Who In the Hell Are You Ma’aming?

Do you remember the first time you were ma’amed? And I don’t mean ma’amed as a polite greeting from someone who lives in, or is from, the South. I mean ma’amed in the sense of — who in the hell are you ma’aming? My mother is a ma’am. I’m not.

I have a foggy memory of the first time it happened. I don’t remember the restaurant, but I do remember the shock. It stunned me. I was like, what?? No…really?? This can’t be happening. I remember telling the waiter something like — here’s some advice: never ma’am anyone unless they look like an elderly woman. He responded that he was taught to use it as a sign of respect toward women older than him. I thought, well, there’s older and then there’s much older. In my humble opinion, only the much older have truly entered the ma’am arena.

We have a wonderful man who grew up in Texas and has helped us a lot around the house. He ma’ams me all the time. I always say, just call me Peggy — to which he says, I’m sorry ma’am, I can’t help it. In retrospect, I’ve never heard him call my husband sir — which makes me question the whole polite-South thing. But then again, maybe it gives me hope. Does he think I deserve a higher level of respect as a woman? Let’s go with that.

Recently, my husband and I had dinner with some young’uns (10+ years younger than us). One of them loves to make jokes about my age in a way that feels more like a slam than a tease. I have no embarrassment about my age. Shit, that’s life — we age. More than anything, I feel disbelief. How have I been in this world for 50+ years? Where has the time gone? It’s gone fast. The jokes — is it your 29th or 39th birthday? — feel small to me. I am who I am at any age. Who gives a shit? We’re all going to go through this. We have a culture that minimizes our older generations — treating age as past its prime, no longer valuable, and of course, technically illiterate — instead of honoring the wisdom it brings.

I went through a phase a few years back where I thought, it’s too late for me. I can’t have my own business. I lost my chance. Time has passed and I’m no longer valued. Finally — and I’m not entirely sure how I got here — I thought: why not? With my prior business, self-doubt sabotaged me to the point where I gave it up. To this day, I fully know I had a kick-ass business, and if head trash hadn’t gotten in my way, life would have been different. Regardless, I am where I am — get on with it.

Back to the young’un who thinks her age teasing is funny. She recently shared that she’d started shaving her chin because of unwanted hair showing up. In my head I thought: yep, karma’s a bitch — while also genuinely sympathizing, because I remember those weird changes when I was her age. Did I mock her? No. Did I try to make her feel bad? No. Instead, I took the high road and said: midlife is hard and tricky — weird stuff happens…and this is just the beginning.

Women are special beings. Our hormones are powerful and tend to get dismissed and diminished with an eye roll “it’s hormones.” We navigate enormous shifts and irregularities, and they are nothing to be discounted. Hormones are a powerful force in our mental, emotional, and physical health. We happen to live in a culture that diminishes, disregards, and disrespects what happens to our bodies as we age. I don’t know enough to speak fully to men’s experience — but I don’t think this is entirely a one-sided gender thing either.

I remember when Hillary Clinton was running for president and men and women said: we don’t want someone with those hormones in charge — we could have nuclear war on our hands. That’s the equivalent of saying my brilliant, capable female friends aren’t competent to run a country, a company, a team, or a household. Age is age — female, male, or otherwise. It brings mounds of wisdom, experience, and knowledge. (And let’s be real, we know how well it’s going having older men in charge.)

So if that young waiter, all those years ago, ma'amed me out of genuine respect — thank you. And if you thought I was just some old lady — I'm going to kick your ass. 😉 Although I'll confess: when someone called me miss the other day, that felt strange too. Apparently there's no winning. We women can't be greeted without it getting complicated - heaven help us.