Yes Ma’am or No Ma’am?

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Yes Ma'am or No Ma'am

My husband and his brothers were raised to include ma’am and sir in every single response to their parents and other adults, no exceptions. In their family it goes right up there with common manners such as saying please and thank you and not spittin’ on the floor.

“Do you want corn?” “Yes ma’am.”
“Did you take out the trash.” “Yes sir.”

When we were dating, my husband’s little brother, thirteen years younger, stubbed his toe or something and yelled out, “Ouch!” And his mom, not quite hearing him, hollered upstairs, “What did you say?” “Ouch ma’am!” he quickly corrected.

Though I was born and raised in Central and East Texas, my parents rarely asked us to say ma’am or sir. Answering Yes, or Okay, or I’m on it! was acceptable, so long as we weren’t giving attitude or back talking. But I learned along the way, in our small Texas town, that there were people who expected children to use ma’am or sir and that actually thought less of you for not using it. As an approval-seeking perfectionist, I started peppering my responses with it, especially when I thought a little southern charm would win some favor. It wasn’t necessarily out of my deep respect for others, but rather my deep need to be liked. Now, as an adult, I tend to read the room and use it when I feel it would be appreciated or when I genuinely want to show someone my respect, but I think an over-use of any word waters it down so I don’t use it with every person I converse with. 

When we had our first born and he started talking, we were met with a little parenting dilemma. I wanted to teach our son heartfelt respect and kindness over correctness. He was a very polite little one, always saying please and thank you and full of smiles and I thought that was all we should really ask out of a small child just grasping the English language. One of my favorite things our son said as a toddler was a great enthusiastic “Shooo-er!”

“Would you pick up your shoes?” “Shoo-er!”
“Can you please take another bite?” “Shoo-er!”

I refused to make him replace that adorable kind response with a boring Yes ma’am. My husband had ma’am and sir ingrained so deeply in him that he cringed when he heard any other response, but I think cuteness might have won him over. I didn’t want to spend those sweet adorable years correcting perfectly kind responses with, to my ears, a stuffy canned response and my husband needed to feel like his values were being considered in our parenting duo. We agreed we could wait a little longer before asking him to say ma’am and sir with any sort of rigidity so long as he was being respectful.

Fast forward to the threes when our son’s cute little responses started turning into disrespectful toddler talk and my inner southern mama came out. “I believe you mean, ‘Yes ma’am.’” I was a little surprised at this side of me, but then again I was also a little surprised when this tomgirl had a baby girl and fell in love with big bows and ruffles. It’s kind of like that SNL skit on The Mom Cut. “No one wants the cut, the cut chooses you.” You don’t choose the southern mama ways, they choose you.

Here’s the deal. Despite my surprising southern mama side, I don’t care all that much about my kids calling me ma’am. I do care a lot about my kids though and when you raise kids in the south, like it or not, they will at times be judged on their use or lack thereof of these traditional honorifics. One friend of mine put it this way, “I will always be more trustworthy of children who have impeccable manners. That doesn’t automatically mean they also have good behavior, but it at least means that their parents are active in their lives and care enough to instill value and morals in them, and that in turn gives me more comfort in allowing my children to be around them.”

I have seen first-hand how an adult’s demeanor changes toward a child when they refer to them as Sir or Ma’am. It catches their attention and they take note, give a little nod or smile of approval. As much as I hate to admit it, I’ve been that adult sizing up a kid based on his manners too. So because I love my kids and I want to give them the tools they need to succeed here in the south, and good first impressions are definitely a tool for success, we will be teaching our kids to use ma’am and sir.

For now, with our almost five year old, about 50% of the time I will correct him or anytime I hear the slightest disrespectful tone, I enforce it. When we are with my husband’s family, because we love them and want them to feel respected, we enforce it. But kindness over correctness is still my number one priority when it comes to manners. Please and thank you and genuine shoo-ers win my heart over every time.

What do you think Dallas moms, does teaching our children to address adults with ma’am and sir go hand-in-hand with teaching them respect and manners?

8 COMMENTS

  1. I’m soooo not a Dallas mom. I’m a Mainer. :). But I was surprised and pleased with your take on this. I’ve seen southern mamas jump down their kids throats when they don’t say ma’am and I cringe, but I agree, you have to teach then to communicate respect in the culture where you live. It’s not a thing in Maine at all and frankly, I’m glad, but manners are all about communicating respect and kindness, which requires learning the tools your particular audience users. Ultimately, though, I think kindness comes through, as does disrespect, not matter what words you use.

  2. Oh! And another thing…my husband is from Alabama, but also an enlisted Marine, so he always says, “don’t call me sir, I work for a living.”. (That is to say, he’s not a commissioned officer.). So there’s yet another culture, lol…

  3. We are new to the Dallas area and I am intrigued by the Sir/Maam traditions that are here. I had decided we would teach our kids to address other adults in their life as sir/maam but it never occurred to me that for some that applies to mom and dad too! That’s a little much for me.

    There’s another social nicety here that I’d like more info about. I want to teach my kids as Southern kids are taught to refer to adults as Ms. and Mr. even when they’re very familiar. For example the babysitter will be “Ms. Alissa” not just Alissa even though she’s a “friend” to them. But is the custom to refer to all women as Ms? Or is the distinction supposed to be made between Miss/Mrs? It seems it would be hard for kids to be able to discern that nuance…

    Thanks for any insight on that question!

  4. Yes sir and yes ma’am are great tools when raising young children. Teaching them to say it helps them show respect to their elders because saying the words helps them acknowledge in their minds that they are to respect their parents and it gives them a way to do so. Children showing respectfulness to their parents and adult friends and relatives is becoming rare in our western society. Lack of respectfulness of children is especially noticable in public schools and shopping malls. I recently took my four grandchildren on a shopping trip at an outlet mall. Their parents have carefully taught them to show respect to adults saying yes sir, yes ma’am. Their ages were 8, 7, 5 and 3. We were in a particular store for about 45 minutes and their behavior and respectfulness toward me garnered spontaneous compliments from 3 different shoppers who noticed and said how rare it was to see children well behaved while shopping. All around were kids running in the store, playing hide and seek, taking things from the shelves at will, etc. On another occasion I took my 4 grandchildren out to lunch in a nice restaurant where our table had a white tablecloth. Once again, a woman got up from her table and walked across the room to pay a compliment to these respectful kids. Most recently when they visited I took them to a bounce and play gym and again their behavior and respectfulness to me and the proprietor of the business were complimented.Children who are respectful are a joy to be around. Children who scream and yell and throw temper tantrums in stores, restaurants and at home are not. They are miserable and so is everyone who has to be around them. They can’t be blamed because it is their parents who have failed to teach them how to behave in a respectful manner. What I have found when raising children to respond to their parents directions with yes ma’am or yes sir is that whatever is the issue at the moment, when a child responds with yes ma’am, it settles the issue in the mind of the child when they say yes ma’am or yes sir. Telling them it’s time to do clean up, get ready to home, or whatever is not a perpetual argument and met with whining, crying or yelling. It’s settled when they say yes ma’am. I see parents out and about with kids every day arguing, bargaining, threatening their kids to get them to obey and it is sad. Teaching them at a very young age and I mean before age two to respond with yes ma’am makes them understand that parents are to be respected and obeyed. This is not to say that there won’t be a test of wills from time to time but it is a gift to your kids to teach them how to show respect. They will be happier and so will the people who encounter them whether at the mall, a playground, in a restaurant or in school. It doesn’t turn them into robots. It simply helps them realize that mom and dad are the ones in charge. That gives them a sense of security.

  5. Yes sir, no sir, yes ma’am, and no ma’am are an absolute requirement for my 4 boys. My husband is very strict about this and in fact all manners in general. Our oldest is 17 and he will occasionally try and test the waters by skipping his sirs and ma’ams but we shut him down real quick. There is really no good excuse for not using good manners and showing respect for your elders. We constantly get glowing comments from other parents, teachers, wait staff in restaurants, etc. about how polite and well mannered our boys are. My second oldest is 15 and he recently spent the weekend with one of his friends from school. His friend’s dad was so impressed with our son’s manners that he decided to begin requiring his own children to answer using yes sir, no sir, yes ma’am, no ma’am. For a short period of time my son’s friend was a little mad at him because his good manners caused him to have to use good manners.

  6. I was not raised to say ma’am or sir but I do use it on occasion at work or other places. However, I CHOOSE to show respect. I personally choose not to force my kids to say them because forced respect isn’t something I buy into. I believe that if you get offended by not being called ma’am or sir, then that’s a trigger and a red flag on childhood trauma that you have not healed from. A lot of our customs and traditions were made in fear and as a result of unhealed wounds. This is most certainly one of them.

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