Each week in the Tuesday column, Prudence asks readers for their thoughts on a question that has her stumped. She’ll post her final thoughts on the matter on Fridays.
Here’s this week’s dilemma and answer; thanks to Been Sir’d, Jane, Trans Rights Lawyer, River, and TL for their ideas!
Dear Prudence,
I am the Gen X child (46M) of Midwestern parents. I was born and raised in a politically liberal part of Texas. That said, manners matter even in my area of Texas. I was raised to always say things like “yes, please” and “no, thank you” and use terms like sir and ma’am. It was always clear to me that as a child or young adult, I should never refer to adults by their first names and always use terms like Mr., Miss, Mrs., or Ms., as appropriate, and by school age, I already knew which was to be used when and with whom.
Fast-forward: I have two kids—a neurodivergent son who is about to turn 10 and a daughter who is 8. I am proud to say they both are regularly complimented by other parents, teachers, camp counselors, etc., with regard to their manners. They have been taught the same things I (and my wife, a sixth-generation Texas from a border town) was also taught. That said, I am concerned about offending a nonbinary individual when my son or daughter might use a title like Mr. or Ms. or sir or ma’am. I personally still use sir or ma’am all the time, even when talking to my own kids—but I also don’t want to offend someone by using only cisgender terms. I hadn’t thought of this before, and nobody has ever seemed offended by my manners or those of my kids, but I don’t want to teach my kids something that might offend in today’s modern world. It is very important to me that they continue to have good manners and are respectful and polite, as I think that this is something the world could use more of. But I want to do it in a way that is respectful of new norms in gender definitions. My son’s being autistic makes this even more concerning to me, as he will be very upset and confused if he offends someone when trying to “do the right thing” in his mind and be polite. (He is highly sensitive to the feelings of others.) Can you help me here?
—Old Dad in a Modern World
Dear Old Dad,
This letter is a perfect example of why I love We’re Prudence. I was really thinking “There’s no solution. The kids have to keep having good manners, so they’re inevitably going to misgender and offend some people. And in turn they may get their feelings hurt. And nobody, including the letter writer will be happy.”
Especially given how sensitive your son is, I don’t want him to have to explain what “Mx.” means to people who are a little behind on modern thinking about gender identity. So while some suggested “Just use gender-neutral pronouns for everyone,” that didn’t quite work for me.
Luckily some readers had better ideas. One that should have been obvious to me: Tell your kids to just ask! What could be more polite?
Been Sir’d or Maam’d: As an Asian immigrant in the liberal part of Texas who not only identifies and presents themself as nonbinary but also was raised to speak politely to elders, I feel like this question speaks to me. I’m neurodivergent as well, so I tend to strictly default to polite form constantly, including using Sir and Ma’am as the default, because not using honorifics or suffixes when you’re talking to other people feels weird to me. All this is to say, I greatly sympathize with the letter writer and want to reassure him that he doesn’t need to worry too much. While this is my personal perspective and shouldn’t be taken as a gospel for other gender-nonconforming people, I don’t really mind when people use either Ma’am or Sir to me. Specifically, in my experience, people would usually ask if that was okay afterward, and I generally thank them for their consideration before stating my preference if I one have the time. So one way that might help is to tell your son that if he’s uncertain about how to address someone, he can ask how they’d like to be addressed, either before or after the initial conversation. That way, he’ll be able to be polite while taking their feelings into consideration.
I know Mx. and other gender-neutral honorifics have been gaining in popularity on the internet lately, but I don’t think it’s sufficiently widespread enough that it’d be practical to default to it, especially in casual conversations. Still, it might help to talk about other ways to address people in gender neutral terms, at least in writings, if not conversation. Something I’ve been trying to do (as I said, it’s easier for me to default to Sir and Ma’am, especially when drafting emails) is to focus on titles (Dr. / Professor) or other gender neutral (To whom it may concern / Dear all). Again, I know this doesn’t really help when it comes to day-to-day interaction, but I think it’s worth to talk to your children about how to be polite while still being gender inclusive in a professional setting. As I said before, I personally don’t think there’s anything wrong about defaulting to Sir or Ma’am, but it might help to tell them that it’s good practice in general to ask about how someone would like to be addressed. (Which you can also frame as something along the line of asking if they’d like to be addressed by their first name or last name, too).
Jane: I’m from Texas also and raised a high-functioning autistic son and neurotypical daughter. They’re adults now. They both were taught sir/ma’am manners and were good at it. I found as they hit the tween and teenage years, sir/ma’am offended more people, of all kinds, than I realized it would. Lots of women don’t like to be called ma’am because it makes them feel old. A very concrete rule for my son was warranted because navigating the complex social rules of each situation just wasn’t possible to teach him. Our new rule was to ask what the person wanted to be called. We made up Social Stories, turned it around to call him the wrong pronouns/genders, and discussed how it would make him feel. Now that he’s an adult and has a wider range of experiences, those situations are easier for him to navigate. My neurotypical daughter taught me some lessons about modern manners and thinking, for which I am very grateful.
Trans Rights Lawyer: This is such a kind and thoughtful question! As an advocate for trans and nonbinary folks, I generally try to avoid unnecessary gendering, but I know that this can be really challenging. I find that kids are often very open-minded and solution-oriented to questions like this, so I wonder what would happen if you had a conversation with your kids about how some people don’t identify as men or women, and don’t prefer to be referred to as Mr. or Miss./Ms./Mrs. or sir/ma’am, and ask them if they have any ideas for how to be polite and respectful in that scenario. What if you don’t know before you address someone what their preference is? I bet that including them in this brainstorming would be the first step to helping them be more comfortable navigating this when it arises. That said, a blanket option is to ask someone “How would you like me to refer to you?” I would also role play this with your kids! Practice a scenario where your kid says “Hello Mr. so-and-so” and you say “oh, actually I’m non-binary and I prefer you call me X.” They can practice responding, “Thank you for letting me know! I will call you X going forward.”
However, asking everyone for their preferred pronouns won’t work in every situation. I’m not sure if your average cis Texan who believes their gender identity is clear to observers would react well to a child expressing uncertainty about it, even if their questions came from a pure, thoughtful, and very evolved place. Plus, I assume you also want your kids to be able to handle involve one-off exchanges where “What would you like to be called?” wouldn’t be practical. That’s just not a conversation you’re going to have before you thank the person working at the drive-through for handing you your fries.
So I actually ended up being most moved by this reader who made a strong case for giving up the gendered titles entirely, at least with people who haven’t had the opportunity to express a preference.
River: As a trans person, I have to share that strangers addressing me using gendered titles is a really significant source of stress in everyday life and, at some parts of my transition, would even prevent me from going outside or going to certain places (shops, gyms, restaurants, clinics, schools, etc.) for fear of being addressed incorrectly. I know many in the trans community feel similarly. Being misgendered by even a well-meaning stranger can throw off your whole day and shake your sense of confidence and even safety. I believe that the convention of using gendered forms of address for strangers needs to be retired and that it is 100 percent polite and pretty straightforward to simply avoid these terms when addressing people on the street. Not, “Excuse me, sir, you dropped your keys” but “Hello there, I think you dropped your keys,” etc. In a more extended interaction, when you are meeting someone, simply ask what their pronouns are.
TL: I am an agender trans person from a not-liberal part of Texas, and I don’t think there are any magical options here because “force your kids to use archaic forms of address under the guise of ‘politeness’” and “have a progressive approach to respecting strangers’ gender identities” are fundamentally incompatible goals. This particular type of “politeness” is inherently steeped in systems of hierarchy and oppression in a way that’s not solved by teaching your kids the honorific “Mx.” There is no way to systematically use gendered honorifics in every day interactions—especially with strangers and people who don’t know well—without committing at best frequent microaggression against and at worst contributing to the pervasive systematic oppression of trans people. There is no way to KNOW the gender of strangers and people you don’t know well without asking, which can be rude, awkward, and even sometimes dangerous for the person being asked. This is why within progressive spaces, genuine politeness looks like dropping gendered language until you know someone well enough to know what they prefer. So which do you value more? That your children are seen as performing archaic “manners” as a performative sign of respect to adults (regardless of whether or not those adults have earned their respect—another dangerous lesson, imo) or that they actually value and treat kindly a diverse range of humans and human experience? You can’t have both.
What they said about genuine politeness makes so much sense. You want your kids to be good people who treat others well, and in this case that might mean dropping old-fashioned rules that we can no longer assume make everyone feel respected. Your values haven’t changed, but the world we live in has.
