TheWRITEaddiction.com

I am a woman with many names.  My government name is Gabrielle, which is often shortened to Gabby. I am most often identified now with some variation màma and as much as I love answering to that, it is not my favorite moniker.

When I was a young girl, my great-aunt would always greet me with a huge smile and an even bigger hug.  “Hey lady,” she would say in a husky, smoke-tinged voice.

And I don’t know if it’s because she called me lady, or because she treated me like one, but in her presence, I carried myself as such.  I crossed my ankles, carried polite conversation, and sipped my coffee with my pinky in the air. (I still do.  That is a hard habit to break).

Womanhood comes naturally, but ladydom must be taught. I had great teachers, and plenty of etiquette books,but I worry that lady-like behavior has gone the way of the dodo.

Polite conversation is being replaced by hurried text messages, where the rules of etiquette and grammar do not apply.

Proper dress is a joke. I darn near had to special order a long-sleeved T-shirt to cover my eight-year old’s petite frame.  The shirts in the store were either cropped so you could see part of her belly, or they were made to be worn off the shoulder.

And it’s mighty difficult to have great posture if you’re slumped over one electronic device or another. I’m not so secretly hoping for an Electric Lady revolution, a new generation of YOUNG ladies who will shock the world.

So, Electric Ladies out there, as Janelle Monae so eloquently put it, will you sleep, or will you preach?
Mama Rad