@alh I gues I’d expect a “yes” rather than a nod or a grunt. But I’m sure my daughter’s manners did seem lacking during our visits to the South when she was little.
I’m with PG. I think it depends on locale what is considered mannerly. It is just an interesting question to me.
The follow-up question is whether parents teach their kids to respond to adults like teachers, differently than to parents. I’m just curious.
My kids had to figure out pretty early on there were different sets of rules in different locales.
alh - it all depends on the context. If I am asking my 10 yo if he took out the trash as he was supposed to, I just need my question answered. So “yes” or even “uh-huh” in a pleasant tone is just fine. I don’t need him to say “yes, ma’am” or even “yes, mom.” He knows I’m his mom. I know I’m his mom.
Can you please give me another context you are thinking about?
I think the other context for us is that if Mrs Smith is your fourth grade teacher or Coach Bob is your coach, and you feel like you need to say something other than “yes” or “no,” you’d simply say "yes, Mrs Smith " or “no, Coach Bob” - that for us, if you know the names, there is just no need that the ma’am or sir serves.
More important to me for my kids was tone and eye contact which infers respect and engagement. No “Sir” or Ma’am" needed with me or other adults. Eye contact is a biggie for me.
Retired to Florida. Tampa has plenty of people younger and older who moved from northern tier states. I can tell who was raised in the south by their automatic usage of ma’am and sir- sometimes multiple times. I personally think it is an outward, automatic response and therefore not at all indicative of any true respect. It dates back to social classes days where you weren’t everyone’s equal. I would prefer that it fell out of use as a routine address. Trying to get the attention of someone seems to me the time to use it when you don’t know someone’s name. The gloves dropping seemed normal to me- I would hate for someone to freeze their hands because they lost their gloves (the ONLY time to wear them!).
PG: Did you expect your kids to say “please” when they asked you for something./anything? Did you expect them to say “thank you” after receiving it?
for example:
Kid: Could I please have a soda/pop/etc?
Mom: yes
Kid: thank you
…
Mom: Would you like a soda?
Kid: Yes, please. or - No thank you.
…
what was the norm at your house?
Yes, I expected them to say please and thank you in the situations you describe.
In a situation where a please or thank you was not relevant (“Did you take out the trash?”) a simple yes was a perfectly sufficient answer. No was not a sufficient answer unless it was accompanied by “oops, sorry, I forgot! I’ll get on it right away!” 
May have been said already, but in Baltimore people might get called “hon.” They have a hon fest and everything.
Ladies dress with their bee hive hairdos and it’s quite a thing.
Agreed on the first quoted sentence, but I question the implication of the second one, since every cultural group has social classes where people aren’t each others equals—it’s just a matter of how explicit or implicit those social classes might be.
From the Northeast…I remember when my kids were small, my friends and I would all kid each other when we “got ma’am-ed”! We’d be out and some salesclerk/waiter/whatever would say. " thank you ma’am"…we’d hoot and laugh and point (not at the salesclerk)…“hahahaha. Justamom got MA’AM-ed!!!”
I’ve said this before, but around where I am it’s everyone’s first names. I called all of my friends’ parents by their first names starting at least in high school if not before.
We do the whole please and thank you. Yes, please. No, thank you. It’s expected out of everyone and I sometimes find myself going “Yes, what?” when people say “yes” just out of habit.
I despise the term Miss and always have. When I worked in an elementary school, the kids had to call me Miss First name. I hate it. I’m fine with “ma’am” even in my mid-20s but normally people are just referred to as “you.”
Ha. My 73 yo mother in her old age - I’ve had to remind her about please and thank you! And she’s not senile!
About nine years ago, my mother came over to visit a few days. My husband cooked dinner one night (or maybe I started it but he finished it up by cooking the vegetables). Anyway, we made a habit of thanking the person who cooked dinner. So I thanked my husband and then both kids (then 9 and 3) each thanked their father. We waited. And waited. Finally, my mother said “Thank you, slackerDad” and smiled ruefully. She never forgot after that.
As for Miss or Ma’am. I was called ‘Ma’am’ when I was in my 20’s (lived in Atlanta) and now that I’m in my 50’s, I find people calling me ‘Miss’. I always thought people were trying to not insult me (younger people want to be taken seriously - older people want to be seen as younger - whatever). Miss can bother me - depends on my mood. Ma’am never bothered me at all.
I have a pet peeve about new prospective patients calling and leaving a message to my first name. I never call my own doctors by their first names, unless we are on a social basis.
I live in Southeast. My sons friends usually call me a nickname, something in between first name and Dr.
How does this ma’am / sir thing work in the business world? I have never heard anyone refer to a client or coworker that way. Everything is on a first name business.
Even in my first name culture, it would never occur to me to call my doctor by her/his first name. All of my doctors are Dr LastName and it would feel bizarre to call them something else.
Well, you’d gag at my H’s being known by his patients as “Doctor Firstname.” Honestly I think it’s gaggy too. But not my circus, not my monkeys!
Especially knowing your H’s area of expertise, I do find that gaggy, @Pizzagirl. Maybe ok if he was a pediatrician?
Hubby and I are in the medical business, the rule of thumb is Dr in front of staff always, and always when you first know them. Once things get friendlier I notice hubby gets on a first name basis.
As a patient…always dr.