If you’re an empty nester, you’ve probably wondered about a term for one’s grown offspring. Do you use the term adult children? How about kid-ults? Since the 1960’s, the term has also been used in the marketing and advertising world. There, kid-ults often refers to, for example, the kind of grownup who enjoys reading Harry Potter. This term combining the words kid and adult is an example of a portmanteau word, or what linguists call a blend. This is part of a complete episode.
Transcript of “What Should Grown Children Be Called?”
Hello, you have A Way with Words.
Hello, this is Hope from Dallas. How are you?
Doing fine. Hi, Hope.
Hey there, what’s up?
I’m so excited to speak with you. I’ve been looking forward to this for such a long time.
Well, welcome. Glad to have you.
What’s up?
Thank you. Well, I am a transplant from Maryland, and I recently moved to Dallas.
And when I meet people, of course, one of the questions they ask is, do I have children?
And I came up with an answer, and I don’t know if it’s original or if I have sort of, you know, taken it from someone else.
And that is, because my children are not babies, I tell them that I have kidults, because my children are all over 25.
And they seem to immediately understand that that means that while I’ve birthed some folks, they’re not still in diapers.
You burst some folks.
So you spell that K-I-D-U-L-T-S?
Yes, I do.
All right.
With a dash, of course, so that, you know, it sort of gives pause.
After the I.
Oh, yeah, where’s the dash?
After the D.
After the D, okay.
I don’t know.
Kid alts.
Kid alts.
Yes.
What do your kids think of that?
They love it, especially since two of them served in the military.
And it was more of a reminder to myself that they weren’t babies anymore.
Well, it solves the problem of trying to explain to people, because the next question when you say, they say, do you have kids?
And you say, yes, I have kids.
They always say, how old?
And you just kind of like short circuit that goes straight to both answers.
And surprisingly, everyone gets it.
Oh, very good.
You know, I know this term from marketing and demographic research and advertising.
They’ve been using this since the 60s and 70s to refer to a couple different groups of people.
The same word, K-I-D-U-L-T-S.
And it’s either adults who enjoy entertainment that’s meant for kids or products that are meant for kids.
I wouldn’t know anybody like that.
Or vice versa, kids who enjoy products meant for adults.
So let’s say adults who read Harry Potter novels might be cadults.
And it might be considered cadult entertainment.
And the reverse would be I think children who are under the teenage years and when their parents are asleep they slip in to watch the naughty shows on HBO.
But Hope’s talking about something different and I love this application.
I haven’t heard this before.
Really?
Not in this sense.
Have you Grant of somebody talking about, I mean it’s better I think than my adult children.
I’ve never liked that term adult children.
That sounds like such an oxymoron to me.
It does.
Is that what you’re thinking?
Exactly. The word children and kids, it just no longer seems applicable on any level once they’re over 25.
Have you heard of any other ways of describing it that seem to not offend the children, and yet the other individuals can understand what you’re trying to say?
Well, when you eliminate the ones that offend the children, you eliminate most of them.
Spongers!
That’s right.
People were hanging around waiting for me to die.
Yes.
Exactly.
I was just curious because my daughter said to me, it’s sort of like coming up with the brangelina or J-Lo term where you combine the two words.
And I know that there’s a word to describe doing that, but I don’t recall what it is.
Absolutely.
They are often called blends.
Because you blend two words together.
Okay.
Well, I’m going to take credit for it in this case.
Okay.
I think you should.
So here we go.
Hope is a coiner of the word cadult to mean your grown offspring, right?
Oh, thank you.
It’s official.
Congratulations.
Well, as much as we can make it.
Now you’ve birthed folks and also a word.
Congratulations.
Oh, I love that.
I’m going to claim that and have them put it in my obituary.
All right, then.
Hopefully I’ll never have to read that, Hope.
Well, at least not for a very long time.
There we go.
Take care of yourself, all right?
Thanks, Hope.
Thank you so much.
Bye-bye.
Take care.
Bye-bye.
So we talked about blends, but there’s another word for that, too, right?
Portmanteau.
Oh, sure, yeah.
Yeah.
Shoving words together like smoke and fog become smog.
Mm—
Yeah, yeah.
It strikes me as something that a lot of people have probably created their own family word for.
Yeah, or else they’ve been searching and hope has been their hope.
Right, hope has brought hope.
Hope has brought hope.
