<p>In the South it is still practiced and is disrespectful to older adults not to do so.</p>
<p>When I lived in North Carolina 20 years ago the joke was “do you know where the Mason-Dixon line is”…answer “where the kids stop calling you sir”…</p>
<p>It does sound very sweet and southern when you’re in the south, but up north, No. We’re not in the military.</p>
<p>danceclass, my D mentioned she has started saying it at work. But she has a civilian internship with an Army institution, and that is why she is doing it. 
I agree, north of the Mason-Dixon line it is unusual unless you have a parent from the south who expects it/taught you to do so.</p>
<p>I’m in NC near a major city. With the influx of people from all over the country and world, saying sir and ma’am is not as common as it was in the past, at least in the urban/suburban areas. I’ve been here 16 years and have noticed the change. </p>
<p>When my oldest was in preschool, his progress report indicated he could improve his manners. I asked his teacher what needed improvement and she told me he didn’t say “sir and ma’am”. I told her it wasn’t really his fault, because we didn’t use those words at home. I told her we used “yes, please” and “no, thank-you” instead of “yes sir” or “no sir”. Well, she had him saying sir and ma’am by the end of that year. :)</p>
<p>You would get smacked in Texas if one of your parents is around and feels you are not addressing another adult respectfully. I have seen that or at least a YES WHAT as a guided scolding.</p>
<p>Even when I was growing up in the South, different families handled this differently. Pretty much everybody was taught to say “sir” and “ma’am” to adults outside the family, but some families insisted on kids using these terms at all times with their own parents, and others didn’t (my parents didn’t, for example). My observation was that the personality of the father in the family had a lot to do with how the kids spoke.</p>
<p>It’s important to remember that all of these things are cultural to some extent. My wife, for example, wasn’t raised to use “sir” or 'ma’am," but she was taught that it’s highly disrespectful to refer to your mother as “she.” In her parent’s culture, you don’t refer to your parents with a pronoun.</p>
<p>I grew up in the North, where it is less common, though I often would say it to people in position of authority as a sign of respect, particularly much older adults. In fact, I still do when talking to the elderly.</p>
<p>Having been in the South for 30 years and raised my son here, I can vouch for the fact that it is very common here and kids’ politeness is ‘rated’ on whether they use sir or ma’am when addressing adults. All the kids in my son’s private prep school were taught to do so and virtually every time they went on a field trip the comment that came back was ‘these are the most polite kids we have ever hosted’. I believe it was because they were taught at school to use sir or ma’am.</p>
<p>Having said that…1) we never required our son to address us in that way, though many parents here do (that was mainly because of my upbringing in the north) but he does address other adults with sir or ma’am 2) some kids go way overboard with this, answering every single question with ‘yes or no ma’am’ and after the 10th time in a single conversation it gets very annoying. It’s better to use it judiciously, IMO.</p>
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Well, maybe not if you’re afraid of getting smacked.</p>
<p>Being born and bred up north everyone I know thinks it’s almost disrespectful to say sir or ma’am as in sarcastic or thinking the person you’re saying it to is old. Definitely regional!</p>
<p>The fundamental difference is this:</p>
<p>In the South, it is considered a polite way of referring to any adult, which includes not just strangers but parents, teachers, etc.</p>
<p>In the North, sir and ma’am are terms that you use with people who are <em>strangers,</em> where you don’t know the person’s name and more importantly you have no desire to establish or signal any kind of relationship whatsoever. So you might say, “Excuse me, sir, how do I get to the post office?” because knowing the person’s name and establishing a relationship is irrelevant - it’s a business transaction and you’ll never see the person again. Same with “Excuse me, ma’am, you dropped your glove.” Or “Excuse me, miss, I was in line first.” It is a way to * deliberately keep someone at a distance.*</p>
<p>Which is what the Southerners don’t get when they think that Northern kids are “rude” by not calling their teachers, parents, aunts, etc. sir / ma’am. They aren’t being rude! It would be rude and disrespectful to call people with whom they actually have a relationship by a term that designates having a formal, stand-offish, non-relationship!
Really, if my kids called me ma’am, they’d better be doing so in a humorous manner, because otherwise, it’s extremely rude to address me, their loving mother, the same way they’d address some stranger who dropped her glove.</p>
<p>My son’s GF is from Louisiana and it sounds strange to my New England ears to hear her say “yes ma’am” to me … but it’s cute! She also calls me Mrs CNP.</p>
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Now, this is something I did bring with me from the South–I do prefer for my kids’ friends to refer to me as “Mr. Hunt.”</p>
<p>I do, though, think it’s a little odd when at 28-year-old teacher introduces himself to a room full of parents as “Mr. Smith.” Yeah, he’s Mr. Smith to our kids, but…</p>
<p>My 50 yo husband still refers to some of his parents’ friends as Mr. and Mrs. X. It sounds ridiculous to me; we’re all adults.</p>
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<p>That would bother me and I would request that the teacher not do so. It would sound snarky, rude and disrespectful for my children to call me, my husband, our relatives, etc. ma’am and sir. Too bad it sounds polite to Southern ears. It doesn’t to Northern ears.</p>
<p>Hunt, now that I think about it, you’re right about parental pronouns. I always thought it was strange when I heard mama this or daddy that. It was never “my mama” or “my daddy”. </p>
<p>I still remember times when kids would say or do something somewhat objectionable, only to have their mamas remind them to add “ma’am”. </p>
<p>Getting smacked for not using sir or ma’am? What’s wrong with this picture?</p>
<p>My father use to give me a smack when I addressed my mother as “she,” otherwise know as third person invisible 
While I was taught to address adult with sir and ma’am, I was not required to address my parents that way.</p>
<p>With my kids, they also used sir and ma’am, but not with family or close adult friends; it was/is reserved for teachers, in the workplace, and strangers.</p>
<p>While we’re at it :-), I cannot stand the term “mama.” It makes me think of some old-before-her-time, completely worn-out hillbilly woman with a bunch of snotty-nose children clinging to her skirts. Kind of the old woman who lives in a shoe and has so many children she doesn’t know what to do. It’s sort of the hip new hipster way of indicating that you are a mother these days, it seems - what was wrong with Mom (or Mommy, for little ones)? To listen to all these twentysomethings refer to themselves as mama - oh, ugh!</p>
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<p>I don’t think you did your kid any favors! If I had a twentysomething employee who referred to me or other workers / fellow employees / clients with ma’am or sir, I’d have to tell them to cut it out. I absolutely could not take that person out to a client and have them use ma’am or sir. It’s too deferential and sets an ingratiating tone.</p>
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<p>This is really one of those ‘when in Rome’ sort of things. Don’t use it in the South, you’re being rude. Use it in the North, you’re being rude. Being a Northerner transplanted to the South, it took me a while to figure out that learning the local customs goes a long way in winning friends and influencing people. 
We often have people in leadership positions come from ‘up North’ who simply can not adapt to the culture environment down here and they are often short-timers…not by choice, either. I’m sure that happens a lot with Southerners who end up in the Northern, also.</p>