Transcript of “A Better Word for Adult “Children”?”
Hello, welcome to A Way with Words.
Hi, this is Mia. I’m calling from Sumter, South Carolina.
Sumter. Hello, welcome to the show, Mia. What’s up?
So, I’ve been thinking a lot lately about good old lexical gaps.
And the favorite one of mine, or I guess the least favorite one of mine, is that there’s not a word, at least that I’m aware of, for an adult child that is gender neutral.
So, you know, you can say my son or my daughter, and that doesn’t imply any age at all.
But if my mom wanted to talk about me, there’s really not another word that she could say other than my kid or my child.
And that is weird to me.
So you’re looking for a single word because for some reason a single word feels better than a double word.
Like adult child just won’t work.
Yeah, it just doesn’t sound right.
It seems like an oxymoron.
Maybe.
You know, child has more than one meaning, like a lot of English words.
Yeah, but I understand what you’re saying. I think this is a frustration for a lot of people. How do you designate that person, and when do you start designating that person?
What about grown child?
What do you think about that?
Grown child, maybe slightly better, but I just wish there was like a one-word situation.
Because it’s like, to me, if somebody says my child, I mean, I guess you can infer based on the age of the person, how old the child might be that they’re talking about.
But I’m always going to default to that is somebody who is probably under the age of 13.
Because after that, it would be, you know, adolescent and then adult.
Right.
Right.
That’s a tough one, right? I mean, you have like a minor child, you know, my child who’s a minor, but you don’t have a major child.
I mean, I think part of it is when do you start counting that person as an adult, too?
You know, if they’re living at home with you in their 20s or whatever, are they an adult child or are they an adult?
And then if you said, yes, my adult, my adult who lives with me, that’s a weird thing.
Yeah, exactly.
It doesn’t work that way.
Yeah.
And I think I’ve asked a lot of friends about this.
I’ve asked all over because it’s something that was really, like, stuck in my brain.
I couldn’t stop thinking about it.
And the only answer that I was getting from people that I know was spawn.
And I was like, that’s really weird.
Are we fish?
That’s not something that you would want to use in everyday conversation.
Right.
Right.
I mean, there’s spawn.
There’s progeny.
There’s offspring.
There’s issue.
Yeah.
Crotch fruit.
Or fruit of your loins.
I don’t think that’s going to work either.
No.
Those aren’t.
Yeah, everything is loaded or clunky or awkward or inappropriate.
All of this, because this topic has been discussed.
We’ve talked about it.
It’s been 10 years, I think, on the show.
But Mia, since you’ve done the field work, did you come across something that appealed to you?
Nothing.
I mean, I think offspring is, like, maybe the best one, but it still feels weird.
So I’m proposing that we work on a new word here.
I think we should go the route of like nibbling, which I also think is gross and weird.
Don’t like that word for gender neutral.
These are nephew.
One term we haven’t mentioned yet, which often comes up in this conversation is kidult.
Kid, adult, combined.
Yeah, I think we can dispense with that one.
I usually see that one in relation to adults who are more interested in childlike things, though.
Right.
They watch like kids shows.
Yeah.
Yeah.
My Little Pony or whatever.
I’ve never heard of that before.
That’s the first encounter I’ve had with that word.
Yeah, it’s been around since the 50s, believe it or not.
Really?
Yep.
K-I-D-U-L-T, kiddlet.
But you don’t want to go there, Dee.
And it’s more often used in the entertainment industry and not so much in everyday language.
Yeah, I feel like the closest we get to this is, unfortunately, the term adult child.
It really seemed to take off in the 1970s in this country when there was a lot of publicity and research about adult children of alcoholics, you know, ACOA or ACA.
And it’s been a handy term in psychological circles, but I agree with you.
I think it feels clunky, and you hear the word adult, and you’re prepared for something besides somebody who’s not an adult.
One proposal that I have might be the other direction, which is just to get more wordy and brag a little bit.
Just kind of go the proud parent route and say, my child, the psychotherapist.
Or my child, the general in the army.
Or my child, the oceanographer.
Perfect.
I will request that my parents only refer to me as my child, the pet photographer from now on.
There we go.
My child, the pet photographer.
Perfect.
Mia, we’re going to get a lot of response to this.
We always do when we talk about this particular lexical gap.
But thank you for bringing it up and lots of good talk here on this.
Thanks so much.
Thanks so much for having me.
Bye, Mia.
Bye-bye.
What’s a great one-word way to refer to adult children?
Let us know and we’ll let Mia know.
Email words@waywordradio.org or tell us on Twitter @wayword.
