From the annoying threads thread, @jym626 is objecting to “snowflakes” and @MotherOfDragons is suggesting “puddin pops”!
My D is at a Womens College so you would think it would be easy. Women, right? but maybe not these days. I tend to call them “students.” I run into trouble with first years, can’t call them “freshmen.” They call themselves “freshies.”
Some of you seem fine with calling them kids or boys and girls or snowflakes! I get jym’s issue with that and haven’t used it myself, but I have been more inclined towards it since the election (Winter is Coming!). Young men and women seems cumbersome to me…
@PNWedwonk - I was simply repeating (tongue in cheek) what has been posted here many, many MANY times before. I cannot take “credit”, as it were, for the request to use a different term. It doesn’t have a positive connotation. https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Generation_Snowflake
“First years” for the first years. “Students” or “classmates” for students generally. My own children (in their 20s) are “my daughters” or “the girls” (to family members and close friends) (or I use their first names or initials).
@jym626, The positive interpretation (of “snowflake”) is a little less obvious for our children. The unique and special thing is nice! The fragile and melty thing is problematic. But the power of a mass of them is cool!
@intparent, very sweet! But I have trouble acknowledging my kid’s sort of quasi adult-ness. Do other languages have a solution?
I had someone jump down my throat earlier on here for calling my daughter and her friends “children”… even though she is a “child” until December. Anyway… we usually call our big kids the “teens”, as opposed to our littles still at home.
Mine will always be my “pups” - the nickname was granted to them by their older cousin, who was about 3 at the time DS was born, and her family dog had a litter about a week before then. She mixed up the term puppy with baby and the grown ups liked it. Instead of correcting her, we let her think it was right for the whole weekend, then DH and I teased her about it next time we saw them, and when DD was born, etc.
I was surprised after FIL passed away, that he had recorded this on VHS.
“My D is at a Womens College so you would think it would be easy.”
Ours are “kiddos” - “big kiddo” and “baby kiddo” (the latter one is a Women’s College grad, the former is a real-estate owning, married, perpetual student - sigh, MD/PhD).
Mine are “kids” and will be my kids, kiddos, children all their lives. They are also S and D (son and daughter). I don’t use any other particular terms for them. I have seen snowflake used pejoratively, so prefer that they not be referred to in that manner. Cute story about “pups.”
^ Yes there was a link to the wiki definition provided (post #1). Just saying that here, as elsewhere, it is, as others have said, pejorative. Has the ick factor.
The individuals to whom I gave birth are long grown. I used to call them “my sons” when referring to them as a group until a.daughter-in-law joined the family and now I say “the children.”
A few years ago friends stopped by during the holidays and I said “we are on our way out the door to pick up the children at the airport. Come back this evening.” She looked bewildered, and asked “what children”? I responded, “my children!” That night she asked them if they knew “your mother calls you children”? And I asked for a better collective noun, but no one had one. I am still looking for one and appreciate any suggestions.
On this board I call them “kids” but not in real life, because my grandparents and parents used to say “only goats have kids”
I have been on this board so long, I remember when “snowflake” was first introduced and whenever I notice it I use it for my own offspring in an effort to negate the negative connotation. I used to do the same for “hot house flower” but that seems out of favor lately.
I refer to my offspring by his name, as my son, or occasionally as my kid. @alh, I started using kid following the example of a former boss and long time friend who used it somewhat in defiance of all of those “moms” with their just-so-special children. Like you, both of us had grown up with the goat reprimand.
Both my friend and her H are Ivy-educated PhDs. Their son is a rock musician. I don’t know if that means anything.
Oh, and in my secret thoughts I still refer to my son as my bunnyman.
I refer to my children collectively as “the baby dolls.” and individually by ridiculous nicknames or derivatives of ridiculous nicknames. My son is known by oldtimers here on CC as The PBK.
As a side note, I have two “bunnies” in my family and I am amused by how common that nickname is.
