Not long ago, our 9-year-old neighbor put me on the spot. She was asking whether Dave was back from his business travel (she walks J to the bus stop on the mornings Dave is out of town, thereby saving me packing up the other bros to join us), and stumbled trying to refer to Dave:

“Is Mr. — is your– is Dave– is… What should I call him?”

I was stumped. In my haste to not confuse her with my own confusion, I told her to refer to Dave as “Mr. [Last Name],” but immediately regretted it. Sure enough, when I talked about it with Dave, he was almost offended that I would suggest our kid’s friend refer to him as though he was some stodgy, adult-adjacent parent.

But seriously: what’s the convention for this nowadays??

Mr. and Mrs. [Last Name] feels far too formal to me — my imposter syndrome flares up immediately with a reminder that I still choose chapstick over lipstick and therefore cannot possibly be an adult on par with my friends’ parents [Mr. and Mrs. Last Names] growing up yet.

Ms. Kel and Mr. Dave feels more comfortable, but are we confusing things when we create a casual way of speaking to adults and then expect these same kids to refer to their kindergarten teachers and Mr. or Mrs. [Last Names] as a sign of respect? After all, even if that same teacher is 8-10 years younger than me, and even if her position on the chapstick vs lipstick scale is unknown, we are big into respect for teachers around here.

Please weigh in with opinions. School is out this week and therefore my focus group of adults (the bus stop parents) is unavailable to survey.