Addressing the parents of your child's friends - what do yours call them?

[lisalisa]

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lisalisalisa - Sounds like a one way deal: Get your kids to call me what I want, but my kids won't call you what you want.

That would probably irritate me, and I'd start muttering under my breath like Prince Charles....

I do believe we are acquainted

Sorry, only really funny for UK people.

Just a thought - do you think it would be easier to instill respect in children for older people if they did have to call them Mr Bloggs rather than Joe? I like the Southern American custom of calling adults Mr Joe or Miss Daisy myself - good halfway point .

We use first names too. DS calls my friends by their names (well, that's what they're called!), and I expect his friends to call me by mine. Except, as they're only five and six, sometimes they forget and I get called "Errm, excuse me, what are you called again?". I'll answer to whatever, as long as it's clean.

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My children (eldest 13) call their friends' parents Mrs xxx or Mr xxx, and I am called Mrs...

Even my dd2 calls me by my first name

first names definitely

however I agree with the post earlier that if this is the only thing that bothers you about her then I'd probably jsut go with it.

Americans are very formal about how they are addressed by children. If this lady is American, chances are she will expect to be addressed formally and she may not realise that the culture in the UK is more relaxed.

My experience of American expats is that they can be very easily offended by cultural differences - ie when no offense is intended. Sometimes I don't think they make much of an effort learning about the cultural differences there are between the two countries, and will put any differences down to rudeness.

A gentle reality reminder is probably in order. She should not be dictating to British people about how we carry out our own culture.

Saying that, I find it very normal for our children to address their friends' parents formally, and in turn I will use Mrs so-and-so when talking about the mother of a friend. Family friends are all on a first name basis though.

I would be sooooo pissed off by her comments that i would probably stop the arrangement - just knowing that she wasnt "responding nicely" to them and getting "irritated" with them - would make me so angry - your children dont deserve that - they are doing nothing wrong. I would find it very weird for friends children to call ME Mrs C

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Ahhh, so that explains why I've always called my American and Canadian schoolfriends' parents Mr and Mrs "X" (still do!). Maybe it's my age as well... I'm 42. My dd calls all her friends' mothers by their first names, thank goodness; it does make life easier. What about neighbors? We have a neighbor who's just retired (so early 60s, I guess). I feel "Irène" is too familiar but her last name is difficult even for me to pronounce. Any ideas? I should probably ask her what she would prefer.

A patronising "in [b]this[/b] country..." might do the trick, Lisa.

A patronising "in this country..." might do the trick, Lisa.

Why SHOULD you change your views to accomodate her??? She should accept your views and just let it go

Not sure I agree, Tessiebear.

Wouldn't go that far, Tessiebear. It's good to recognise cultural diversity and to teach children to do the same.

Saying her opinion is of no value is behaving just as badly as she is. I would just go the gentle "here's the way we do it here - we are not being rude to you" route.

think americascot is right, live and let live and all that

I agree Tessiebear why should you change becasue that's what she wants. She should go with how you do things then!!!!

I think it's best to let kids call adults what the adults want to be called, surely?

I do think insisting on surnames is very old-fashioned and Canadian/American. I wasn't allowed to call adults by their first names, as a child, even if they wanted that. My parents were a bit old-fashioned, a bit big on having a large divide between children and adults.

DS1 only calls his teachers Mrs/Miss, and then, only some of them - the janitors etc are Bob or whatever, and the classroom assistant (she helps with a girl who has DS) is just Sue. Which weirds me out a bit, surely if some adults working there are Mrs/Miss, all should be?

Anyway, I'm not Mrs or Miss, I'm Ms, and with a different surname than the DSes. Simplest to just use my first name.

Not suggesting that she should be disrespectful - but as someone else said - why wait untul now to bring this up if it was such a problem. Wasnt aware of the cultural difference - is she American??

I think using Mrs/Miss/Mr "X" can be considered a sign of respect. (Of course, respect is very old-fashioned.)

Ms difficult to pronounce? Mizzzz.

But it's a strange sort of "automatic" respect. And why don't adults have to call children Mr/Miss/Master/Mistress then? Doesn't respect go both ways?

I think you're right, though, sansouci, this does link into a lot of ideas about adult/child relations ... they just don't happen to be ideas I generally buy into.