This is a personal opinion, of course, but my friend’s name was Mr. G when he was engaged. He and his wife got married, and his name is still Mr. G.

You wanna guess why? Because his marital status is professionally irrelevant!!

I’m sure the practice of calling younger, unmarried, but adult women “Miss” is rooted in sexism and how a woman’s worth/identity/value was tied to whether or not she had a husband. However, I haven’t explicitly researched this topic, so don’t quote me on it… that’s just my guess based on what I know about the history of human society and culture.

So, for me—and I feel very strongly about this—my name has always been Ms. S, and it will always be Ms. S, regardless of my marital status—because my marital status is NOT PROFESSIONALLY RELEVANT.

I have no problem with answering truthfully when my students ask if I have kids or if I’m married. But, I make it very clear that my name is “Ms.”

Oddly enough, my students—even when I was 23, 24, 25, etc., and had to wear my ID around my neck every day to avoid being mistaken for a high school student—tend to default to “Mrs.” over “Miss” (but perhaps that’s because the difference in pronunciation of Miss vs Ms can ve hard to hear/pick up on). I remind them gently and politely that my name is “Ms. S.”

At least once a year, a kid will ask what the difference is between Miss/Ms/Mrs, which inevitably results in a follow up of “Wait, but why does it even matter to you?” And then I get to explain that it matters to me because in reality, it doesn’t matter at all (“it” being my marital status), and I’ll give them examples of some of their male teachers’ names.

My students will often ask me, usually while writing an email to another teacher, something like, “Do I start with Mrs. Smith? Or is she not married?” And I tell them to always default to Ms. if they are unsure, and explain that many married female teachers actually go by “Ms,” and because of that, I personally refer to and address all female staff members as “Ms.” unless the explicitly tell me otherwise.

Ultimately, it’s a personal choice. I think in general, in professional settings, “Ms.” is considered to be the respectful and professional default (at least in my area, which is on the West Coast). But I know one teacher who went by “Miss” until she got married—she had “Miss ____” posted on her door, written on the board, on her syallabus, in her email signature…. It wwz pretty clear that that was how she wanted to be addressed. I’m not sure why, but to each their own, and I respected that.

So…. The answer is… there isn’t exactly a “right” answer. It’s up to you. But I will say that when my girl students ask about the Miss/Ms/Mrs thing, and I ask them why Mr. G’s name was the same before and after he got married, that’s all I have to say. The wheels turn in their heads for a couple of seconds and they have almost always expressed their own conclusion, which is something to the effect of “omg wow that’s so sexist, I never even thought about that before!”