Maggie, Mrs. St. Lawrence, Miss Maggie?
Okay, so my son is old enough to start calling the people we know by name. This creates a small dilemma for me. What should I have him call them? This whole Mr./Miss First Name thing is really pretty foreign to me. I think it's a southern thing? As a kid, we had a friend from Louisiana who did that and we all thought that it was pretty funny because we had never heard it before. So, when a child of a friend calls me Miss Maggie, it makes me do a double take. Growing up, I called my mom's friends by their first names and my stepdad's friends Mr./Mrs. Last Name. If it was the mom of a friend, or an adult I didn't know very well I would revert to Mr./Mrs. Last Name, so it's not that I didn't learn to respect my elders. So now I have to walk that fine line between building a comfortable relationship between him and my friends, teaching him to respect his elders, doing what I'm comfortable and familiar with and trying not to offend anyone. So, I have decided to take it on a case by case basis. Please let me know what you would prefer to be called and I will do my best to instill it in my son. As Mr. Fantastic will attest, there are no guarantees. I would also like to add that it is fine for your children to call me Miss Maggie, I may do a bit of a double take, but it's got to be easier to get used to than Mrs. St. Lawrence was.
posted by Maggie | 5:11 PM
12 Comments:
Comment #1- I wish blog spammers would just go ahead and spam you and not try to make it look like they actually wrote you a personal message. Wouldn't a simple "Check out this website: www.makeabuckfast.com" suffice and save us all a lot of reading and internet real estate?
Comment #2- I'm SO with you on the naming confusion. I grew up with Mr./Mrs. Last Name too and that's still what I'm most comfortable with Ethan calling his friend's parents. Other adults are a little more of a gray area for me... in most cases I'm okay with Mr./Miss. First Name, but what happens when those adults have kids? Do Mr. Mike and Miss Stacy become Mr. and Mrs. Stavlund? And shouldn't Miss Stacy be Mrs Stacy anyway? Should we go with Ms Stacy? That just has some kind of weird femenist undertones. Anyway, I feel your pain.
I have to say ... I never know what to say on this. I don't like being called "Mrs. Andrews" because that's my mother-in-law. Still. And I've been married 18 years. But the MissFirstName sounds really contrived too. But I don't want my children just calling adults by their first name because that's too familiar. I don't like any of the options. They are all uncomfortable. I kind of wish for the good old days when all adults were Mr. or Mrs. Whoseewhatits. That sort of took all the questions out of it. And even tho it was formal, when you got to know the adults it somehow wasn't formal. Oh well ... I don't have any answers. Just more questions and general uneasiness. Sorry.
I'm not really looking for answers, I just want to know what each of you as individuals would like to be called. For the record, I don't mind Levi calling adults by their first names, as long as they are someone we know well.
Also, now that you commented on it Dee, I'm not sure if I can delete the first comment. What do you think?
Maggie I think you have a little trash can under each post that you can click and then you get the option of removing forever. I get these all the time. I went back and edited my options and made it so they have to enter the letters in a picture displayed by blogger.com (you know what I'm talking about?) and it's cut down the spam.
As far as the name thing - your kids can call me anything. I feel a little young to be called "Mrs. Chapman" and Ms./Miss Becky puts me back in TN especially bible school where it was MANDATORY that you call women that (so wierd). So Becky is fine unless you prefer otherwise.
Your kids can just call me "Dad", thanks.
Thanks, Becky, I know how to delete the comment, I'm just not sure if I should because then Dee's comment won't make sense. Also, I decided not to do the letter recognition thing for my own reasons.
Also, Levi will call you Becky. Thanks for letting me know:)
"Mr. Fantastic" is starting to seem a bit formal; I was considering simply "Fantastic".
Or if that doesn't work, simply "dude".
I'll let you know when to make the switch.
I don't care. They've taught Lizzy to do the Ms. X thing at day care, and I think it's kinda cute. So Kate or Miss Kate, whatever. If Levi remembers my name at all, I'll be kinda touched. Oh! I know! Tell him to call me "Lizzy's mom."
;)
And you? Did you conclude that Miss Maggie, though not ideal, was preferred?
And, what does Levi call Mr. Fantastic?
Um, I think that I would like to be called just Maggie, but that I don't mind other things if parents are trying to teach a lesson.
Levi calls Mr. Fantastic Mike. I guess he heard us using it.
Sorry maggie! I misunderstood your question!
No worries Becky, as technologically inept as I sometimes am, I definately appreciate this type of advice, I just didn't need it here;)
I want to be called Mr. Hoskins sir. (What the hell is the Mark Hoskins thing anyway?)
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