I will post the picture first as an excuse for the completely unrelated thoughts that are bombarding my brain tonight.
We got back from the beach on Saturday evening. It was such a fun trip, and I will write a real post when I have a few extra brain cells to spare.
Anyway, I have been accumulating children's clothes for 5 years now and have about run out of room in our closet downstairs. So naturally, I would choose this week (after vacation and before we begin homeschooling next week) to go through each and every item of clothing that the boys have worn over the past 5 years and try to determine if it makes the cut to go back into the closet, if it should be donated to Goodwill, or sold at consignment. That giant pile of clothes in the picture is all that I have purged and is almost half of what I started with. I am feeling so free...except for the bags and bags of clothes to go to Goodwill, a friend with a new baby, and the consignment store. I am, however, making progress on the school room (once you get past the bags of clothes) and will hopefully post pictures soon. I could even see enough carpet to vacuum tonight!
Then I came upstairs, put the boys to bed, did the dishes, and found some formerly living sea creatures in a plastic watering can that my niece collected her shells in...last week. It was a bit odoriferous.
And while I was washing the sand down my kitchen sink and hoping that sand sharpens garbage disposal blades, I began pondering what my children should call adults. Up until now, the boys have called the adults in their lives by their first names such as Mrs. Katie and Mr. Chris. In preschool, children call their teachers by their first name prefaced with Ms. or Mr. But in kindergarten, they begin using the teachers' last name. Which made me wonder - is this related to the child's age, the adult's age, the situation, or some other arbitrary factor? Perhaps the difficulty of pronouncing their last name?
And when do you go back to calling adults by their first name? I am pretty sure if I ran into the parents of my childhood best friend, I would want to call them Mr. and Mrs. England even though they attended my wedding 9 years ago and I have 2 children of my own.
I have recently found myself using the adult's age as the standard for their moniker. So if someone belongs to my parents' generation, they will likely be called by their last name. If the person is close to my age, then I would go with the first name.
Are there any rules about this? If you have any suggestions, please leave them in the comments. Now, please pardon me, I must go Google manners.
1 comment:
I never noticed that distinction between what kids call their preschool teachers and what they call their elementary school teachers! You are so right that it seems to be a confusing double standard. At least your kids add the Mr. or Mrs. to the beginning of names though. My kids just call family friends by their first names or by Aunt or Uncle so-and-so. I'll have to work on that one with them. Just for my part, I would be sad if your boys stopped calling us by out first names. I mean wrestling with Mr. Songer doesn't sound near as fun as wrestle mania with Mr. Chris!
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