Little Miss Annoyed.

[brdgt]

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.

Comments

[h-loves-c.livejournal.com]

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."

[brdgt.livejournal.com]

Do you encourage other people to call her that/do her teachers call her that?

[h-loves-c.livejournal.com]

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.

[brdgt.livejournal.com]

Ah, so there is a "Mister" equivalent - one of my concerns is that I haven't heard that (maybe it *is* a southern thing?).

[kumquatmay]

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.

[recklesswater]

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.

[h-loves-c.livejournal.com]

"No m'am" is my standard correction with Miette, too.

[resurgam.livejournal.com]

wait, do you all mean you say "No ma'am" to kids? Or teach kids to say "No Ma'am" to others?

[recklesswater]

To the kids, as a directive (instead of just "no" or "stop").

[recklesswater]

Sorry - when I read this in the thread, I thought it was a response to me! I don't mean to speak for Heather!

[h-loves-c.livejournal.com]

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.

[brdgt.livejournal.com]

Ha - the only "person" I've ever called "sir" was my cat Calvin!

[purplemb13.livejournal.com]

Related: I call Shawn's cat "Miss Freya" and I don't really know when or why or I started doing that.

[brdgt.livejournal.com]

I could see her being a "Missie" :)

[resurgam.livejournal.com]

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?"