Mister. Miss. Doctor. Professor. Pharmacist. Vice President. Musician. We give these titles out freely and if someone does not seem to have a title, we give them one. If they do not like the title we give them, they will correct us by saying, “Ahem. It is Doctor Jingleheimer Schmidt now.”
Strangers give out titles like they are naming their first-born. While I am working in the grocery store, a customer walks behind me and says, “Miss! Could you tell me where _________ is?” Why can they not just say “Yoo-hoo! Big summer blowout!” instead? If someone wants to call me “Miss” and have me be okay with it, they must immediately follow “Miss” with “Independent.”
How about the people in our lives that we care about? Why do we need to give them titles? In the first few months of seeing someone, we await the label, impossibly impatiently. When will he ask me to be his girlfriend? Then, a couple years later… Why won’t he propose? I want him to be my fiancé. We think that this title will create more trust and security in one another. Well, he put a ring on it, so he’s mine forever. Do you really think that ring will stop some homewreckin’ broad from seducing “your” man? I’m sorry to break it to you, but it is not a fortress.
A title, according to Merriam-Webster Dictionary, is “the name given to something to identify or describe it” or “a word or name that describes a person’s job in a company or organization.”
Isn’t a name given to identify or describe something just a lazy way of making us all the same? Any human being who graduates from a doctoral program is given the title “Doctor.” Any woman who gets married is given the title “Mrs.” It is shameful to be a woman with the title “Ms.” because people start to wonder why she never married (as if marriage is our sole purpose for being birthed into this world).
Isn’t a word or name that describes a person’s job in a company a lazy way of making us all the same? I am a grocery stocker at so-and-so grocery store and now I am lined up next to all other grocery stockers in all other grocery stores. We are one and the same. What about our lives outside of the store? I am a sister, an aunt, a student, daughter, mentor, intern, consultant, and nap-enthusiast. Why can’t I be the sole nap-enthusiast grocery stocker and Bobby down at Wal-Mart can’t be the only stamp-collecting grocery stocker?
Why do we have to categorize human beings based on their job or education? My father did not go all the way in his education and get a doctorate degree, but you stand him next to all other fathers out there, and there is no comparison. “What does your dad do for work?” people ask me. This has always been a tough question to answer because he is not a Firefighter or a Police Officer or some CEO of some big company. I tell ya what. He is thee hardest working Route-Supervisor-bread-seller ever to step foot on this Earth.
I am not naïve enough to think that we are all unique snowflakes. We aren’t. We are all very freakishly similar. What I do think is that we all deserve a niche with a title of our own choosing. We could not choose our names at birth. We could not choose to become an aunt or sister. These things just happened. But, when we choose to get a job stocking shelves at a grocery store, or we choose to get our Doctorate degree, or we choose to be stay-at-home mums, we should have the right to choose our titles.
“John Jacob Jingleheimer Schmidt / His name is my name too…” except that is not my name and I do not think he would want to be sharing his name with every child everywhere.
