Reader TTS

What a bunch of corn pudding. I once sat in my boss’ office trying to be demure as he — while considering my application for a promotion — asked if I had plans to have children anytime soon.

You want me to be demure in the face of that? How about when male coworkers were making more than I was — or couldn’t keep their hands to themselves? Look, I’m all about good manners. As

Lebron says in another video, filmed from an airplane, “You see how I am when the plane lands? I don’t get up immediately, I don’t rush, I wait my turn … very mindful, very demure.” And

joking or not, she’s got a point. I should be so lucky as to sit next to Lebron instead of the seatmate who jumps up and grabs a 30-pound roller bag from the overhead bin across the aisle,

narrowly missing my head. And how about we all just have a little patience while waiting in line for our lattes? But demure — such a lovely, old-fashioned word — isn’t about manners. It’s

about passivity, batting your eyes and waiting for a guy to ask you to dance. Having good manners means being polite and respectful when you ask a guy to dance. And not to put too serious a

twist on this, but there are places in the world like Afghanistan where women are required by law to be demure, as well as invisible and silent. Even in this country, many of us have fought

for decades so women can choose to be as demure, or not, as they wish. Of course, that’s what gives us the freedom to joke about it now. In time, I wore nylons despite the social

consequences and learned how to stare down my boss. Even my mother traded in her hats and gloves for pants and a sweater. Did you know that Jenny Joseph’s classic poem — with the opening

line “When I am an old woman I shall wear purple” — is titled “Warning”? Enough of demure, already. Can we, as Joseph advises, let go of the “sobriety” — aka demureness — of our youth? I

certainly have — if I ever even had it at all. So buckle up, #demurefall, because the older I get, the less I care about being anyone other than who I am. _AARP essays share a point of view

in the author’s voice, drawn from expertise or experience, and do not necessarily reflect the views of AARP._