Strollerderby

That's how I was growing up! My mother is an only child, so we had 'love aunties,' 'love uncles' and 'love cousins.' I remember having to explain to a school counselor what a 'love cousin' was. I always preferred that to calling them Mrs. Colucci or Mr. Twilley.

Though my parents were strict about a lot of things, we grew up referring to adult friends of the family by just their first names.  Even my aunts and uncles were just called by their first names.  My mom hated the "Miss So-and-so" tradition (yes, we're southern).  Now that I have a kid, though, I feel weird about children calling adults by just their first names (though I wouldn't mind being on the receiving end of that).  I just worry about how others will take it, so we go with "Miss."

We use "Miss First-Name" and "Mr. First-Name" around here, and we do live in the south.  To me, Aunt and Uncle seem too intimate.  I actually would worry about it imposing on our friends, if they don't want that kind of relationship with our kids.  Kind of like the single mom who introduces her date as "Your new daddy!"  Not on the same scale, obviously, but the same kind of idea.  Miss and Mr. does okay to me, a nice balance of informality and respect.

I didn't hear about all of this Miss/Mr. First Name business until we moved down south from DC.  (Where I would have called everyone Mr./Ms. Last Name growing up.)

I think it's cute and polite enough.

Our two year old calls all of her daycare teachers, acquaintances, and just general people in her life "Miss/Mr. First Name."  Aunts and uncles have that title tacked onto the front of their first names.  Anyone who is very close to the family that is not a relative (like my best friend) has an "auntie or uncie" put in front of their first name.

Here in Maryland the "Miss Joan" and "Mr. Bill" is the standard, so we'll probably go with that. I still call a friend's mom "Miss Pam." But then I have another friend whose mom goes by the nickname "Boo" and we've always just called her "Boo." I believe her own kids call her "Boo," as well.

With close friends, we use the Aunt/Uncle designation (I'm in Chicago, a Michigan transplant). Our church family is very close, so I prefer Aunt/Uncle, and this is what I called my parents' distant cousins when I was growing up, though in an entirely different church setting. Miss/Mr seems so formal to me, but a friend of mine, from CA, has her kids call me by "Miss", so she's the only exception to that. Just writing this, though, I've noticed that we let our kids call acquaintances by their first name only.  

I grew up in the Northeast, and my parents' friends were called by their first names. Now I live in the South, and we ask our friends what they'd prefer to be called. Our friends across the street are Miss Kaye and Mr. Tim, but our friends who are also from the Northeast are just Mark and Debbie. I can't stand be be called "Miss Barb" so I come out and tell my friends and their kids that I'd prefer "Barb."

We use Miss Firstname and Mr. Firstname unless the adult would rather be called by last name.  We do not used first names alone to refer to adults.  It is how I was raised and I still call my friends' parents by the same Miss/Mr I called them in high school.  Aunt and Uncle are reserved for actualy aunts and uncles, and one or two extremely close friends of mine and DH's.

I'm from the South, and we called family friends [mostly church friends] Miss or Mister--in fact, at the age of 23, I still call most of them that!

One of my favorite things, though, is what we call our next-door neighbors, both of whom happen to be cousins of my grandfather.  They are married, but one of them is Uncle Roger and the other is Miss Carolyn.  I'm still not sure how they got those designations.

I'm Californian, and my parents always introduced their friends by their first names.  Course' here even CEOs go by their first names.  We saved the Mr/Miss/Mrs stuff for teachers.  

All grown-ups get a title in our house. For me it's an issue of showing respect. We tend towards the southern style Miss/Mr which was the practice in KY where we lived up until this year. Now we live in NH and most people seem to accept it.

I didn't hear about the "Miss" so and so until we moved south--we lived in the Memphis area for 20+ years and I grew to like the "miss" preceded by my name. It was less formal than the "Mrs." followed by my last name, but more formal than just my first name as uttered by a child.  However I take my cues from others and ask them how they wish to be addressed by my children.  It's best not to offend the adult in the situation.

Growing up in upstate New York many of my parents friends were known to my siblings and I as 'Aunt' or 'Uncle'. As an adult I find myself doing the same with my daughter. My close friends are people who love her and I want her to respect, not treat as a peer of her own. I think the 'Aunt' or 'Uncle' title designates that in a way even a young child understands without any thought required as to what's appropriate.