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I don’t read mum blogs, so I’ve been spared. However the term kiddo has been around long before mum bloggers were even a blip on the radar. My gran called her son kiddo, never thought much of it other than is was a term of endearment and her nickname for him.
This. I've been hearing the term kiddo since I was a kid and that was 60-odd years ago.
My son walked up to his endearing grandparent and said : Hey toots! (As in tootsy) and his grandparent was so enamored by that sweet greeting. He did it with that sweet smile. She just melted.
She gloated about that for a long time.
Some terms can be said in such away that it's welcomed. I loved being called kiddo...it was said with concern or a sense of acknowledgement.
Few terms bother me much if said in a tone of delight or charm. We still call my eldest grand daughter.. hello there my pretty little lady. She giggles.
I call friends that are younger than me "kiddo" as a term of endearment. Nobody has ever taken offense (that I know of). Hopefully they'd let me know if they did.
Don't really care about "kiddos" but it would get annoying when used more than once or twice in the same conversation/article. "Hubby" is annoying. "Wifey" is patronizing. I mean, any of them are fine when used in the right spirit if it's okay between the people involved, but I wouldn't say they're universally-okay and one should know one's audience.
Kiddos bothers me, too, but mostly because a lot of mom bloggers overuse it. I guess they think it sounds more cool and fun than children.
Interesting. I associate "wifey" as a term of condescension, or to refer to a subservient woman, similar to being "the little woman." Possibly used jokingly or tongue-in-cheek, but not really as a positive thing.
Quote:
Originally Posted by Jowel
The main issue I have is the reciprocity and it would be more annoying/inappropriate if there were a power dynamic involved.
Take, for example, a 65 year old CEO, who also happens to be a grandfather, speaking to a 22 year old junior employee who they had never met. If the CEO says, "Hey Kiddo, nice to meet you", is that appropriate? I think the question that comes into play here is, could the 22 year old employee reply back, "Nice to meet you too, Gramps." If the answer is no, then it's really not appropriate for the person with a higher power dynamic to be doing it. I know that kind of thing goes on all the time, but this forum is asking about model behavior, so that's not really model behavior. More about that here:
Among family and close friends, I think we can allow more leeway for pet names, as long as there's mutual respect about it.
Well, bosses always get more leeway than underlings anyway, so not a perfect example. Nor is "kiddo" a professionally-appropriate term, so should be avoided for that reason alone.
Context makes a world of difference. One of the reasons “the wife” irritates me is because I first heard it in a workplace where, frankly, most employees were entitled-acting and smug old white men. They used that term for their wives frequently, and in a tone that implied they considered their spouses to be more like a possession or lesser being, sort of like talking about “taking the dog for a walk.”
Those conversations definitely smacked of Us Guys vs The Wives. It isn’t the only time I heard the term, but it was the place where I heard it frequently, and inevitably with the same air of patronization.
My own husband has always said “my wife” whenever I heard him referencing me, but not that long ago he ended a comment with “kiddo.” He, too, used to work—for far too long, I think—in that awful workplace and must have had a brain fart to suddenly think it was an appropriate form of address to start using for me, his longtime spouse. I told him in no uncertain terms that if he continued with that air of disrespect, I would summon my much better verbal abilities to start addressing HIM with something insulting that was also “just a term of endearment.” Every time he tries something passive-aggressive, I call it out. Can’t think of a better way to nip that sht in the bud.
There are situations where “kiddo” is indeed a term of endearment. In this context, it felt like kind of a test. Like a dog that intermittently tries to set a pecking order instead of a human partnership.
He (and others) might object that I am “too sensitive,” but it can equally be that he/they are INsensitive to nuances.
Don't really care about "kiddos" but it would get annoying when used more than once or twice in the same conversation/article. "Hubby" is annoying. "Wifey" is patronizing. I mean, any of them are fine when used in the right spirit if it's okay between the people involved, but I wouldn't say they're universally-okay and one should know one's audience.
Interesting. I associate "wifey" as a term of condescension, or to refer to a subservient woman, similar to being "the little woman." Possibly used jokingly or tongue-in-cheek, but not really as a positive thing.
Well, bosses always get more leeway than underlings anyway, so not a perfect example. Nor is "kiddo" a professionally-appropriate term, so should be avoided for that reason alone.
Yeah, I would be annoyed. Same as I am annoyed when other people refer to their family and SO's as DH, DW, DS, DD, DDIL, DMIL, etc. Glad they are "dear" to them, but it sounds just sooooooooo tacky.
I guess it's OK when people do that privately AND the others are in agreement, but when people do that in public, it's just
Like I said in my OP, it only bugs me when they refer to their kids in the third person as "kiddo/s" ("I have to pick my kiddos up from school", "I am home-schooling my kiddos", "My kiddos are outside playing", etc.), not when they are actually speaking to them as a term of endearment/pet name ("hey kiddo, come here", "how are you doing kiddo?", etc.). I don't why it bugs/annoys me, it just does.
Last edited by Remington Steel; 04-10-2020 at 06:45 AM..
I don’t read mum blogs, so I’ve been spared. However the term kiddo has been around long before mum bloggers were even a blip on the radar. My gran called her son kiddo, never thought much of it other than is was a term of endearment and her nickname for him.
That's different though. She's using it for a pet name, not using it as a substitute term for "children" or "kids".
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