“A lot of kids at that age go through a phase of calling their mom’s and dad’s by their first names”
Don’t know what feral community you live in but calling parents by their first names is NOT usual for three year olds.....If you told me a 16 year old did it then yeah but not a three year old.
I don’t nor have I ever live in a “feral community” but I’ve been around a lot of toddlers and pre-schoolers and yes, sometimes they call their parents by their first names. I don’t know where you live but I can’t believe you’ve never witnessed this yourself.
It is usually because are very young and are just learning to talk beyond a few words and they hear others refer to their mom and dad by their first names and either they get confused or just decide to try it out for themselves. In most cases, for these very little kids, no disrespect is intended but they are just doing what kids at their age do – mimic adults and test their boundaries. I would find it much more disrespectful and intentionally disrespectful for a 16 year old to call his mother by her first name than for a toddler, who didn’t know any better to do so. YMMV.
FWIW, when we moved from PA to MD, my mother was shocked that kids addressed grownups as “Miss Jane” or “Mister Joe” rather than Mrs. or Mr. Smith. But after a while she understood that this was just a “Southern thing” and it was not meant to be disrespectful.