Re: The difficulties of raising your kids to be properly homophobic

On Jul 23, 9:43=A0am, Pat Kight <kig...@[EMAIL PROTECTED]
> wrote:
> Blunt and Opaque wrote:
> > Ann Burlingham <a...@[EMAIL PROTECTED]
>, in article <u3am18mb9....@[EMAIL PROTECTED]
>,
=
dixit:
> >> In my experience, substituting one set of unthought-out, default
> >> behaviors - like "call all people by their first names" in place of
> >> "call all people by an honorific and their surname" - doesn't change
> >> much behavior, while annoying more people.
>
> > Amen!
>
> > Far too many doctors offices (and I don't mean doctors -- I mean their
> > office staff) presume to address me by my first name. =A0Which is
*not*
> > my use name. =A0And only highlights how much they don't know me.
>
> > Addressing me as <honorific> <last name> would go a lot further with
> > me.
>
> Maybe it's the whole small-town thing, or the casual ethic of the
> Pacific Northwest, but one of the first things the staff at my
> doctor/dentist/veterinarian/etc. asked when I filled out the intake
> paperwork is "what shall we call you?" And then they *remember*.

It only makes sense. So many people do not use their first name, or
even their middle name. One of my closest friends just picked his own
name, one that he think fits him better. He didn't change it legally
but everyone who knows him calls him by his self-assigned name.

>
> (As it happens, I prefer to be called by my first name - but I also call
> my doctor, dentist and veterinarian - and their assistants - by theirs.
> It makes for a nice, casual, egalitarian business relation****p with
> Patty, Lane, Tim and the gang...)

I wrote my reply before I read yours. We're on the same page. I used
to be pretty openly defiant when a doctor would introduce himself as
Dr. so-and-so and immediately ask for a first name. No one ever
objected or seemed put out, but I decided that, even so, it's sort
confrontational and I find confrontation to be work these days.
Mostly, I go with the flow but may well deselect a health care
provider that does not offer on the grounds that they are likely to
treat me presumptuously in other ways.

Lane