What do you call your in-laws?

[Edwina's Secretary]

Miss Johanna,

I guess I'm just an old-fashioned girl....<>

I just believe there are some privileges that go with adulthood....staying out late at night, drinking alcohol, making major purchases, calling adults by their first names.

We took Barbara and Siegmar out to dinner while they were here last week. The restaurant was a disaster. Our waitperson, despite our request to two other staff members, could not leave her conversation to serve us. When she finally did, she told us she thought the section closed. Mind you....she could SEE us the whole time. My husband told her this was unacceptable service. He did not yell or swear but he was definitely angry. Her response was she had never been spoken to in that manner and could not accept it. (I expected her mommy and/or daddy to appear at any moment to tell us we were mean to their little girl!)

The substitute waitperson announced we would put the misunderstanding (What??? I understood everything perfectly!) behind us as she proceeded to call us "you guys."

I am not an intimate friend of the wait staff nor my friends' children. I am an intimate friend of my friends.

Familiarity breeds contempt...okay, maybe not contempt but, in my opinion, a blurring of distinction about who is what to whom.

[Logan]

Johanna, I must agree with you. Of course, I also recognize that everyone has the right to have a different opinion (Sara...... ) . I urge Helen's friends to call me by my first name. Perhaps it makes me feel a bit younger than my awful 43 years, but I also think it puts them at ease with me. Some of them insist on "Miss Logan" and that's fine. Unfortunately, many of them also still call me "Mrs. Givens", which is the name they knew me by for so many years. But that is not my name anymore and is still Helen's last name, so it gets quite confusing for all!

When I was growing up, my friend's parents were called by "Mr. or Mrs", but as I have gotten older, I've even changed, at their request, to try to call them by their first name. It's hard to change after all these years! LOL!!! I find myself saying "Miss Pat" or "Miss Helen" to my mom's friends and the parents of my friends.

I live in the south, where things are maybe a bit more formal, usually, but I have found that over the years, people have gotten more relaxed.

Even my daughter calls my parents by their first names. That is only because when she was a tiny thing, she talked very early, but could not spit out "Grandmother" or "Granddaddy" and we settled on "Betsy" and "Hugh", instead, thinking we would change it, eventually. But we never did and my mom always says that no one can say "Betsy" more sweetly than Helen!

PCB, I hope you figure it out. I still think that asking them directly is the best way to go!

Logan