OK moms of daughters, in particular, but everyone else too. Is it just me or is calling little girls "Miss [first name]" really weird. Please correct me so I can be less cranky. Or agree with me so I can feel righteous. Whatevs.
I need context. My mom always taught me that in correspondence a title should be used on the envelope, so my letters to my BFF were to Miss Sherry Heck. But that doesn't seem like what you are talking about.
For my family, it's part affection - my mom often calls them Miss Moira or Master Kieran. She is a stickler though. No Mister until over the age of 14.
We are just starting to figure out what she should call adults outside of family. I have been telling her "Miss Bridget" for moms that I met, but maybe I should be saying "Ms. Bridget?" I don't know. THere's a lot of complicating factors too. I'll have to write my own post about it.
Definitely not in the 3rd person because...that's weird, but I do call her Miss Miette (or Miss Mimi, or Miss Crawford) sometimes, when addressing her directly. E.g., "Ok, Miss Miette, let's go to bed now."
I don't expect anyone else to do it - it's a term of affection for me - but a lot of the women in her life call kids "Miss X" or "Mister Y." It feels distinctly Southern to me.
There's definitely a mister equivalent, least round here. Though I am not in the south, it's a thing. I've seen it most often with a parent or caregiver (not the kid's parent) speaking to them. I see it more of sign of respecting the kid a bit, as Max loves it. But we also encourage him to use mr. or ms. for grow ups, whether its last name or first (pending the grown ups prefence). So my friend joy becomes ms joy to him, and she calls him mr. Max in return.
I feel like this is fairly common - my mom will still call me "miss jessie" sometimes (she's from the Chicago area, but has lived in Southern-ish Indiana for the last 35 or so years), but she tends to nickname everyone - including (especially?) my dog.
My sister-in-law will often say, "No ma'am" or "no, sir" when correcting her kids, something I seem to have picked up when talking to kids when I can't remember/don't know their names.
As a directive to her. We talked about teaching her to use "m'am" and "sir" with adults but in the end decided that we didn't like how it emphasizes the power imbalance between adults and kids.
ha ha - Moira doesn't interact with any adults really outside of family, so she says, "No thank you, Mommy dear," or "Please may I have more water Grandmama dear?"
I've never heard the third person usage you describe but my mom STILL calls me Miss Maggie to this day sometimes (or rather, Ms. Maggie, since she is a feminist). I don't think it is supposed to mean anything; the alliteration just sounds nice. She called my sister "Little Bit" for some reason.
I definitely use "Ms." when referring to adult women while speaking to children. That's how I introduce adult women to Miette - "This is Ms. Collins." I don't give her permission to refer to any adult by their given name unless that adult invites her to do it. And I introduce myself to other children as "Ms. Crawford" unless we have a fairly familiar relationship; then they call me Miss Heather. (My Girl Scouts call me Miss Heather, for instance.)
"Miss + First Name" is appropriate, I feel, for female children. (Though I do not say "Master + First Name" for male children. That just sounds dumb.) "Miss + First Name" for adult women is something that connotes a close relationship, a familiar relationship.
Yeah, I say Miss every now and then, and Mr., just as a little affectionate nickname or something, for both kids, not just my girl. Doesn't seem too strange. For adult females, I always say Ms.
I've always been told that calling people "Miss/Mr" as far as the South goes is a holdover from Segregation/Jim Crow. Like you'll get that if you're white, but not if you're African American.
When I think about the number of boys of color I've met named "Sir" (with spelling variations thereof), or both boys and girls with other honorifics/compliments as first names, I think there is a response to this.
If you are asking if I've said Mr. Sir, no - I cannot think of a time when I've addressed a student or child I wasn't related to as "Miss/Ms/Mr first name." I was more addressing the issue of racial power structures addressed through parents using honorifics/compliments as first names.
I haven't heard that but I think I might disassociate myself from anyone who spoke about the kids in a weird manner like that! Sometimes people will refer to the girls as Miss Ruby or Miss Vivian, but only if they're being playful and talking to them directly, like if one of them is dressed up fancy. I think their ballet teacher used to do that sometimes. But not like what you are saying. I think I'm baffled by the concept though.
I do sometimes, to kids I know well, in a formality-as-affection way.* I grew up calling adults Mr./Mrs/Miss. Last Name (for people I did not know well) and usually Aunt/Uncle First Name for non-related adults who were family friends. I think in my head Ms is an adult term, I've never really thought about it. Some of my friends refer to me and Justin and Miss/Mister to their kids, and sometimes Aunt/Uncle (actually, he's Uncle Ding0, an old burner nickname that has stuck around).
I'm from MD, as is my mom, and my dad's from VT. Most of the family and friends we spent time with growing up were from MD or the South.
* I do the same thing to animals, too, so it could be just a me thing.
I'm from Vermont, via Massachusetts and have lived in Wisconsin and Utah. We did call close family friends "uncle so and so" and "aunt so and so" even if they weren't family. Otherwise, we just called them their name. I also often call my parents by their name. Maybe I'm a rude Northeastern with no manners?
Come to think of it this way - I wonder if it's a class thing...
I think it's definitely a class thing. I'm a northeasterner too, and I never called any adult by their first name. Always Mr./Mrs. Last Name, and real aunts and uncles only were called Aunt/Name First Name. Close family friends were Mr./Mrs. Last Name.
Christian grew up poor in Dayton. They were/are much less formal and it made me super uncomfortable at first when his parents wanted me to just call them by their first names.
Perhaps it started as a southern thing and other people adopted it because it seems to teach manners and sounds more classy and now just everyone uses it? I could see a great sociology paper about this...
Upper class people demand/feel entitled to honorifics and aspiring upper class people like to model this behavior. No one ever calls the poor kid on food stamps and free lunch "Miss SoandSo" - at least not in the trailer park I grew up in.
In my experience I've heard it in lower class areas, mostly Southern, from what I grew up around. I . . . don't have much experience with upper class habits.
We say miss mathilda or mister (or young master) Tobias ... But not past age 10... Well we don't say it that often to our own kids but often to my nieces & nephews. And they say it to my kids. We don't find it objectionable. But NOT in the third person. That's weird.
I call my kids/stepdaughter "Miss X" when I write cards to them etc. (I remember liking that when I was a kid) but I've never done it out loud, in person. And I think third-person Miss-ing is creepy. My grandma calls my kids "Miss X" when she talks to them, like, "Good morning, Miss Peaches!" but she is one of my more southern relatives.
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We are just starting to figure out what she should call adults outside of family. I have been telling her "Miss Bridget" for moms that I met, but maybe I should be saying "Ms. Bridget?" I don't know. THere's a lot of complicating factors too. I'll have to write my own post about it.
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My sister-in-law will often say, "No ma'am" or "no, sir" when correcting her kids, something I seem to have picked up when talking to kids when I can't remember/don't know their names.
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"Miss + First Name" is appropriate, I feel, for female children. (Though I do not say "Master + First Name" for male children. That just sounds dumb.) "Miss + First Name" for adult women is something that connotes a close relationship, a familiar relationship.
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I'm from MD, as is my mom, and my dad's from VT. Most of the family and friends we spent time with growing up were from MD or the South.
* I do the same thing to animals, too, so it could be just a me thing.
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Come to think of it this way - I wonder if it's a class thing...
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Christian grew up poor in Dayton. They were/are much less formal and it made me super uncomfortable at first when his parents wanted me to just call them by their first names.
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