The best friend I made during my semester abroad in college hailed from nearby Cohasset. We managed to stay in touch after our program ended, and I flew to the East Coast from the other side of the country to visit her several years later. I stayed with her family, meeting her dad and stepmom. Her dad was a bit more formal than what I was used to, and in an aside to my friend, I asked, “Can I call your dad by his first name, or should I call him Mr. Pierson?” She let me know that I should definitely call him Mr. Pierson — until he told me otherwise! We were 24 at the time.
I grew up on the West Coast, and I’ve always called my friends’ parents by their first names.
My friends always called my parents by their first names. The West Coast is less formal than the East Coast in many ways, and I assume that this is just one.
I’ve made my home in Massachusetts now, but old habits die hard. I call my neighbors and the parents of my daughters’ friends by their first names. As a result, my daughters call these adults by their first names as well. No “Mr.” and no “Mrs.” However, our two teenage babysitters call me “Mrs. Kaplan,” as do some of the neighborhood kids. And every time a young person calls me that, I think:
Am I inadvertently teaching my kids bad manners?
It’s very important to me that my children are polite. They both engage in conversations with adults, and if someone asks how they are, and they respond with, “Fine, thank you. How are you?” I feel like I’ve done my job. But maybe I’m accidentally committing a faux pas that outweighs all that I’ve taught them?
What do you think, mamas? Is it rude for a child to call an adult by his or her first name? Or is it a form of respect that’s outdated in our brave new world of emojis and internet slang? Weigh in!
