What Do Your Kids' Friends Call You?

My parents were part of the Silent Generation â€" those who were born between 1925 and 1945 (give or take). I grew up with the simple expectation that my parents' friends would be Mr. Morgan or Mrs. Benedetti. The most radical feature of my parents' friends was that Mr. Morgan's (later known to me as Eddie) wife preferred Ms. Morgan. Ms! Imagine.

I don't know if I ever ascribed that to anything other than the idea that my parents were older when my sister and I showed up. What never occurred to me though was the idea that anyone more than 5 years older than I was seemed Old and therefore even if my parents were young when I showed up, they would still have been older.

My friend Lanny's parents were hippies. Man, they were cool. Not only did they let him call them Steve and Ginna, we were invited to as well. Cripes, his grandparents invited us to call them by their names too. That's not to say they were known as anything other than Mr. and Mrs. I did muster up the gusto to call his dad Steve once, and to my surprise…lightening didn't strike and he didn't say anything to me, but, Yes?

I had one friend whose mom had a different last name - she had remarried...and divorced. This caused great consternation for me â€" how come Dave's mom has a different name than he does? Interestingly enough, though, she remained Mrs. and not her given name.

On the other hand, it has never occurred to my kids' friends to call me by anything other than by my name. I've got 13 year old girls and 3 year old boys calling me by my given name. The only people who call me Mr. are those looking for a job â€" and once they get that job, they're calling me by my given name…how many emails do I get everyday from employees starting with Hi, Mo…