Using sir and ma'am to address people...

[drfuzzy]

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So being southern to the bone I can't handle when people say "don't call me sir or ma'am because I'm not old" I want to scream at them it isn't about age it's about respect. I used to give the same respect to children that they gave me.
"Mrs Mandy can I play at this station now?"
"Did you clean up your last station?"
"Yes ma'am."
"Then yes sir/ma'am you may."

I never blinked an eye at calling children ma'am and sir nor did the children at being called that because in the south it is part of our culture and I think what makes our charm. Manners mean so much to me and I do get offended if I ask someone a question and they say "yeah" instead of 'yes ma'am" At my work I get called ma'am all day by all ages. I know it's just a matter of different cultures but I can't stand the yankee manners and find them very rude. One of my coworkers is from New York and the rest of us have to remember that she wasn't raised with our manners and she doesn't mean anything when she speaks the way she does.

With that said I do understand that with people being more comfortable being themselves some don't identify as one gender or another and that is fine but it makes southern manners difficult. I know this is my problem not theirs and will probably be the start of a slow death of ma'am and sir which makes me very sad but I understand people matter more than society rules. As for now if I can obviously determine the gender I will still use ma'am/sir. If I can't I will rephrase to try and keep good manners while not labeling.

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Politeness is not a societal rule it's just good ol' manners to treat people with respect and others need to learn that we in the south are raised to respect others. I always hold the door open for ladies even when they say that I shouldn't treat them that way, yeah I've had that said to me, some perceived societal rules just suck.

GC

I have run into two different mindsets on the holding door action.  Obviously, women are quite capable of opening doors by themselves.  Holding a door open for anyone with arms full, or hanging on to young ones, is simple kindness on the part of anyone of any gender.  Some guys just hold doors open, you can tell they've just been trained to do so, I always thank them.  Then there are the OTHER guys.  The ones who see a pretty woman approaching from yards away, and he chooses the door that HE decides she will enter.  I was with a friend only a week or so ago, there were (6?) possible doors.  He grabs one, stares at her as she walks for (over a minute) to get to his location.  He makes a mock bow with a cheesy smirk as she enters.  She did NOT thank him.  He followed her into the store, and snarled "You're WELCOME, BITCH!"  Kathleen is a formidable Irish female.  She turned around and said, very quietly, "I did not ask you to hold that door.  I did not need for you to hold that door.  In retrospect, I clearly should have chosen another door. You did that for your own personal gratification, so there is no need for me to thank you."  He wasn't doing it out of kindness or consideration, it was an cry for attention and an attempt to control.  We need to take this holding doors and chairs and all of that nonsense out of expected MALE behaviors and just make helping everyone the norm.