I think he is being a little odd, but not so much that it would bother me.
Many of my friends have children that call me “Uncle” and I treat it like an honorific. It isn’t a bad thing. However, if someone were uncomfortable and asked nicely that he be called by his first name, I don’t think that is a bad thing either.
What if - and I don’t know this guy, and obviously wasn’t therebut - what if he likes Shakes’s kids just fine but has some bad association with the word/name “Uncle”. Maybe his single mom dated a lot and made him call a bunch of guys he hated “Uncle Bruno” or whatever. Maybe he had a really really bad experience with an uncle of his.
I got Mister [First Name] from the OP. Also, since you didn’t hear the Sir part directly I’m choosing to imagine that he meant for that just in cases where a “yes sir” or “no sir” would be appropriate.
I’m not saying it isn’t possible he’s a jackass, I’m just choosing to allow that there are other possibilities as well.
So why not say, “Just call me Frank,” rather than Mr. Smith, or “Sir?”
After a very traumatic divorce, I took to calling my aunt’s ex husband “My Ex-Uncle Bob” anytime I had to refer to him. (Usually there was an adjective like “Creepy” between My and Ex-Uncle, or it was qualified by “the illiterate stalker” or something similar) To his face the odd time I saw him I just called him “Mr Lastname” and he didn’t like it.
Neither did his daughter, my cousin, because she claimed that because Bob was still her dad, and she was still my cousin, so “Bob’s your uncle.” (Ha! I always hated that expression! I was afraid someone would find out it was true!) I claimed the definition “aunt’s husband” no longer applied, and Auntie was my aunt before Cousin was my cousin. That confused her for a while.
So… aunt’s husband or cousin’s father… either is a valid definition.
Prick.
I vote they should call him Sir Lastname. And maybe throw in the salute. Or a obsequious bow. Or both.
If he doesn’t like that, they could just call him Herr Doktor Professor Lastname.
But for real–they should call him Mr. Lastname or if that’s what he prefers to be called.
But they should be sure to do it as often as possible.
Prick: Hello.
Kids: Hello, Mr. Lastname.
Before dinner:
Kid: Mr. Lastname, would you like a cocktail weenie?
Prick: Er, thanks. So what’s your favorite subject in school?
Kid: Math. What was yours, Mr. Lastname?
At the table:
Prick: Please pass the salt.
Kid: Here you are, Mr. Lastname.
And if they get accused of being smartasses, you could just claim that your latest family reading project is Dale Carnegie’s How to Win Friends and Influence People.
I do the same thing. There are actually a few people that I interact with semi-regularly, that I don’t know what I should call them.
I understand having children address adult relatives as “sir” or “ma’am” (even though I was never expected to do this even with my grandparents), but insisting on them using titles like “Mr” or “Mrs” strikes me as wholly inapporiate and bizarre in a family situtation. Hell, both of my baby boomer parents grew up being taught to address every relative a generation or more older that them as “Aunt” or “Uncle” (direct ancestors excluded of course). Which is also what I was taught. Though one of the weirder aspects of having your older siblings range from 19-13 older than years is having a niece in the same grade as you (we told people who were cousins). Her little siblings do call me “Unlce Alphaboi” though. The 2nd biggest only does it when she want’s something.
I think this is the way to go.
It seems a little prickish of him, IMHO. I can understand maybe not wanting to be called Uncle Prick, but Sir or Mister Prick? Get over yourself.
As given by my name, I am an uncle, both in the familial sense and the friend sense. Allow me to explain.
While I haven’t seen many of my family members for years, I have become friends with a person who calls me “Brother” and I call her “Sister”, and collectively I am her son’s “Uncle”. (It’s actually uncanny how alike we are that we *weren’t raised together, based on our beliefs and quirks). We live in the same condo building. There is another friend of the “family” who lives in our building. We have all known each other for 10+ years, so he’s an “Uncle” as well.
Recently, we were all sitting around watching football and discussing an interaction I had with her son. I was fortunate enough to be waiting for the bus with him for approx. 40 min. (Yeah, tell me about it.) But, honestly, he’s a great kid (15 yo) with a good head on his shoulders. “Sister” asked me to discuss our conversation with her because “nephew” asked her if he could discuss our discussion with her. So her interest was piqued and wanted to hear my side of the story. Once she heard, she asked "Uncle {Brother Walker} and Uncle {our other friend} to step up and talk to the boy as he transitions into manhood.
I gotta tell ya, I felt really proud. My friend wants me (and my other friend) to talk to her young son and give him advice about life, college, and the big picture in general. Believe it or not, SOMEBODY IS TRUSTING ME WITH THEIR KID! (I put that in caps because although I’ve come from a not-so-great background and actually didn’t turn out to be a total jerk in my life (although I’ve had my ups and downs), my friend thinks enough of me to advise her child about “how to do it right”. Brings a tear to my eye.
So I plan to spend as much time with the kid as I can, when he’s around. He’s recently taken it upon himself to get a job, so he’s not a home as much as I am anymore. I love this kid.
Okay, sorry for the gushy hijack, but I wanted to say it. Now back to the OP:
I also consider the “Uncle” title an honorific. It means the kids like me in a special way. Again, not having had any family contact for years, it makes me feel good. When I meet “nephew” on the street, as happens more often than not, I always address him as “Young Master {name}”. He doesn’t understand what that means yet, but I’ll train the boy yet. He addresses me by my first name, but his mom talks to him about me as “your Uncle Walker” (The “brother” is considered as a given).
As a southerner, I agree with the Sir/Ma’am title. If there is no relationship previously, this is right. If there is no relation, it’s Sir or Ma’am. If there is, you can go many directions. You can say “Mr. Paul” or Miss Ellie" (especially in TX), or you can go “Uncle or Aunt” Billie. I think it conveys a sense of love and trust from the child to attach a title that is more familiar than formal.
Bottom line: Yeah, he’s a prick. But again, Lighten up, Francis.
I can’t imagine how anyone would think otherwise. If, supposing I was in the same situation, a beautiful, sexy, intelligent woman was interested in me but didn’t like my daughter, well, I’d kick her ass to the curb.
But some people just don’t think that way. Nor is it a new phenomenon. I don’t get it, but there it is.
I’ve got quite a bit of sympathy for where Mr. “don’t call me Uncle” Frank is coming from assuming he’s not a prick.
Just because he married into the family doesn’t mean he’s instantly got the same amount of emotional connection that Aunt Krissy does, and very likely he doesn’t want that degree of connectedness.
So he requested that he not be called Uncle, hoping for a more armslength but respectful relationship, and well, failed miserably.
And despite my sympathy for his probable need for more breathing room around your family than people are in the habit of providing Aunt Krissy, I’m not sure it’s unreasonable to label him as a bit of a prick based on the described interactions.
Though, he may be just someone unused enough to children and smart-alecks that he didn’t realize how poorly this request would come across.
Our kids have a family friend like that - my husband’s best friend. They don’t call him Uncle John - but in conversations with friends they explain their relationship to him as an honorary uncle.
He’s a lot closer to my kids than my youngest sister. In fact, all my kids uncles and aunts have lived out of state for most of their lives, so they know a few of their parents friends as well or better than their own relatives.
Is it possible that his name, combined with the honorific, is un-euphonious? I have such a name, and I have discouraged my sibling’s children from calling me “Uncle Cadfael” because it sounds silly. I prefer being called by my first name, although some of them still use the “Uncle” for fun.
It’s a title. Just because the husband-of-their-aunt is properly called uncle doesn’t mean that the man is going to be obligated to give one of the OP’s kids a kidney or help fund their college educations or something.
If you don’t want connectedness, then don’t marry into a family!
I kind of like this bloke (although apparently a complete nutcase.)
I have (had) lots of aunts and uncles, and in every single instance the husband of an aunt is an uncle, and the wife of an uncle is an aunt . . . regardless of whether it’s a first or second marriage. What’s the problem?
Uncle Frank? sounds silly? :dubious:
Yes. To me Uncle is just as formal as Mr.
One of my uncles gave me a hard time (and not jokingly) for calling him by his first name rather than Uncle [first name]. My other uncles (his brothers) had no problem with the first name thing. I was 17 at the time, It’s not like I was 5.
This was my first thought too, and then I read down a bit and found out the ages of the kids (He’s expecting respect from 11 and 14 year old boys? What delusion is he living in??) The boys seem to handle their response well. 
I remember (probably falsely, as this was over 16 years ago now) when my sister was pregnant, she asked me what she’d want the kid to call me. I usually call myself “David”, and that’s how I always write my name and introduce myself to others. People who are my friends (ie not relatives who have known me forever) often call me “Dave”, but that’s entirely of their own volition, I didn’t ask them to. Not thatI mind in the least, if you call me “Dave” that tells me that you consider me a good enough friend to speak casually with, and I appreciate that.
I was thinking of “Uncle David”, but that sounded way too formal. I settled on “Uncle Dave” and am pleased with it. (So I guess that makes my neice the only person so far that I’ve asked call me “Dave”).
In a similar, but completely different, vein, my wife’s oldest nephew is a year younger than me (she’s the baby of the family, and this is the oldest son of her oldest brother), I often jokingly refer to myself as “Unky Dave” around him.
People have also mentioned how “friends of the family” are referred to as “uncle” and “aunt” - that’s a tradition that my wife and I have carried on (although it can be a bit confusing, as my sister and a good family friend share a first name, so, to differentiate, we sometimes refer to my sister to our kids as “your real Aunty Name”). With my mom’s friends, I often referred to them as “Mrs. Lastname” (or, sometimes, “Mrs. L” (ie the last initial)), don’t know who started that, possibly my mom (as I referred to all of them that way) - even today in my mid to late 30s, I still can’t help but call them “Mrs. Lastname”, I can’t bring myself to refer to them by their first name!
Not only am I as Southern as anyone here, but my Grandfather was a West Point graduate and career military officer. “Sir” was something that was basically only used immediately after “yes” and “no”, but was a courtesy extended to all adults. Uncles & Aunts were “Uncle Bill”, or “Aunt Kay”, and all other adults were “Mr.” or “Mrs. Lastname”.
I’ve never in my life heard anyone refer to a person as “Sir”, in place of a name.