to call me Jenny.  So I'm trapped in a situation where I'm either gainsaying a parent to their child, or listening to a kid obey their parent even though it makes me deeply uncomfortable.  The polite thing to do is to suck it up, not make everyone else uncomfortable.  But I get that someone who thinks basic courtesy is "high-and-mighty" might be lost in this interaction.  [/quote]

Many posters here are saying they prefer to be called by their first name. Why is it better for them to "uncomfortably" correct others, rather than for you to do so?[/quote]

Giving someone permission to call you a more familiar name than what they've used is a standard thing to do if you're open to it, and it's well within anyone's purview to do in any conversation.  Telling someone "you are addressing me in an inappropriately familiar manner" is a correction of behavior, not a boon.  And doing it in front of the parent they are supposed to take instruction from, and in direct conflict with the instruction they were just given, is confusing for a small child and aggressively confrontational for the adults.  Look how upset you all are to learn that an anonymous internet stranger finds it rude: but you want me to say "that's rude" to the parent and kid instead of moving on.  [/quote]

It's not rude for someone to call you by your name. It would (generally) be rude, however, for someone to continue calling you by a name after you've asked them to stop. That's not a confusing concept, even to a small child.  Many kids have nicknames, so the idea that someone may have preferences for how they'd like to be called is not going to be foreign to a child.

But it sounds like you never asked them to use a different name.[/quote]

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