Do your DC call their friend's parents Mr and Mrs (last name)?

[Emerald95]

My DC (9) was talking to his MIL on the phone about his afternoon at his friend's house and said 'Then Brian took us to McDonalds!'. MIL asked who Brian was, when my DC told MIL it is his friend's dad she said it was very odd to call him by his first name, not Mr (last name).

My DCs have have always called their friend's parents by their first name or '(friends name) mum' if they don't know their name yet.

Using Mr & Mrs (last name) seems very american to me and I could only imagin my children using that if their friend's parent was also a teacher at their school.

Is this a generational difference or maybe location dependent?

What do your DCs call their friend's parents? YABU - They use Mr and Mrs (last name)
YANBU - They use their first name

I am in my 50s and called my friends’ parents Mr this and Mrs that. My children are in their 20s and called their friends’ parents by their first names.

My dds friends always called me by my first name.
The parents of my school friends i wouldnt have called them anything! Wiuld have referred to them as such and such mum/dad. We are all older now obviously so first names.
When i was a child, late sixties early seventies my mum called her neighbours Mrs x y z always!
My aunt whose mil lived with her from she got married until mil died, so a span of almost 40 years always called her Mrs x.

Years ago it was Aunty's for example auntie liz even though she wasn't your auntie.

It depends - if it's a new set of friends or they have only just met the parents, then they will use Mr/Mrs (or in a couple of instances Dr if they know they are aware they have a PhD). Say after maybe a few months when they are better acquainted then they will start to use first names (but one of my sons still likes to call one of his friends mum Dr as a sign of respect both to them and myself).

Growing up we all called our friends mum and dad mr and Mrs whatever unless they told us to use their first names, which most of then did. Children of the 80’ and teens of the 90’s.

my adult children have always called their friends parents by their first names.

It is very rude to call a parent by their first name - I am English, so not just an american thing (and let's be honest, they do give us plenty to raise our eyebrows at!). Admittedly, probably born before most on MN, but it has always been unacceptable to call a grown-up by their first name.
I still call my (very) old Uncle, 'Uncle Pete' - I would not feel comfortable calling him just Pete!

Admittedly, probably born before most on MN, but it has always been unacceptable to call a grown-up by their first name.

It might have been considered impolite many decades ago but the world has moved on and people have grown to realise that actually stuff like this really doesn't matter. It's 2025 for goodness sake it is not rude to use a person's actual name when addressing them.

Generational difference. In the seventies and eighties I never called an adult by their first name. Mum's friends had the 'aunty' honorific. Friend's parent were Mr and Mrs.

My parents were old fashioned, mind you, but first names for adults still weren't commonly used by children.

I worked in a nursing home in the early 90s and it fascinated me that women of the same age who saw each other at dinner and in the common room every day called eachother 'Mrs whatever'.

I mostly get ‘daughter name mam’ or my first name.

Not al all. Its mostly no name at all "Alex's dad" or "Chris's dad". Probably because the actual name is forgotten 😄.

I wouldn't consider having to use "Mr and Mrs" American at all. More old fashioned English families. Indicated by when introducing themselves, the name it's give as "Mrs Williams ". (Hopefully a woman callimg themseles "Mrs John Williams" is firmly in the past.)

All about bit weird, unfriendly and stuffy. Plus where does it leave single parent families and those where there's no "Mrs"?!

I was born in 1960 and called both my friends parents and my parents friends by their first names- ‘Mr and Mrs’ - maybe elderly neighbours.

Always first names. I'm a teacher and last year did some relief/supply at DC's school. Some of the little ones call me Ms xxxxx when they see me, but if out in public I say 'it's ok you don't need to call me that - outside of school I'm just (first name).

My 17 year old DS calls his best friends mom Ms Surname….despite her telling him to use her first name. He just says it’s a respect thing.
Funnily his best friend calls me by my first name.

South african in late 40s here. We always called friend's parents Mr and Mrs. Close family friends would be Aunty or Uncle. At some point, once you reached late teens/early adulthood, there was an obligatory period where you'd see Mr and Mrs Smith, they'd encourage you to call them Pete and Mary, you'd feel weird about it and demur or laugh... and then eventually at some point they did become Pete and Mary.

That all feels weird and old fashioned to me now. My children's friends call me by my first name, and they call their friend's parents by first name too. And the only ones who call me "Aunty" are my actual nieces and nephews. I have one nephew who does not call me Aunty and that is the one thing I don't like.

My South African friends are the same, here and in SA, but my Afrikaans South African friend still insists her children call me "Aunty". Bless her, she does not insist that my children call her Aunty though.

The one that I still struggle with a bit is school. We call the teachers Mr and Mrs or Ms. But I don't feel comfortable emailing them and signing off as "Ms Fid1" so use my first name, but then i also get very annoyed when teachers call me in person by my first name. If I'm calling you Mr Jones as a sign of respect, you can bloody well call me Ms Fid1 and not Triff.

In the uk it’s a generational difference I think. All my kids call their friends parents (and my friends) by first names. I was taught always to call them Mrs X (I’m 55). However in the US for example in general kids are still expected to call friends parents, and parents friends, Mrs X rather than first names. My kids have a lot of US friends for various reasons and getting them to call me by my first name when they were younger was a battle I really lost. They just weren’t comfortable with it. Now that some are mid-20s they are happier to graduate to first names. It’s very much the same as how I was brought up! Old fashioned.

I’m really glad that is no longer the case, truly unpleasant attitude to have.

I was taught to say Auntie X and Uncle Y growing up in the 80s. But also I had a SAHM and didn't go to nursery, so by the time I was actually interacting with friends' parents I probably did know what their names were. My DC are nursery age and they see friends' parents quite a lot and have no idea what their first names or surnames are, so it's 'Paul's mum' etc. Incidentally I think Mr and Mrs would be more difficult these days in any case as many of the parents we know don't use those titles.

In the 70s and 80s of my parents also knew them (so family friends) it was First Name, which was about half the parents I knew. If it was only me who knew the child it was Mrs Surname.

By the 2000s all the DC’s mates called me by my first name and my lot did the same.

Agree generational. I’m a similar age and my best friend always called my parents Mr and Mrs. I called her Mum Auntie Jane. My Mum would tell close friends of mine to call her auntie, but several of them stuck to Mrs, nobody ever called her by her first name only. I would have felt very cheeky calling an adult by their first name.
My children, 17 and 19, call all their friend’s parents by their first names.

First names for us too!

Working class 80s childhood - friend parents were always (eg) Aunt Barb and Uncle Roger.

My DC's good friends always call me by my first name. Although ones I know less well would just call me "Sophie's mum". It's quite funny now they're turning 18 and now and again I'll hear a 6ft bloke call out "Hi Sophie's mum!" in the corner shop.

I discourage this. If one of DS' friends calls me "Jack's mum" I reply with, "Hi John, don't forget to call me Penny". I think the "Jack's mum" thing is because they'r enot comfortable calling adults by thei rfirst name but either dont know or can't pronounce surnames and I think they need to learn to figure out a way to address people correctly.

Gosh, you'd die at DS. From toddlerhood, and despite a summit between his four grandparents as to what title each one would use, he always called all four by abbreviations of their first names.

They do.