Miss

I'm not sure why I feel like I need to apologize when posts are simply so-so, but I do. I'm apologizing in advance about today's post. It was about a discussion that J and I had recently that made me stop and think. Because he had a question, I thought others may have the same question. I could be wrong, though, we'll see.

As a result of all the school stories in my blog lately, J and I had an interesting discussion the other day. He wanted to know if my kids really did call me "Miss" or if I was just putting that in the retelling of the story.

His question surprised me. I guess I'm so used to it now, that I don't even pay attention anymore. The kids DO call me "Miss" and that's it. When I first started teaching over here, I was taken aback by it. Nobody does that in Western Washington. They use your name. It seemed sort of odd to me at first, but nobody else seemed to be overly bothered by it so I didn't question it. It took awhile to get used to, but now I like it. I still don't really feel like a "Mrs." I much prefer Miss H or just plain Miss.

When I was trying to explain to J why the kids do it, I realized that I'm not positive what their reason is. Honestly, I believe that it started with our Hispanic population. In Spanish, women are often referred to as just senora or senorita. I bet that's where it came from. In English, that would translate to Miss.

Whatever the cause, I like it. Before I got married, my last name was Plenkovich. That's a mouthful for kids, so I always told them they could call me "Miss P." Then, after I got married, all of a sudden kids were using my whole name. That made me feel old. So Miss it is.