<p>I think it’s a matter of perspective. Other families at you kid’s school are likely struggling to come up with the tuition. Or guide their child through a health crisis, or tanking grades, or an unplanned pregnancy. At some schools, kids & their families are dealing with the residual mourning over classmates who were gunned down on their very campus. Some parents are visiting their kids’ graves today. </p>
<p>If the only issue you have with the college is an improperly addressd envelope or two, be thankful. In general it’s best not to sweat the small stuff.</p>
<p>No, LWMD, I do not think it is “asking too much” for both you and your husband to be correctly addressed by the college with which the two of you and your second son/daughter do business.</p>
<p>Your respective legal names are the names in which you are employed and file taxes, as well as the names in which you hold legal documents (birth certificates, social security cards, driver licenses, passports) and educational/professional credentials. These are the names which appear on your financial accounts and insurance policies (including the health insurance under which your son/daughter is probably still covered). These are the names which appear on your son’s/daughter’s birth certificate, medical records, elementary and secondary school records, and college application and enrollment records. These are the names which appear on all college-related documents (such as the FAFSA) you and your husband have already submitted and will be required to submit in the future. These are the names which should correctly appear in all of your son’s/daughter’s college records, especially his/her list of emergency contacts–those to be promptly notified if he/she experiences a medical or other emergency at college.</p>
<p>You are not Dr. Husband and your husband is not Mr. Wife. You and your husband each have the right to be addressed by your legal name, especially by institutions with which you do business. You do business with your son’s/daughter’s college, which is obligated to maintain accurate student records; those records include parents’ names. You and your husband have provided your names to the college, which must address you by the names you and he provided. </p>
<p>After four semesters of your son’s/daughter’s college persistently misaddressing you and your husband, it’s time for both of you to stop being “nice” and start getting tough. Don’t bother calling the college about this matter; phone conversations are easily dismissed. Instead, start writing no-nonsense letters to the heads of the appropriate college departments/offices; mail the letters Certified/Return Receipt, and keep copies of the letters for your reference. If your letters to the college have no effect, then have your attorney write a letter to the college on your behalf.</p>
<p>I don’t see this situation as a simple social gaffe warranting mere annoyance. I am thinking more pragmatically. When I was a college student years ago, several of my dormmates required EMT and emergency hospitalization, necessitating prompt parental response. If your son/daughter faced a medical (or other) crisis, the college would have to be able to contact you and/or your husband–by your correct name(s)–promptly. So, don’t let this situation continue. Jump on it and get it fixed.</p>
<p>I am only Dr. XYZ at work. At home I am Mrs ABC. Always have been, at least once we had kids. I actually like keeping things somewhat separate. I go to games at school, parent meetings, etc, and I am just M’s mom or Mrs. ABC. My kids all have the last name ABC, so why not? Sure, we get some things addressed as Mr. ABC and Dr. XYZ, usually having to do with my work. And every so often something silly like Mr and Dr. XYZ; or Mr. and Dr. ABC. But I just don’t have an issue with Mr and Mrs ABC.</p>
<p>My PA/corporation name uses Dr XYZ, but I actually changed my drivers license to MaryJane ABC. So at home I am Mrs ABC. And its OK with me.</p>
<p>But since its not OK, every time you get a mailing that is incorrect, send a little form letter, perhaps on letterhead. Explain your name and your husbands, that the proper way to address the two of you is
</p>
<p>Explain that Mr. ABC is not a doctor, and that the Dr’s last name is not ABC. If you sent the envelope with the incorrect label/listing with the this letter of explanation back everytime, followed up by a call, they will get the message.</p>
<p>This is a very valid point for parents of younger children who have a different last name (or use a different last name professionally) than that of their children. At a large workplace, the person who answers the phone cannot be expected to know that Johnny Jones’s mother is Mrs. Smith or Dr. Brown. Yet there may be occasions when the school nurse needs to find Johnny’s mother at work.</p>
<p>But college students are generally of legal age, and medical people can’t contact their parents without the student’s consent anyway. A student who is lucid enough to give consent would probably be lucid enough to remember his or her parent’s last name.</p>
<p>I’m not a doctor, MD or PhD but I am a Mrs.<br>
NOT Mrs. Joe Schmoe but Mrs. Sally Schmoe. Just because I married Joe and changed my last name, my first name is still Sally and prefer to be addressed this way.
Mrs. Sally Schmoe. :)</p>
<p>Names changed to protect the real Mr. “Schmoe”.</p>
<p>Laxmom, how’s someone supposed to know your preference (which I share). It’s hard to become Mrs. Joe Shmoe when all 3 of those aren’t given names at birth. </p>
<p>Yet when I addressed some much older women with the equivalent of Mrs. Sally Schmoe, to honor their own first name, they got furious at me. Evidently that made them appear divorced not widowed. They missed their husband so wanted his name on the front envelope. Ooops.</p>
<p>Tradition went out the window years ago. Being a woman of the 70’s it was “expected” that we take our husband’s name. I never liked that one. </p>
<p>…“Mrs. Sally Shmoe has been the traditional way to address a divorcee. A widow is still Mrs. John Shmoe.” - To me, if I were a widow, I would still be addressed Mrs. Sally Schmoe…but that’s just ME. My first name was never John, it was always Sally…</p>
<p>I have a professional reputation, and I cannot expect others to keep track of any name changes. I answer to my husband’s last name, as in Mrs. Husband, but I usually correct folks, and I never sign or write the name. </p>
<p>[I have known a couple of adolescent girls who, in mid-teens, changed the name by which they wished to be called or how it was pronounced, and their parents expected family friends to keep track of this and remember to call them something new. It always makes me cranky. I am not all that successful calling folks in my own family by their correct name 100% of the time, so it is silliness to expect me to do better for a whimsical teen.]</p>
<p>The OP has asked them to correct their records 3 times already so I feel she most certainly has a right to be irritated; once should be enough. I was about to say it is probably a work study student doing data entry but that’s not really an excuse. It is not rocket science after all.</p>
<p>I think part of the problem is that the schools don’t usually ask what the parent’s title is (or how he or she would prefer to be addressed) but glean it from the educational background info that was entered and put it together in the way they think makes the most sense.</p>
<p>To those of you who slammed me and called me arrogant about my salutation, it’s about my name.</p>
<p>I answer to Mrs. ABC, my husband gets called Mr. XYZ. All of my children’s friends call me Mrs. ABC. I’ve had dozens of patients look up at me and call me Mrs. XYZ or call me “hon”. I’m irked because my son’s college never got it wrong. My letter will be my fourth time to get it right.</p>
<p>One of the sets of letters was the one that says that they are, once again, raising tuition more than the annual inflation rate. I am going to ask that they earmark some of my additional tuition for a better database program.</p>
<p>The real irony is that the college president is a woman who kept her family name.</p>
<p>My H has an MD, but, except for professionally, always prefered Mr. He never tells anyone to write it differently if they do use “Dr” ,but he’d prefer if they didn’t. I do recognize that different people feel differently, but yeah, in our house it wouldn’t be a big deal.</p>
<p>MM–“Dr” for Ph.D’s is an interesting study for me. I never heard any professor refered to as “Dr” when I was in college, and my kids tell me it wasn’t used by their profs in any of the three schools they attended. OTOH, at the college I work at, the full-timers who have Ph.D’s are scrupulous about calling each other “Dr”. I think it’s to make sure they differentiate themselves from us adjuncts (aka, peons.)</p>
<p>Edit–crossposted with your last post, LWMD. I didn’t read your letter closely, clearly!</p>
<p>Garland,
At my small undergrad LAC, I believe every faculty member had a Ph.D. and no one used their title. In fact, oftentimes we called them by their first name. At my large graduate U, where there were grad students teaching as well as people with masters and Ph.D.s , we were expected to use the “Dr.” title with the doctoral level faculty. However, this may also have been due in part to the fact that we were in a clinic seeing patients. I can’t recall if the faculty that did only academics (no clinical work) were also referred to by their Dr. title, but I believe they were.</p>
<p>That’s interesting, jym. I started at a small LAC and transfered to a big, research U. “Professor” was the norm at both. At my D’s LAC and at my S’s U, it was also. I guess different places have different cultures.</p>
<p>You are right, garland. There must be a regional component to it. We didn’t use “professsor” in either school. It was “Dr.” or “Mr./Ms.” (or first name). Interesting…</p>
<p>You’re a PHD, but you’re acting as though you are so insecure with being referred to as Mrs. Smith. Why is that. I’m not saying that you haven’t earned the right to be called Doctor. I also know that because you kept your maiden name, you think it shouldn’t be a big thing. Sorry, but socially it usually is. When the child’s last name is smith; it is natural to think that there is a Mr. and Mrs. Smith. I’ve even seen some people give their kid the HYPHENATED last name. I.e. Father last name SMITH; Mother maiden name JOHNSON. Mother married name: Johnson-Smith. Child’s last name: Johnson-Smith. Talk about insecure for the kid.</p>
<p>My wife hyphenated her last name when we married because she was a professional actress. With the industry, Name Recognition is very important. Would you have known who “Nicole Cruise” was; or do you remember “Nicole Kidman”? Point is, my wife never let it bother her. Sometimes she is addressed by my last name; sometimes her hyphenated last name; and sometimes her maiden name. She isn’t insecure in it at all.</p>
<p>While I hate it when people get my name wrong, I do think you are over-reacting in this case. My impression from my D’s “bastion of higher education” is that the experience is all about her, not me. Every piece of correspondence of importance, including tuition bills, is sent to her, not me. I only receive general newsletters and requests to donate to the “parents’ fund.”</p>