respect

I’m pretty sure that the vast majority of kids understand the whole hierarchy of adulthood thing. I’ve worked in daycares and volunteered in my kids’ schools. The children there (who called me by my first name, gasp!) never seemed to think that they shouldn’t take direction from me or be respectful of me because I have a first name. Then again, I also don’t assume that, by magic, the second the clock stuck on my 18th birthday, I attained a higher station in life.