Dear Eric: A 70-year-old woman wrote to you about being addressed as “honey” or “sweetie” (“Not Honey”).
I know there are parts of the country where everybody is “hon,” but I think you missed this woman’s point. One of the most disturbing – painful – things about growing older, and especially if you’re a woman, is that older adults are often marginalized and treated as though we are children or childlike and no longer functioning members of the adult community.
Calling an older woman “sweetie” can be intended as friendliness, but, whatever the intent, it can be experienced as microaggression and marginalization…