A lady according to my dictionary is a woman of high social position and a woman who is refined and polite so according to this definition female children can’t be referred to ladies, since it says woman not female, and the last time I checked woman refers to an adult female person.
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These days dictionaries like Merriam-Webster are left wing garbage that use their dictionary to push their ideological goals as shown last year when they changed a definition for a word shortly after a Amy Coney Barrett confirmation hearing to reflect the fringe ideology of an Hawaiian senator.
Saying that, the word lady has referred to females in general since forever, which is why the term young lady has been used when speaking towards little girls since well before any of us were born.