Earlier this week I was involved in a rather long discussion on Facebook. It started as a friend’s status update, but soon there were lots of people involved discussing the topic. The conversation went on for about two days. I chimed in towards the end of the conversation, even though I didn’t know most of the people who responded prior.
One morning as Hazeline (a/k/a “The Rooster”) was drinking her early morning bottle, I was surfing the internet on my phone and checked to see if there were any more responses. Turned out there were two. The first of which said something to the affect of, “Sarah – Me too!”, and the second was from the friend who had originally posted the status update saying, “Friend, you just called my mom (an old southern woman) by her first name. God have mercy on your soul.” Oops. I was suddenly glad that I hadn’t responded to the status update in a similar manner. My mom might not be on Facebook, but why don’t I remember that some moms are?
Long before the girls were ever born, Erajh and I decided that our kids would not call adults by their first names, unless there was a Ms., Mr., or Mrs. before it. I know lots of people don’t mind if their kids call adults by their first names alone, but it just doesn’t feel right to us. We were both raised to call adults “Mr.”, “Mrs.”, or “Ms.” as a sign of respect, and that was how we wanted to raise our kids. Don’t get me wrong, it totally freaks me out when people call me Mrs., and it blows my mind that Greenleigh and Hazeline’s friends might have this same concern one day, but when it comes to my girls I want to be a little traditional.
In my early morning haze and only working on about 5 hours of sleep, I decided something should be done about this. We should somehow mark mom’s pictures so I would know to call them Mrs. X or Ms. X. Some way to distinguish moms so I wouldn’t be a total jerk in a response and mind my p’s and q’s. Perhaps a banner at the bottom of their picture? Or a small button on the bottom right of their picture. Something bright enough to catch attention, that says something like, “I’m a Mom”, “I have kids and use Facebook”, or “Mom’s on Facebook”. You know, like those Save Darfur or Earthquake relief buttons people place on their profile pictures. That would be perfect, I thought. Maybe we could make some sort of game out of it, like the ridiculous bra color status updates, to make sure that all the moms get onboard.
And everything was perfect until I remembered – I AM a mom on Facebook. Why am I always 22 years old, skinny, and childless in my mind when I come up with these brilliant plans? ‘Cause that is so not me anymore. Here’s my mom badge profile picture:
Branded.
I remember when Rachel was first going to preschool and they would call me Mrs. Lori. thought that was so odd feeling. We had similar discussions and we decided to call other parents Mr. or Mrs. last name. You get accustomed to it over the years, however, I will admit to always thinking they were speaking about my mother-in-law.
Now that Rachel is almost through high school, when her friends come over, I offer my first name and let them decide.
Im just known as Madysen’s mom or mommy and I’m ok with it. I wasn’t raised to say Ms., Mr. What have you. We grew up in the south, but my mom had grown up in CA so certain things were ok. As long as we said, please, thank you and didn’t show direspect to our elders, things were ok. Now if we didn’t- well, that’s a story for another blog…
Happy Easter Weekend!
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I grew up in a world without ‘titles’ – I lived in the same house as my aunts and uncles, so I refered to them all by their first names, no ‘Aunt’ or ‘Uncle’. Although some people find this disrespectful, in my case, I found that because my aunts and uncles and I were not differentiated, we ended up being more like siblings and friends. It personally gives me the heebie-jeebies when my own neices and nephews started calling me ‘Auntie’ – because it felt as though it was creating a barrier between us (whether real or imagined), and it annoyed me that my sister insisted that it was ‘rude’ for her kids to call me ‘just Samantha’ even though that is what I would have liked… So, I am going to teach my kids to politely ask people “What would you like me to call you?”. I think using Mr. and Mrs. is great – particularly in areas where it is normal, as long as you’re flexible with people who are really uncomfortable with it (like I am!).