s/o What age to address adults like adults do?

[Annie G]

 

Major pet peeve of mine: I've worked in the dental field for 25+ years, and it irritates me when staff call elderly (70+ year old people) by their first name. Really? Especially when the Doctor expects to be called Dr Name. Just comes across as disrespectful to me.

 

I'm probably just getting old and cranky. 😠

 

It drives me CRAZY that doctors, bankers, etc. call my husband Jim. His legal name is James but he goes by his middle name. But when a professional who has just met him calls him Jim it drives me nuts.   He always casually tells them that he goes by Steven and then five seconds later they call him Jim.  They do the same to my kids who have always gone by their full names. Why do people do that? 

[AnnE-girl]

Whrn I was a kid, my parents friends from high school and college were mostly called by their first names, while their friends who were parents from our church or school were Mr./Mrs. Lastname. I ran into one couple who came to my wedding a few weeks later in the grocery store, and automatically called them Mr. and Mrs. Lastname and the husband nicely said that as an adult old enough to be married, I could call him Dan now. It still seems weird.

 

I follow a similar pattern with my kids. They use first names with my old friends and last names with friends who we've made through church and school. I don't really care for Mr/Ms. Firstname, although we've used it in some groups where that is the norm like our LLL group.

[TeenagerMom]

My kids pretty much address everyone but the 90 year old across the street by their first names.  That's just the way we have taught them because we don't feel they are beneath us as people because they born a few decades later.  It is completely possible to be respectful while addressing someone by their first name.  If people expect that level of formality, then they should also address them as Miss/Mr Last Name also because they are entitled to just as much respect.

[Laura Corin]

It drives me CRAZY that doctors, bankers, etc. call my husband Jim. His legal name is James but he goes by his middle name. But when a professional who has just met him calls him Jim it drives me nuts.   He always casually tells them that he goes by Steven and then five seconds later they call him Jim.  They do the same to my kids who have always gone by their full names. Why do people do that? 

 

My husband gets that too.  He's also a James but goes by a different nickname, not 'Jim'.  Jim is just not his name - it's his uncle's name.

[Ellie]

I think a solid rule is to have them address them as young people to older, until the person says "oh, please call me X."  It is hard to go wrong with that.

 

Once they are into working, they will be meeting the other workers as equals, so age matters less.

 

:iagree:

[poppy]

Both in the suburban Boston town we lived in and in our town in western PA, every kid calls every adult Mr. or Mrs. Lastname. My sons are 22, and I still have to continually remind their friends that it is fine to call me by my first name because they are adults now. 

 

My extended family is in the South, and my kids have never remember to use Ma'am and Sir when addressing adults.  They aren't used to it, mainly because I wanted them to fit into the culture where they actually lived.

 

What I hate is when adults call me by my first name, and are taken aback when I address them by theirs.  It is so authoritarian, and not something I am going to buy into when I am paying for products or services.

 

Probably true 20 years ago, definitely not true now.  Even in Sunday school where I teach (Needham) kids call me by my first name by default by day 1.  Same when I visit family in Pittsburgh.

 

I honestly don't love it. I remember the thrill of being on a first name basis with professors.....when I was 22 and in grad school!

 

But, it's the cultural norm. The kids are not being disrespectful. It felt disrespectful at first, because if I'd have done it when I was 7 it would have been.  But these kids are taught the exact same adult-child rules that I was. Just different form of address.  My Sunday school kids, my Girl Scouts, neighborhood kids who call me "FirstName" are the exact same as the 1988 Sunday school kids, Girl Scouts, etc, except they are growing up with a different tradition for form of address.

[Serenade]

Out of high school, I think.

 

For me, parents of my childhood friends will forever be Mrs. Lastname. I can't get used to calling them something different even though I am now 50.

 

 

Same here.

[TranquilMind]

Many adults have expectations that young kids address them differently from the way other adults do.  At what age does this expectation expire?  If I call someone Amy, when can my kids also call them Amy without causing umbrage?

 

I'm talking casual acquaintances, not teachers/leaders or really close family friends.

 

My kids are half grown, and it can be awkward wondering what they should call someone.  Most of the time they just don't call them anything.  :p

When invited to do so.

 

My kids call people Mr. and Mrs. until such time as they are invited to be more casual.

Heck, I still call people Mr. and Mrs. until invited to do so.