What do your kids' friends call you?

[GrayMatterWife]

I grew up as the child of an officer in the military. It wasn't uncommon fir us to even say "yes ma'am/ yes sir to our friends' parents.

My kids say "yes ma'am" and "no sir" and "excuse me?" and so forth with DH and me. Kiddo, I am not your playground buddy. You will speak to me with the respect and deference I deserve. I wince when I hear children say, "yeah" and "what?" to their parents.

DS does not use "ma'am" and "sir" at school, because that is not the address commonly used by children to their elders here in the midwest. But he DOES use "ma'am" when he speaks to me in front of his teachers!

Maybe I am old-fashioned...but I STILL respond to MY parents with "ma'am" and "sir" when appropriate.

[DCJenn]

My aunt and uncles are all still Aunt ________ and Uncle ________ with the notable exception of my uncle who is only 8 years older than I am- he and I came to a mutual understanding at the last family wedding. The Mrs. lastname thing would be really helpful though because just like on this site, there are a ton of Jenns/Jennifers and it gets confusing. (why I'm known by all of MY friends as Hussey. It's just easier)

J.

[Vishenka69]

I just realized that I never replied to my own thread. It's too painful to write a long response on the BBerry.

I'm still as confused as I was about this issue. I was hoping for a more uniform response. I keep forgetting how diverse this group is. I'm leaning toward "DD's mom" or Mrs. Lastname (or Mrs. M if they can't pronounce the whole last name). We have this issue with our own parents in that it took us over a decade of being together to start calling ILs by their first names (which is what all 4 of them said they'd prefer). In Russian, it's just not done and it felt very wrong to us. On the other hand, I have no problem calling our 80+ neighbors by their first names. We don't have same reservations in English.