I am 18 years old now, I’m a legal adult, and I am a high school graduate. The road to adulthood was rocky but I made it, and now, well, now I’m more confused about life than I was when I was a “kid.” I feel like I’m at a fork in the road with about a million different paths, and I know that’s the exciting part of life. I’m told that these are supposed to be the best years of my life and I finally get to figure out what I want to do and be an adult, but ironically I don’t feel much different than when I was 16 or 17. I still feel like I’m a kid in some ways, and recently the something that has been on my mind with all the new pressure of being an adult is how I address other people.
Growing up I was always taught to say Mr., Mrs., Yes Ma’am, and No Sir, just like every other Southern child. I always addressed everyone as Mr., Mrs., or Miss, and I learned that it was the respectful way to talk to people when I was younger. Now that I am older and technically an adult, I’ve become less confident about how I address people. I worry about it even when it is people I know personally. When the person is 25 years old and younger, I really don’t have a problem using the first name, especially in a social setting. It is out of a social setting, and in a more professional place, that I really start to question myself. I always worry about offending someone who thinks that he or she is too young to be addressed as Mr. or Mrs., but I also worry about offending the person who believes it would be rude for me to not address him/her as Mr./Mrs. Now that I am working at Bella in marketing and advertising, I meet and talk with more people, and this is what really made me pose this question of when you do or do not address a person with Mr./Mrs.
I actually talked to a few people and asked this question to see what others had to say. I got many varying answers, and the conclusion I came to was that there is not a specific rule. You really have to decide for yourself whether you feel like you are able to address someone by his first name or not. It’s really up to you how you choose to address others and how they should address you.
And if you are still wondering how you should address someone, I came up with some questions that help me to decide when to use Mr. or Mrs. or Miss.
- Do you have a personal relationship with the person?
- Are you related to the person?
- Is this person younger than you are, or less than 2 years older than you?
If the answer to these questions is “Yes,” it’s probably OK to use the first name.
- Is the person more than 2 years older than you are and your superior
in some way (teacher, doctor, business owner, boss)? - Are you meeting this person in a professional setting?
- Does the person have kids?
If the answer is “Yes,” it’s best to start off by addressing him or her as Mr./Mrs./Miss, and then ask what he or she would be most comfortable with.
- Does this person have gray or white hair?
- Is he or she retired?
- Does he or she have grandchildren?
- Do other adults around you address him or her as Mr./Mrs./Miss?
If the answer to these questions is “Yes,” then I would definitely use Mr./Mrs./Miss unless you are asked to use the first name.
