I should clarify that they are both huge rock fans and very proud of their kid. 
I refer to my snowflakes as “that #$%& in the driveway that I have to shovel because my kids don’t wake up early enough.” 
@skieurope , I’ve always attributed the current popularity of the pejorative meaning of “snowflake” to the movie Fight Club: “You are NOT a unique snowflake!”
Collectively, they are, and always will be, our kids. That now includes our future daughter-in-law, and hopefully, someday, another one of those and a son-in-law. Individually, and usually only in my head do I revert to the nicknames I devised when they were young…the eldest did not get that treatment since I was so determined that people use his full name rather than shorten it to its common diminutive that I did not give him a private nickname. As an adult, of course, the shortened version is the name he goes by! Now my younger two would likely cringe if they knew I still think of them as Panda and Scram, respectively!
Snowflake has a negative connotation to me. I refer to them as “the girls”, “my kids”, “my daughter” and most frequently, by their name.
I always thought that came from fight club too.
My mother says the “kid is a baby goat” phrase also so we call our offspring “the children”. I call them “Baby 1, Baby 2 or Baby 3” although they are 18, 16 and nearly 14 now. I call them “my little duckies” as a group because of the way I had to navigate them in parking lots to not lose anyone when they were small and I was outnumbered. S1 is (name) Honey, D2’s nick name is Sweeta Baby(Baby Doll from DH) and D2 is Darlin’ (name). Of course I reserve the right continue to call them all of the above for life and to call the by the another sibling’s name and not feel any remorse.
@3puppies I always wondered where that came from!!
I call them my sons. To their faces I call them babydoll and sweet pea.
Yes, I always thought of snowflake as negative too. As I understand how it is used, it is kids growing up in the everybody gets a trophy era- everybody wins! There are no losers!, being told they are unique and special when really, they haven’t yet distinguished themselves; and then the “melting” they do when life confronts them with that fact. It’s not that they are unique and special- it is that they are wrongly told that they are.
I like the “you are not special” commencement speech at Wellesley High School, found youknow where.
Mine are well beyond college age, and it’s hard to think of them as “the kids” anymore. But because I have a son and a daughter, it’s hard to find another collective term for them.
My husband and I were discussing some aspect of our daughter’s upcoming wedding, and he confused me utterly when he referred to “the kids.” He meant our two offspring and our daughter’s future husband. I thought he meant the actual children who would be attending the wedding – the small nieces and nephews of the man our daughter will be marrying.
The English language needs some work.
We call ours collectively the girls. We don’t have pet names for them. D2 has a nickname, but it’s merely a shortened version of her name, nothing that could be described as infantalizing (is that actually a word?).
They will always be ‘the kids’.
Looked up the alleged WW2 reference and snopes agrees with the majority here: Fight Club. http://www.snopes.com/snowflake-nazi-term-holocaust/
It’s certainly taken on a negative tone but I can imagine some sweet elementary school teacher using it as a perky compliment. I’ve been using Harry Potter terminology and calling them “first years” but have been known to use “freshpeeps” with my colleagues.
The Brits call first years “Freshers”. Sounds better when you can do it with the right accent.
My parents, aunts and uncles called my brothers, cousins, spouses, and me “the kids” even when we were well into our 50s. I suspect they did it in defiance of my very proper and domineering grandmother who almost certainly would have objected to the term.
I also had a “secret” bunny-based nickname for DS when he was a baby that I still use in my heart/head.
We just have one, so it’s easy to refer to him simply as our son or by his name. To his face, he is “punkin” or the name he called himself when he was little when people asked him his name. He couldn’t say it properly until he was almost four. It was adorable. My mom uses that version a lot, and I try to use in front of his friends when I can. If he ever becomes a general, I will make SURE that name never dies. Because I’m a mom.
“Frosh” was what they called the camp and “froshies” was what they called the campers who were entering college. Anyway, in HI, many have not much familiarity with “snowflakes” and would find such a reference rather odd.
@HImom, how about puka shells?
Puka shells are not all the popular, though they were for a while a few decades back. I’ve never heard of them referring to people.
So do any foreign languages have a word for young adults that is distinct from teenagers or adults? Are there words for your adult children that recognize that they are your offspring, but not children anymore? I guess “offspring” (or progeny) would work, but no one seems to use it!
Like @runnersmom, I worked so hard at not shortening S’s name that he didn’t end up with any nickname. D2 has a whole list of them, but “snoo” is the one I use the most.
D has a few pet names that we only use when it’s just H & I or H & I and S. Can’t recall any pet names for S, as we were trying hard not to give our kids nicknames (as others we know have them and have never been able to shake them though they are in their 50s and beyond). S was called JC and a shortened version of name by classmates and team mates, but generally goes by his full first name around us and most folks he knows and I believe at work. D is called her full name by nearly everyone she knows and all her friends–we had a neighbor who called D by a nickname and D was OK with it but not crazy about it.
No one else refers to theirs as “Hellspawn?”