What’s In a Name?

When I began working at the local child care centre, the acting Director asked me what I would prefer to be called. I looked at her rather bemused. Then it finally registered that the staff were addressed by their first names. It seemed rather foreign to me that my daughter’s friends would call me by my first name.

Of-course fellow staff members would call each other by their first names, just like any given work situation, but young children? The children starting calling me by my first name to get my attention and I began to feel uncomfortable. I wondered if it was the fact that the children were calling me by my given name or that I was not being called ‘mum’.

Eventually one young boy who would be starting school the same year as my daughter, began saying ‘I know your name’, as if it was a well-kept secret. This made me wonder how he would address me when he started school. Would it change and would it make any real difference?

When I was growing up, any adult was formally addressed; it didn’t matter who they were. I would never dream of calling my friends parents by their first names. My parents would think I was being particularly rude, and I would have received a tongue lashing as a result, ending in a formal apology.

My husband and I have previously helped out at the local school by doing reading and mathematics programs. My husband has also assisted the headmaster during computer classes. Naturally at these times, we have both been formally introduced to the children. If the children need to address us formally at school, but can address us informally outside of school, who can blame the children for being confused? I know I can be.

My husband proudly boasts of being the oldest kid in town. He is always prepared to chase the children around in the playground, or play soccer or football with them. As a result he is therefore continually referred to by his first name. Times like these I think that he is considered another child prepared to have fun and I’m the strict, boring adult.

I remember talking to him once about this, where he casually replied: ‘That’s my name isn’t it?’

‘Yes, but having the kids call you by your first name sounds disrespectful’, I said. ‘It just doesn’t seem right to me. I was brought up to address adults more formally’.

‘You don’t demand respect just by being an adult, you have to earn it’ he replied.

And that was the clincher. I thought I was being a bit of a prude regarding the whole thing, and now my husband proved it for me. What he said was right. It didn’t matter how the children addressed me, the important thing was to earn their trust and respect.
Then one afternoon, as I picked my children up from school, one of my son’s friends came up to me and said ‘Debbie, I got a guitar for Christmas’. I was surprised for two reasons. That he not only called me by my first name, but that he specifically sought me out to tell me this important piece of information. Rather than being offended, I felt flattered.

Children tend to take things at face value. Perhaps now I have finally earned their respect.

© Debbie Johansson 2007

About the Author

Debbie Johansson is the author of young adult mystery novels and historical fiction. She has written two young adult novels, which are both in the editing stages. Debbie has also written short stories, articles and has been known to dabble in poetry whenever the mood strikes her. She lives in country NSW, Australia with her husband, two young children, a psychotic pomeranian and six paranahs heavily disguised as goldfish.

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