Is sons calling their dads “sir” an actual thing that some people do in America?
Yep. Daughters do it too. Like if my dad or mom calmly name I’ll say sir or ma’am depending on who it is
I seriously thought this was a TV thing.
That’s so……weird…and a little scary.
I’ve asked students of multiple nationalities, I think this is just a US thing.
And it’s so…why?
If you don’t call them sir/ma’am then it’s implied that you are speaking to an equal, and so it’s disrespectful because they are not your equal.
You also have to call bosses/managers/anyone above you in employment by sir/ma’am or it has the same connotation of disrespect.
It’s like Victorian class structures or something.
It’s just mum or dad and your boss’s first name. Even in my first job at 16 I called my boss by their first name.
Only thing we ever do is call teachers ‘sir’ and ‘miss’ and I’m not even a fan or that. We don’t even call police ‘sir’.
It’s OK to refer to your mom and dad as “mom” and “dad” and say that to get their attention, but after that it’s always supposed to be sir/ma’am.
Where I live, calling your boss by their first name (unless you’re literally their close friend) is a serious no-no. Like just thinking of that makes a chill run down my back. At the very least, you call bosses by their last name with Mr/Ms/Mrs in front.
And not calling police “sir” could very well end up getting them really angry. Anything that questions their authority over you, bosses/parents/police, all of them, gives you a big chance of getting them angry.
I mean it just sounds like you’re telling me all Americans are predisposed to megalomania and abuse of authority 🤷♂️
I think it depends on where you grow up/live? I have never called my parents sir/ma’am and I definitely have never called my boss anything other than their name. The only time I’ve called anyone sir/ma’am is a police officer.
It’s actually a southern and/or military thing. No one where I live uses those honorifics except military families.
I only use sir or ma’am when I’m serving a customer at my museum, basically.
I called my dad ‘sir’ once and he told me if I ever spoke to him like that again, he’d ground me. I may have been saying it sarcastically, but he does not want to be called ‘sir’
This is 100% not done in California outside of military families – but California has it’s own rules lol
idk bout y’all but this don’t happen where i live
I only see it in WA in military families. It’s polite to call adults you’re interacting with but don’t know well ‘sir’ or ‘ma’am’ but it’s not a heavily enforced social nicety. When I hear it in family usage, it flags that family “probably very conservative, tread carefully”.
Definitely standard practice when interacting with police, but again, probably not someone I know well enough to call by name.
Formality in the work place tends to vary depending on the work place, and also to how high the higher-ups are.
I’m from Texas, and no, I don’t do that. Actually, my mom and one of my cousins HATE to be called ma’am because it makes them feel old. When I was working retail, I was only ever told to call one of my managers Ms. Last Name. Everyone else I was on a first name basis with.
I will say that I started calling them Ms. First Name. That is totally a southern thing. So like, Ms. Wendy, Ms. Leslie, etc. I never did this with guys though. I’d called customers sir or ma’am, or say “Thank you ma’am or something like that.” But not like in a formal way. Idk, it’s a different tone.
But my parents? No way. That’s just…odd.
True story: my first job was at a fabric store and my customers were 90% women, so I had to work to stop myself from calling everyone ma’am. I must have called a dozen guys ma’am without thinking about it.
And with professors, it depends. I’ve had professors who absolutely wanted me to call them by their first names, and I’ve had professors who insisted on being called Dr. Last Name. First names for professors is hard for me, but I usually manage it.
Manners seem to be more of a Thing in the south (I could talk for 10 hours about the historical significance of that but I won’t start.) But calling your parents sir and ma’am is a new one on me.
The Paradox Machine 