Huzzah for Huzzah!!!

Alright folks, I hope you've been doing your work on getting the word out with "grody," because I'm about to double your workload if you haven't finished that job yet.

That's right, we're bringing back HUZZAH!

Pronunciation: huh-ZAAAAAAAAH!

Use: an expression of joy, approval, happiness (much like hooray, but cooler to say)

Use it. Liberally. Already I have begun the spread in Boston, when I used it last night after I enjoyed the free performance of The Taming of the Shrew on the Boston Common.

As I said in the grody post, get on board now and use it before everyone does and you're just a bandwagon-jumper.

Feeling Endeared Yet?

OK, I think the posting thing is fixed. No idea what happened there...I'm going to blame it on the blog gnomes.

So, I'm reading this really interesting research article the other day about professional boundaries, which is a hot topic in the helping professions. It's not a far stretch - any profession that involves you working with others to improve their lives could easily spark some issues where the line between the professional and personal relationships begin to blur. When you work to improve the lives of others, you give a little piece of yourself to make things happen, and if you don't then you come across as insincere or you don't do a good job. But by giving away that little piece of yourself, you've allowed the boundaries between your life and the lives of those you are helping to blur a little bit. This isn't a problem until you start working with someone who requires a lot of yourself, or someone whose problem becomes so meaningful to you that you can't help but give a lot of yourself. They teach you a lot about setting your professional boundaries in schools that teach to the helping professions, and it's heavily emphasized in any practical experience you get during your education.

Anyway, this article was addressing what people in helping professions define as actions that are acceptable (within professional boundaries), and what these same people actually do in their practice. I wasn't surprised to find that many people said certain activities (say, hugging a client) were unacceptable but still had themselves crossed the line. That's the thing about boundaries - they're great in the abstract, but when you get in the moment it's hard to put them into practice...and sometimes if you put them into practice you might not be doing the best job you can be. Imagine you're a doctor and you've just told a child they have cancer. Do you hug them and tell them you're going to fight it with them? Or, if that one doesn't get you, what if you just told that same child they're now in remission and their face lights up and they jump at you? Can you hug them now? But a hug can be a really touchy thing. Now add into the equation that kid's mother. You're a female doctor. Is it OK to hug her when she reaches out to you? Now, still a female doctor, can you hug that child's dad? It gets stickier and stickier.

One of the activities specifically in question in this research article was using terms of endearment. I know a lot of women find it derrogatory when men they don't know well call them "Honey." I used to hate it in high school when my friend's dads would do it. But here's the thing: I use that word like it's a pronoun. That and "Sweetie." I didn't realize how much I did it until one day in college when my friend Robin pointed it out to the group of new members in my sorority. "Hi, I'm Kristy," I said, "and I'm really bad with names. If I don't remember your name right away, it's not because I don't like you, it's because names go in one ear and out the other." "Don't worry about it girls," Robin said with a laugh, "Even if she does remember your name, she'll probably call you 'Honey' or 'Sweetie' anyway." I was shocked by her statement, but then found myself calling everyone, including people whose names I knew well, Honey and Sweetie.

I still do this today. Jay and I rarely call each other by our first names - Honey usually suffices. But on a recent vacation together I found myself talking to my friend Laura and addressing her as "Honey"...and Jay called out from the other room to see what I needed. Whoops! How does this happen? I'd attribute it to being raised in the South, but both of my parents come from the Northeast and so many of the traditional Southern colloquialisms were not used in my house on a regular basis. On the other hand, there is something to be said for environment - I obviously didn't live exclusively in my house, so perhaps I picked these things up from school/the mall/my friends. I do still say "Y'all," after all.

But I'm reading this article and I'm wondering...do I offend people with my terms of endearment, or do I get away with it by sliding in a little bit of a twang and being a girl? Is it motherly when I do it or disrespectful? And how often do I still do it? I began to want to carry around a microphone to record my daily interactions so that I could play them back at a later time (when I could be more conscious of my speech) and check how often I use terms of endearment as pronouns. Then, of course, I remembered how much I hate the sound of my recorded voice, and I backed out of that plan.

Recently my car had a fight with an unexpected large chunk of concrete on the interstate and lost. I pulled off of of the highway as soon as possible and right into the first place available - a car dealership. Getting out of the car in my work clothes, I muttered to myself that I could probably expect a swarm of men in just a few minutes, either trying to sell me a car since my current one was in disrepair, or trying to help me change my tire (which I already know how to do). Sure enough, as soon as I sat on the ground with the jack and started lifting the car, a man stopped by to ask if I needed help, and then (jokingly) suggested that I trade my car in and not worry about the whole changing the tire thing but instead get a new car. I obligingly laughed and let him know that I was already trying to figure out how how I was going to pay for a new rim and tire, much less a new car. I then continued to change the tire as he got paged for a phone call. Almost immediately after he left, a man came up behind me, said "Here, honey" and grabbed the jack handle out of my hand and continued to change my tire for me. I was monumentally offended - not because I thought he thought I didn't know how to change a tire, but because he called me "Honey." (Hey, if you want to change my tire for me in the heat and humidity while I watch and my nice clothes remain unmessed all in the name of chivalry, I'm not going to argue.) I felt belittled. It's almost as if, to me, the "Honey" implied that I didn't know how to change a tire...because I'm a woman who needs taking care of. Now, of course, I don't mean that implication when I call other people "Honey," so I can't imagine why I would think others are implying that to me when they use that term towards me.

I use terms of endearment like "Honey" and "Sweetie" at work all the time with the kids. When you see a large number of people in a short time, it's difficult to remember what name matches what face. Terms of endearment help cover up any uncertainty you might have. I'm careful to whom I apply them though - anything goes with girls, but with boys it's a little tougher. "Buddy" works well with little boys, or sometimes if I need to get them to smile I'll make a joke and ask them if I can call them "Love Poodle" or "Schmoopie." But any sort of term of endearment to a teenage boy and things start to get a little inappropriate, so I monitor that pretty closely. I guess this could be a sign that, over the years, I've unconsciously developed an internal monitoring system that prevents me from using terms of endearment in inappropriate ways. That's a bit of a relief.

In the end, I suppose one of the reasons I use these terms so ubiquitously is because - as a general rule - I'm a fairly friendly gal. I really do feel a fondness for my friends - both very close friends with whom I share everything and those I see on a more infrequent and impersonal basis. In my book, everyone's good until they prove otherwise, and forgiveness is doled out fairly easily. Thus, everyone is in one way or another endeared to me, and thus everyone gets a little bit of love here and there via my own special version of pronouns. And ultimately, isn't that what the world needs now? Love, sweet love? =)

Guess I'm just doing my part to spread world peace.

Trying to fix it....

Apparently my blog has been MIA. I'm hoping this post fixes it. And then I'm hoping I'll be inspired/have the time to write a new one soon. But let's fix the old one first, OK?

=)