Terms of Endearment: Are They Mixed Signals?

In a store I heard a song overhead and couldn’t make out all the words so, I asked the sales associate. He laughed and told me about the singer. Later I looked up these lyrics to see if maybe I misheard some of the words. I didn’t:

Hey, baby girl, what you doin' tonight?
I wanna see what you got in store (hey, hey baby)
You're giving it your all when you're dancin' on me
I wanna see if you can gimme some more (hey, hey baby)
You can be my girl, I can be your man
And we can pump this jam however you want (hey, hey baby)
Pump it from the side, pump it upside down
Or we can pump it from the back and the front (hey, hey baby)-Pitbull https://pitbullmusic.com/

It reminded me of walking down a street in New York one fall when some street worker yelled “Hey baby, what some of this?” as he grabbed his crotch.

I could go on about the feelings that arose in me and the prayer I mumbled for the poor girl who welcomed him home to “Pump the jam however you want (hey, hey baby).”

After interviewing a few co-workers and a customer about what arose in them when someone called them “baby.” All four women first associated the word as an indication of a loving relationship and quickly added  but “Not if it was some jerk in the street…..”

They have the point – it depends.

“I don’t want some guy who’s fixing my car or loading my groceries calling me “sweetheart”!

In the South, “mam” and “honey” are part of the regional patois. At first, I was put off, being from Los Angeles, but I got to the point very quickly. Those were terms of friendly endearment, community, and welcome. I felt all warm and fuzzy but didn’t show it…my regional behavior.

Nonetheless, the defining image of a baby is an infant, not a grown woman. Are we small helpless beings that need a strong parent or husband or man to help us?

Are our roles in society infantilized to keep women in their “place” or provide security, love, and a sense of intimacy?

In an article from Psychology Today, “Sensuality releases dopamine, and motivates your brain to seek more. Then, the addition of oxytocin and vasotocin help us to build long-lasting relationships filled with kindness, compassion, and trust.”

The assertion is that our bodies respond to positive and negative words. When the man/woman you love calls you ‘baby’, it signals good feelings and you can’t help but feel you can deal with what’s to come as a strong woman and face what the day serves up.

Ok, but it seems to me that if someone you love and trust wants to “pump it from the side (hey, hey baby)” it’s very positive, but when the street worker grabs his crotch and calls you baby it makes you think ‘disgusting.’

It’s the context… The person... The place... The time…

J. Robert Parkinson writes in the Herald Tribune, “Words can and do hurt badly. And they can get in the way of building lasting relationships.”  He’s talking about what adults do with words in business settings.

Terms of endearment are mixed and it’s clear we need to know who, where, and whom we are with before using those terms.

I wonder about that streetworker and the songwriter. It has to rub that this song has been around for so long, it’s on the playlist in retail stores. When I looked him up, he’s a middle-aged businessman and rapper. He’s doing very well. The street worker, well we can only imagine……

My current husband /partner does his own laundry and the dishes. I tease him about being roommates and he wraps me in his arms and whispers, “You’re my baby” and my dopamine rises.

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