Why is Calling your parents by their first name considered disrespectful?

[The Sum of Awe]

I don't call my sister "sister" or my friend "friend".

What is the cultural reason this started? Just curious.

 

[Gjallarhorn]

I'll jut parrot what my uncle told me: "I don't get to be an uncle much, so I expect you to call me one."

I assume for parents it runs along the lines of "I earned that title, so the least you could do is use it."

 

[9-10ths_Penguin]

I don't call my sister "sister" or my friend "friend".

What is the cultural reason this started? Just curious.

Social status, basically. Traditionally, you addressed people by their first name only if they were your social equals. People of higher status got other forms of address, and parents were considered to be of higher status than their children.

Actually, adults were considered to be of higher status than children in general.

This is the reason behind "Uncle Ben" and "Aunt Jemima". If you're a racist in the era of slavery or immediately after, you'd have a problem: you don't want to teach your kids to disrespect adults, so you can't have them call adult African Americans just by their first name like they were equals. OTOH, you don't want to teach your kids that African Americans should be afforded the full status of white people, so you can't have them calling them "Mr." and "Mrs." The compromise they picked was to use "Aunt" and "Uncle": titles used for adults that didn't necessarily imply the full respect of "Mr." and "Mrs."

 

[Renji]

In my culture, being Fil-Korean, you can only call people on their first names if you have the same age or age group ("teens" for example), those people are your friends or they're younger than you. We have a lot of honorifics for those people older than us. Like for example, a 14 year old girl can't call me Baek Jo or Lawrence, they should call me "oppa" (Korean for brother) or "kuya" (Filipino version) as a sign of respect, for some folks here might regard it as disrespectful (though, I don't mind really. ). The reason such titles is to show respect to those who are older than us, we do not treat them as equals. Actually, when I was new to the forum, I sometimes call people "Aunt", "grandma", Ms or Mr and stuff. It's just that during those times, I'm a bit uncomfy calling older people just by their first names.

 

[ChristineES]

It's cultural thing. When I was a child, I wouldn't have dreamed of calling my friends' parents by their first names but my daughter's friends just automatically call me "Christine" rather than "Mrs. Secrist". It doesn't really offend me, but it does show the changing of times.

 

[Quintessence]

It's disrespectful? Since when? I wasn't raised with this idea. Outside of the norm, perhaps, but certainly not disrespectful.

 

[Draka]

It's cultural thing. When I was a child, I wouldn't have dreamed of calling my friends' parents by their first names but my daughter's friends just automatically call me "Christine" rather than "Mrs. Secrist". It doesn't really offend me, but it does show the changing of times.

I've noticed that as well. I know when I was growing up there were only about 3 adults that it was considered okay for me to just use their their first names and they were my parent's best friends. Otherwise, my aunts and uncles were all addressed as such, my grandparents were called grandma and grandpa, my parents were certainly "mom and dad", and any other adult I met, whether teacher or neighbor or stranger, was always addressed as Mr or Mrs/Miss and their last name. I wouldn't have dared to call any adult but those unique 2 or 3 by their first names, no matter how well I may have known them. In fact, I doubt I could recall, if I ever even knew, the first names of my neighbors where I grew up, but I still know all the last names. And here I thought that when I grew up I would be addressed in the same manner. Formality and respect does seem to fly out the window as the years go by.