So, Aunt P and I were chatting on the phone today.... she mentioned that she had used her extended car ride as an opportunity to return a phone call to her mother-in-law. I found that kind of funny because when my mother calls our house, I speak to her -- when Dubya's mother calls -- he handles it. We rarely deal with each others' parents.
The discussion took a turn to what we call our in laws -- we both call them by their first names, whereas our husbands still call our parents Mr & Mrs........
I then commented that I wanted the 'lil Dubyas to call adults Mr & Mrs -- it's good manners. Aunt P agreed, but then said.... well, we never called this one Mr & Mrs..... or this one, or that one, or this other one. I responded that we DID call this one, that one and another Mr & Mrs. Aunt P then keenly observed that we called friends of our parents by their first names, but parents of our friends Mr & Mrs. This seemed to make sense.... until we realized that the children of our parents' friends called our parents Mr & Mrs while we called their parents by their first names.
WE WERE RAISED WITH BAD MANNERS!
I'm not sure what the rule is -- or what it should be. I think the children of our very close friends should be able to call us by our first names (Miss America's Kids, Baby Buffalo, etc.). But, the friends of our children -- kids at daycare, etc. should call us Mr & Mrs.
Does that make sense?
2 comments:
I work with a guy who's like 100 and I can't bring myself to call him by his first name. The rule around the ranch when I was growing up: family friends (like the 'aunts' and 'uncles' who weren't related by blood) were called by 1st names. Everyone else got the Mr/Mrs, treatment until we were given the "at ease" by said adult.
We're pretty much the same way with Kiddo. I have kids call me Mrs. Buffalo all day at work so I'm fine with Kiddo's friends calling me by my first name.
I was raised to always say Mr or Mrs, or "Ma'am" or "sir".
Our 22-month old daughter calls me "Kev".
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