Here in Chicago, “sir” and “ma’am” are what you say to cops and judges OR to someone very very low on the social totem pole, like a panhandler. Neither connotation is one I’m comfortable with in the parent/child relationship.
If I hear it from a local kid, it does have the connotation of control freak parents or military folks. I wouldn’t go so far as to say “asshole”, but it is definitely an uncomfortable speed bump in my consciousness.
I find it quite endearing coming from a kid I know to be raised in the South, but it’s in the same patronizing way I find kids with British accents adorable.
I think it must be similar to how I feel when I hear- and it’s very rare that I hear it- somebody call their parents Mother and Father, not as in “my mother and father were husband-wife exterminators who met at a fat farm” but instead of Mom/Dad or some equivalent- “I went to visit Mother and Father at the maximum security nursing home and took them some live bunny rabbits”. It sounds a bit too formal.
I called my parents Mama and Daddy and still refer to them as such, which is another southern thing- referring to ‘Daddy’ LONG after childhood (my aunt is 86 and still refers to her late father as ‘Daddy’ in conversation). OTOH I called my paternal grandmother Grandmother and it was definitely not a loving and feel good-snuggly relationship. She was evil. I called my other grandmother “Meemaw” and that was a regular grandmother-grandchild relationship. Perhaps sir/ma’am strike some people the same way as saying Grandmother.
Interesting. We almost always go “to Mother’s house”, and I sometimes call my mom “Mother” as in “Where would you like this casserole dish, Mother?” or “Mother, *why *are you still using a VCR to tape *Lost *when you pay for a DVR?” More often, it’s Mom, but Mother doesn’t feel or sound weird or stilted to us.
Don’t think I’ve ever called Dad “Father”, though.
I wonder if many black families who live outside of the south say ‘sir’ and ‘ma’am’ to their parents.
The reason I ask is that a lot of black families who live outside of the south but have roots in the south, particularly the rural south*, in say the lifetime of the oldest family members carry on southern traditions. This is particularly true of food- it’s always funny to me to here fried pork chops and turnip greens and sweet potatoes called “soul food” when in Alabama and Georgia it’s just “home cooking”, but also in some family dynamics (forget Big Daddy from Cat on a Hot Tin Roof, most southern families black and white are matriarchies) and naming patterns and saying Mama and Daddy, etc…
On the flip side, most white families who live outside the south but have roots in the south, particularly the rural south*, in living memory seem to assimilate within a generation. Most extended white families I know have branches they consider their “Yankee cousins” where Yankee isn’t so much a judgment as a distinction- they talk differently, eat different food, and have different manners.
*In many ways the rural south is “the real south” to me. I’m not saying that as a xenophobic or ethnocentric point of view- there’s much I like and much I can’t stand about the rural southern culture that I grew up in- but it’s very different from the urban southern culture. Traditional southern culture, black and white, was largely brought about by isolation, both the good aspects (hospitality, charity, humor, love of company) and the negative (prejudice against outsiders, superstition, stubborness, resistance to change), and the urban culture is more homogenous with the rest of the country due to mass media.
My mom is “Mother” when either I’m genuinely or just jokingly mad at her.
Sampiro, I lived in Georgia for a few years and I must say that the “Miss Firstname” thing annoyed me no end – far, far more than “yes ma’am” or “no, sir.” I am from all over the place, really, and for me Miss is a title for a little girl. But I am also all for manners so never spoke up about it, because I knew the intent was to be polite. I will never quite get how Miss turned into a title for adult women, especially married ones!
But having my first couple of retail jobs in northern Louisiana, I automatically ma’am or sir people who call me from the South (I’m in Idaho now) without even thinking about it. Comes in handy sometimes.
I don’t mind it when I’m addressing a much older woman- somebody at least a generation older than me. When I’m called “Mr. Jon” by a 30 year old or older especially it just re-enforces my already stronger than I’d care to admit urge to buy a seersucker suit, string tie and big straw hat. “Hi y’all doin’? If you don’ mind I’m gonna sing a little diddy heah while my boy plays the gee-tar… ‘Come all you rounders if you wanna heah/story 'bout a brave engineer…’”.
The creepiest is when they refer to each other as Mother and Father. Even when they don’t have young kids. Not like, "Take this to Daddy, honey"or “Show Mommy what you made at school.” But like, just calmly referring to each other as Mother and Father.
Oh, good, I was afraid you’d be offended, and I didn’t want to offend you. wipes brow It just sounds odd to me. I don’t want random kids using a title with me, my name is fine. Especially that particular title. Seems to me I should be using it on them, not the other way around. And I understand adults calling other adults that even less than you do.
It sounds oddly formal to me, but I grew up in the mid-Atlantic and my parents didn’t like such forms of address and no one around me used it. Parents of friends were Mr. or Mrs. Lastname. I called my mom “ma’am” once (admittedly in a less-than-friendly tone) and was sent to my room for being chutzpahdik. Even now as an adult they’d probably think I was either joking around or being a defiant smartass if I called them that. “Mom” or “Dad” are the only forms of address we use.
Some extra thought on this one: I don’t typically call my parents (or any of my family members) “Sir” or “Ma’am”, though it happens sometimes. I call almost everybody else I talk to “Sir” or “Ma’am” though (gender appropriate, of course) except in situations where it is specifically inappropriate to do so (addressing Army NCOs, as an example.) Quite a few folks correct me on this, ie: “You don’t gotta call me Sir!” but I tend to insist, if only because it’s a semi-unconscious habit when I talk (like I said, I do this to everybody).
I’ve had a couple guys get downright HOSTILE for being called Sir (an Airman I knew in Basic maintained that calling him “Sir” was disrespectful somehow, I was never able to follow that train of thought very far). In my experience, many of the folks who think I’m a jerk for calling them “Sir” themselves tend to be assholes, often with other corroborating evidence. Most folks, when they realize they’re not gonna get me to stop, shrug and move on. Even NCOs from services where you aren’t supposed to call them Sir (the aforementioned Army, along with the Navy and Marines) tend to take it in stride since Airmen are trained to call their NCOs “Sir” or “Ma’am”.
Holy Excluded Middle, Batman! You realise it is entirely possible for a kid to be perfectly polite to her parents and others without (literally) slavish deference, right? I get “yes, Dad” from my kid, and “Yes, [Uncle] Neil” from my friends’ kids. Because I’m her Dad, and their “Uncle”/Adult Friend Neil, not their Drill Sergeant or Plantation Boss.
I guess it depends on what you mean by friend. What I mean is that there are times where you aren’t really acting as an authority figure, but as a confidant. As someone the child can trust, not someone they fear. Otherwise you are definitely going to be distant.
Also, as the child grows, they should become less and less of a child. Confiding in them about stuff when they are ready for it is the other half that deepens the relationship. It’s not like you can suddenly become friends after they graduate–they’ve already formed their opinion of you, based on how they were treated as a kid.
There’s a balance needed. While you correctly infer that being the child’s “friend” all the time will not help, you need no to err too much on the other side, being the authority figure that cannot be talked to. Everyone I’ve met that has fallen in with a bad crowd has been one or the other: the authoritarian parents “just don’t understand” and never find out about the other kids. The “friend” parents, on the other hand, let them do whatever they want, which includes haning out with kids that are bad for them.
Parenting, like pretty much everything in life, requires judgment and moderation. That’s why not everyone can do it.
Just like it’s possible for ma’am and sir not to be used to mean slavish deference?
It really doesn’t do either side any good to judge either side. You really only need to know if someone is an asshole if you’re going to spend a lot of time with them, and, by then, you’ll have a lot more information to go on. I do think it makes sense to prejudge all people as good people until proven otherwise. Or at least stay at neutral.
Age 43 Southerner here. I used Mama and Daddy until I got to college where I was teased into using Mom and Dad (which I still use). My parents’ generation used Mother and Daddy their whole lives.
I did say giving them “as a matter of course and without thought”. I imagine there was considerable thought went into your dealings with child molesters and gang-bangers, and reacting to the type they would have expected would be counter-productive.
Also, I’m not sure what’s so bad about “Yeah?” Even when not accompanied by a name. I rarely use anyone’s name (and certainly not sir/ma’am) when I talk to them. It just weirds me out.
