Warning: Fairly long post...
Let me preface this by saying that I am aware that in some ways I see things as those roughly a generation older than me, because my parents were in their 40s when I was born, yet my younger brother and I were raised pretty much the same way they raised the first three kids nearly 20 years earlier. I recall people praising my parents for "how polite Ben and Kenny are." We simply never answered a question from an adult without a "sir" or "ma'am" on the end of it. Period. It was drilled into us for as long as I recall. And with one exception, we never, ever referred to any adult as anything besides "Mr./Mrs./Dr./{military title}/Coach {lastname}" (The only exception was Uncle/Aunt {firstname}.) It happens that my wife's parents, while younger than mine, were very old-school for their age as well, and she was the same way. To this day, in our 40s, the older folks in the church and so forth are Mr./Mrs., and always get a "yes ma'am/yes sir" from us. (And when I'm in Columbus, I still can't bring myself to call any of my high school coaches--even the two who are only around 6-8 years older than me--anything but "Coach {lastname}."
)
Fast forward to 2012, and raising a daughter. It seems that the *most* "old-school-parenting" friends we have tell their kids to call me "Mr. Ben." For the rest, it's just "Ben." (Not shockingly, we are training our little one that the next-door neighbors are "Mr. and Mrs. Dunn." Ada's daddy, two doors down, is "Dr. Campbell.") It just seems inappropriate to me for a 3-year-old (or an 8-year-old or a 16-year-old) to call an adult by their first name. That said, to each his own. If you want to raise your child that way, I'm not going to attempt to change you, but I do expect the same consideration from you...and that leads me to the irritation that caused me to post this thread.
What's frustrating is the number of adults who, well-meaning or not, simply won't (or are too dense) to respect our wishes on this. Here's what I mean:
TYPICAL SCENARIO
{outside playing, and a neighbor starts to approach, walking the dog}
Carter: {to me/SWMBO} "May I go pet the doggie, pwease?"
SWMBO: "It's Mrs. Johnson's doggie. You need to ask Mrs. Johnson if you may pet the doggie."
Carter: "Mrs. Johnson, may I pet your doggie, pwease?"
Mrs. Johnson: {to Carter} "Sure, Carter!" {to us, at full volume, while Carter is still standing right there and can hear her} "It's ok if she calls me 'Jane'."
Really??? Seriously???? You're contradicting a clear and obvious parental preference right in front of the child? Maybe that's excusable if she didn't have a 3-year-old and just wasn't thinking, but given that she's doing the same thing we're doing...wow. Or is she that insecure about her age that she can't handle a near-3-year old calling her "Mrs.?" While I find it a bit off-putting when someone else instructs their child to call me "Ben," I'm certainly not going to contradict another parent's wishes (as long as they don't put the other child or my child in danger) right there in front of the parent.
And the above isn't an isolated incident. It happens with alarming frequency, at least 25% of the times that Carter has her first interaction with an adult and we refer to said adult as Mr./Mrs. So-and-So, probably closer to 50%.
I am aware that we're "going against the grain" to a degree on the Mr./Mrs. thing, but I just can't imagine that we're THAT far out in left field with regard to expecting other adults to respect our parental wishes. Thoughts?