Honestly. There’s NO reason a parent has to resort to baby talk.
When kids are learning to talk, they imitate their parents. If you want your child to learn how to talk, shouldn’t you model correct speech? Obviously. Right?
But no…….there are lots of baby-talking-mommies out there! (Can you say, “annoying to the nth degree?”) I feel so bad for the kid who misses the opportunity to develop vocabulary, proper inflection, syntax and all that good stuff.
It really irks me when these “baby talker parents” turn to my children and use their baby language to start a conversation. Just because my kids look young, doesn’t mean they use or respond to words like “boo boo” and “puddy tat” or “want some milky milk?” Holy Crap!
And why would you make a sentence ungrammatical, on purpose??? The kid won’t understand if you speak proper English? For sure, they’re never gonna learn or if they do, they’ll have to do a system purge first before anyone understands anything.
My daughter knew how to say “mucus” instead of “snot” and “wound” instead of “ouchie.” And she was 1 and a half! How did she know to call things what they were? Because I told her and didn’t settle for dumbed-down baby words.
It’s even worse when the real word equivalents are the same number of syllables and kids can say them with relative ease if corrected a few times. Here’s a few examples: ”water, bottle, and blanket” instead of “wa wa, ba ba, and blankie”
ANYway, that’s one of my pet peeves. Enough about that. Now your turn.
4.) Name a pet peeve you have about how other parents raise their kids. Go on…stir the pot.
Twitter: AlisonSWLee
says:
You certainly do stir the pot!
I agree that to teach children to communicate and speak, using the right words is imperative. Having said that, I wouldn't fret too much if they said boo boo instead of wound. When their enunciation improves as they grow, I think most kids will catch up with their more linguistically superior peers.
However, baby talking children who are 3 and above, I would say no go.
I guess there are some baby words that are not too annoying, as long as they're used sparingly…. But I'm glad you see my point. =)
I so agree! My parents and sister fall into the baby talk routine and it drives me nuts. If you want your kids to learn how to talk, talk to them like a regular person! I made a few exceptions that I thought were just too cute, like ladypops for lollipops and blowies for blueberries. But they still learned the proper way of saying it. My nephew called milk "cow juice" well into the too old for baby talk age.
A couple of words is okay, but you can totally tell when a mom baby-talks exclusively to her child, right? That's the annoying part. Cow juice? Sound funny, but ye, definitely a limit there too. hahaha
Baby talk after a certain age definitely grates on my nerves. But – I used it, I'll admit (I'm cringing – don't hit me!). For me, baby talk was for silly moments, or trying to make the kid laugh moments. It wasn't the primary means of communication between me and the kids. It's very passive-aggressive for anyone to "speak" through your child though, to criticize a lack of socks, etc. My kids never kept their shoes on – they liked being barefoot – and I tell you, if I hear one more time that "(insert issue) is due to poor parenting" from a certain family member, there's gonna be a homicide. Baby talk or not.
Silly moments and make kid laugh moments are definitely acceptable. But for everyday conversation? Oh please stop the insanity! lol