You Can Call Me Al

Several years ago, when a good friend of mine was mother to a young girl and boy, she asked me how I'd like them to address me. Since I didn't take Adam's last name upon marriage, and we therefore technically weren't "The Mittmans," my friend thought it might be a bit confusing to her children to address us as "Mr. Mittman and Mrs. Bailey."

"So, do you want them to call you Ms. Bailey instead?" I think she thought "Ms." suggested a certain ambiguity to my marital state that her kids might be able to appreciate.
I shuddered at the thought. "No way," I replied. "How about just Lauren?"
My friend wouldn't hear of it. "We really want the kids to address adults in a more formal manner, so we're not allowing them to go by first names. How about Ms. Lauren?"
"Ms. Lauren" worked for me so we went with it. Adam became "Mr. Adam."

At the time, I couldn't understand her insistence on formalities with adults. The idea of being a "Mrs." or "Ms." anybody made me feel aged and old. What was the big deal anyway?

And then I had a child of my own. And, I noticed as we started joining playgroups that at first, having a kid is kind of like having a dog. You take your dog to the dog park and every human is "Barkley's daddy" or "Daisy's mom." At least in a human playgroup, you actually DO know the other parents' names, but for the sake of your baby's developing brain, we keep things simple: "Bryony, can you give the bottle back to Emma's mommy?"

Now that the kids are growing up and entering the toddler stage, however, I'm noticing a shift. Instead of all parents being known simply by who their children are, mothers and fathers are actually acquiring names of their own. "Sarah" and "Emily" and "Helen" and "Pamela" have been introduced to my daughter, not as playmates her own age, but rather as adults who she evidently can address by their first names. And, I've been surprised to find that I am "Lauren" to their kids. I'm not sure if I'm more surprised that a child is addressing me by my first name, or by the fact that I'm evidently a little uncomfortable with it.

Growing up, my parents were very traditional southern-bred folks. My siblings and I were NEVER allowed to address an adult--friend of the family, friend's parent, teacher, etc.--by their first name. It wasn't even a debate; we just knew that's the way it was, and we never thought twice about it, because most of the kids we knew had also been taught the same deference toward adults. Once, a young colleague of my mother's, a kindergarten teacher, insisted to my parents that we kids call her by her first name, as that's what her own students called her. My parents stood firm, saying the rule in our household was to show respect to adults by maintaining a formal means of addressing them.

So now here I am, the adult with a child of my own, unsure of how I want to proceed. Perhaps living in the Midwest, it's a cultural thing to have children address adults so informally? I've spoken to one girlfriend about it (she's from Missouri), and she said she rarely called any adult, besides teachers, anything except their first name. Really? I was shocked. I spent a good part of my childhood in the Midwest, and I can't remember any of my friends trying to address my parents by their first names. So, is it more of a generational thing? Are the GenX'ers raising their kids to buck tradition and formalities and to view all people, regardless of age, on equal footing? I can't tell yet.

So where do I stand? I still feel the hairs on my back rise a little when I hear a friend address me as "Lauren" to her child. So far, I haven't been able to maintain that sense of informality with my own daughter; but knowing that my friends would likely flinch if I referred to them as "Mrs. Jones" or "Mrs. Brown," instead I revert to the dogpark address system.

For now, they're all still Barkley's mommy.