Do you remember when you were a kid and you called all the
adults by their first names?
You don’t? Oh.
Why not?
Because you didn’t? Hmm,
I see.
Well what did you do then?
Ahh, yes, that’s right. We called
them Mr. LastName or Mrs. LastName.
I remember being so furious that my parents made me call all
the adults Mr. or Mrs. LastName! The
injustice of it! I felt so
degraded. What am I here a second class
person that I can’t just hang with the adults and call them by their first
names? Outrageous! I remember swearing an oath that I would
NEVER revisit this cruelty on my own kids!
Oh yeah, that’s right.
I didn’t feel that way at all. It
was the normal way of things. I was
expected to respect other adults. They
were not my friends. They were my parent’s
friends. Their kids were my friends. I was allowed to call their kids by their
first names. I was not allowed to hang
out with the adults when they were visiting, just bouncing around from one to
the other, demanding that they swing me around or oooh and ahhh over my lego
car. We CREPT in to the living room and
whispered into my Mom’s ear a question of such dire seriousness that we couldn’t
in good conscience leave it until the visiting was done.
"Mom, Jeff fell off the roof and now there is blood coming
out of his leg. We tried to fix it up so
we wouldn’t have to disturb you guys, but we just don’t know how. Sorry to bother
you, but can you please help us for just a minute?"
Was there something wrong with that?
The way I see it there are two problems here…
First, what is wrong with US that we just can’t abide the
thought of being called Mr. or Mrs LastName?
We think we’re still kids? We don’t
want to accept the responsibility of being the adult? We are so scared to alienate the children
that we need to have them climbing all over us all the time? “Oh, don’t call me Mr. Sawatzky, haha, that’s
my father”. Um, no, you are the father
now. Your kids need to be taught respect
for adults. Your kids will not respect “James”
nearly as much as they will “Mr. Sawatzky”.
James is their buddy. Mr.
Sawatzky is their buddy’s dad. Even Mr.
James is not good enough people.
Ask yourself this: Why does it make you feel so
uncomfortable for kids to call you Mr. or Mrs. LastName?
Second, we are doing our kids no favours whatsoever by
bringing them up to see other adults as the same as their friends. Our kids need that authority in their
lives. They need to learn that the other
adults in the church or wherever, need to be listened to and obeyed. Look at the kids these days – do they have a
healthy respect for authority figures?
Not at all. Kids just mock
authority (the mocking comes more when they are older, but this is a direct
result of not being taught to respect authority when they are young). Our kids need this authority so they can have
the security of knowing that it is not just a free-for-all out in the
world. It will help them be healthy
well-adjusted people later in life.
We are hurting our kids by letting go of this tradition of
respect. It is our fault that today’s
kids won’t respect authority. I am not
some power hungry monster that is looking to dominate all of earth’s
children. What I am calling for is a
society of respect, not only for people in positions of authority over you
(although yes, this too), but for everyone around you.
Even though I want my kids to call other adults Mr. or Mrs. LastName, there are very few of them who will allow it. They are just not comfortable with it. Sometimes the best I can do is to convince them to allow my kids to call them Mr. James. There is nothing I can do about it when the other adult won’t step up. I mourn the loss of this. I really do.
