Why I don't want you to call me a girl

I have a vagina. There, I've said it.

I love being a woman. I'm sure being a man is fabulous, too, but I know nothing of being a man. I also loved being a girl. Sure, there were some downsides, like the pressure to be thin and having to put up those obnoxious guys in school who rated your sex-worthiness as you walked down the hall between classes (note to self: fix the world so that doesn't happen anymore), but there were so many other wonderful things about my years as a girl. I got to wear dresses and pointe shoes, have slumber parties, fall in love, and have girlfriends. You know another great thing about being a girl? Dreaming about all the things you'll be and do when you grow up. At various points in my own girlhood I considered paleontologist, flower arranger, ballerina, doctor, lawyer, ballerina, and professor. Scratch that last one.

And I still love girls, especially MY girls. I completely lucked out having two perfectly delicious daughters who, I hope, will also come to love being a girl, however that looks to them. While it seems that Alyce has planted herself firmly on the side of princess, maybe Shira will enjoy being a girl because of the sports she will play or mountains she will climb. Either way, Alyce will still probably make her wear a Cinderella dress while she does all these marvelous things. 

However.

I am no longer a girl. And this post is dedicated to the man in my office who continues to call me one as he passes by my desk each day. "How are you girls doing today?" he asks me and my temp-mate (we're both on a short-term contract with the company), probably unaware of how my blood boils with each passing question.

I am no longer a girl. I have worked for years in school, earning two degrees (and some of a third). I have grown and birthed two babies. I have a family and I am responsible for them. I worry about how to put food on the table and clothes on their backs. I am a grown woman who deserves respect for all the things that I've done and all the things I might do. I might be temp who enters boring data all day into a computer, but I am not your office girl. I am also about ten years older than you, so zip it.

I am struggling with so many things right now. I still can't find permanent, non-terrible employment. Matt still can't work outside the home and faces his own challenges staying at home with the girls each day. What I don't need to struggle with is this condescending crap at work. I have earned so much more than that.