Am I the only one who finds it incredibly uptight that people are wanting/asking to be called Miss ___? That seems so stilted and archaic to me! Please, call me by my name!

That said, if a kid calls me Miss ___ I don't care. I just find it oddly formal/unnatural. That's not my name.

We are strongly a Ms/Mr and then what they want (I just ask them). I don't feel comfortable with children calling adults by just their first name. It seems disrespectful.

I prefer to add the title Ms./Mrs./Mr in front of the first or last name. I cringe when I hear my 5 year old son's friends call me by my first name. It sounds disrespectful to my ears. I don't make a big deal about it or correct them but I don't like it.

Mr./Ms. Surname unless invited to use a first name. We are comfortable with being addressed by our first names by children, and I always say "just [my name] is fine," when friends try to get their kids to call me Ms. FirstName. Thankfully, DC goes to a preschool where most teachers prefer surnames so I don't have to deal with it there, either.

I should add that we are a family where adult friends are called Auntie/Uncle and we're fine with that if friends insist on an additional moniker.

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Some kids (7 years old) just call me "first name" and I have asked them and their parents to add a "Miss" in front of it - or call me "Mrs. Last name." I do not think these young children are my peers. Some of the kids have adopted a "Miss First name" approach, but not all.

I disagree that "Miss First Name" is strictly a Southern thing. I know plenty of people from all over who are raising their children saying "Miss/Mr. First Name."

Today, still, at 40-something years old, I call my parents friends "Mrs./Mr. Last name." It's what I'm comfortable with.

It is impolite to bestow honors upon yourself.

Does that mean at elementary school, where teachers are called Mr./Mrs. Last name, that the teacher is being requesting an honor be bestowed upon them? How many students in ES refer to their teacher as "Jane"?

To make your example the same as the PP's example, Jane would need to instruct the students (and their parents) to refer to her as "Miss Last Name after they'd already been calling her Jane.

Personally, I think the PP sounds pretty uptight. Using your first name is not the be all and end all sign that these 7 year olds don't respect you and correcting them seems more like a way of putting them in their place. My child has often called her father by his first name, because that's what she hears me calling him. She refers to my friends by their first names for the same reason. She is 2.5 and met most of these people well before she had any idea of what "good manners" are.

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Some kids (7 years old) just call me "first name" and I have asked them and their parents to add a "Miss" in front of it - or call me "Mrs. Last name." I do not think these young children are my peers. Some of the kids have adopted a "Miss First name" approach, but not all.

I disagree that "Miss First Name" is strictly a Southern thing. I know plenty of people from all over who are raising their children saying "Miss/Mr. First Name."

Today, still, at 40-something years old, I call my parents friends "Mrs./Mr. Last name." It's what I'm comfortable with.

It is impolite to bestow honors upon yourself.

Does that mean at elementary school, where teachers are called Mr./Mrs. Last name, that the teacher is being requesting an honor be bestowed upon them? How many students in ES refer to their teacher as "Jane"?

Anonymous wrote:My 3 yo calls people by their names.

Our neighbors are Dick and Jane.
My boss is Tom.
We've chosen to call some of our cousins Aunt or Uncle but that's because our family is small and we're engineering more aunts and uncles.

Never encountered another parent wanting to be called Miss or anything, but with exceptions of close neighbors we just call them "Cindy's mom."

Same here.

I prefer Ms/Mr Last Name but have quickly realized that in this day and age I don't know the last names of many of the adults we come in contact with, so we've defaulted to Ms/Mr First Name.

DCUM has seen this thread before and lots of folks believe it's demeaning to say that children are somehow lesser beings and need to honor or suck up to adults.

IMO, so be it. Adults hold a different place in our society, yes, generally deserving of more respect as a baseline. I do not care for it when my neighbor's 5yr old calls out "Hey Jennifer" to me the same way he would to another 5yr old.

Anonymous wrote:Some kids (7 years old) just call me "first name" and I have asked them and their parents to add a "Miss" in front of it - or call me "Mrs. Last name." I do not think these young children are my peers. Some of the kids have adopted a "Miss First name" approach, but not all.

I disagree that "Miss First Name" is strictly a Southern thing. I know plenty of people from all over who are raising their children saying "Miss/Mr. First Name."

Today, still, at 40-something years old, I call my parents friends "Mrs./Mr. Last name." It's what I'm comfortable with.

This is so silly to me.

Kids call me Ms. Firstname because others have instructed them to, but I wouldn't mind just Firstname. The lack of use of an honorific isn't going to make a kid think they're my peer or make them be disrespectful.

I could care less what a child calls me because I assume no matter what they say "Miss X, Miss. First Name, First Name" it is said with respect.

For my own kids, I have them call adults what the adult wants to be called. This usually seems to be a mix of Miss First Name and First Name.

I still call my best friend's parents Mr. and Mrs Last Name. Growing up, there was a mix of Mr. and Mrs. Last Name and First Name.

This is why being Indian is awesome - we called all of our parents friends "auntie" and "uncle" (whether they were Indian or not) and I called my friends' parents Mrs. and Mr. X unless they told me to call them something else (and most did not, we grew up in the midwest). I don't know what we'll do with our kids (my husband is not Indian, and the majority of our friends are not).

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:The Miss First Name thing is a Southern thing. I am not Southern, so won't be pushing that for my kids.

When I was growing up, my East Coast dad pushed the Mr/Ms Last Name thing for all adults, which most adults thought was weird (I grew up in Northern California). **IF** an adult said, "oh, no, please call me (first name)," then we were allowed to, but I still call someone of my parent's friends Mr./Mrs. last name (I am 32) because they never said it was okay to change.

This is us, too. I got a lovely note from one friend's mother signed "Love, Mrs. LastName." It was hilarious, but I was glad I never offended her by switching to her first name w/o permission!

East coaster here. Yep, Mr/Mrs Smith. Not Miss Jane. I switched since coming to DC and it feels weird, especially when I know that someone is married. How is it not insulting to call a married woman Miss?

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Some kids (7 years old) just call me "first name" and I have asked them and their parents to add a "Miss" in front of it - or call me "Mrs. Last name." I do not think these young children are my peers. Some of the kids have adopted a "Miss First name" approach, but not all.

I disagree that "Miss First Name" is strictly a Southern thing. I know plenty of people from all over who are raising their children saying "Miss/Mr. First Name."

Today, still, at 40-something years old, I call my parents friends "Mrs./Mr. Last name." It's what I'm comfortable with.

It is impolite to bestow honors upon yourself.

Is "Miss" an honor?

It depends on how well we know the other person and how they introduce themselves.

"Hi, I'm Mary"

"Hi, I'm Miss Mary"

"Hi, I'm Ms. Jones"


We do all three depending on the circumstances/relationship/age/preference of the person.

Anonymous wrote:Some kids (7 years old) just call me "first name" and I have asked them and their parents to add a "Miss" in front of it - or call me "Mrs. Last name." I do not think these young children are my peers. Some of the kids have adopted a "Miss First name" approach, but not all.

I disagree that "Miss First Name" is strictly a Southern thing. I know plenty of people from all over who are raising their children saying "Miss/Mr. First Name."

Today, still, at 40-something years old, I call my parents friends "Mrs./Mr. Last name." It's what I'm comfortable with.

It is impolite to bestow honors upon yourself.