Parenting Terminology

There is a whole set of terminology that you’re going to have to learn if you’re gonna be a parent.

Here are just a few of the words and phrases you should learn:

Babisinki Syndrome: Helsinki syndrome is when a hostage begins to develop positive associations with the hostage-taker. Babisinki Syndrome is a similar phenomena that occurs with children that is best illustrated by example:

You’re home alone with your 22-month old. She wants ice cream. You say no. She shrieks “EYE-ZZZZZ KEEEEEEM!!!! EYE-ZZZZZ KEEEEEEM!!!!!” You say “no.” Repeat exchange four times. Your 22 month old then whips herself onto the floor crying and screaming. You walk away. 60 seconds pass. Seeking comfort from her crying, your 22 month old runs to you – the tormentor - seeking to be picked up and cuddled: Babisinki syndrome.

Daylight Savings Time. Multiple definitions. 1. (fall) A time change system designed to ensure that children wake their parents up at 6 a.m. on the weekends instead of 7 a.m. 2. (spring). A time change system designed to ensure that children do not go to bed at a reasonable hour.

Helium Balloon Storage Unit: The part of your house with a vaulted ceiling.

Kid Latin. When your children start using rhyming words because they are banned from using a naughty word. For example, after banning the word “poop” from our dinner table, our children began calling each other “soop.”

Do you have any idea if you’re supposed to punish your son for telling his sister that “she likes to eat soup?” Me neither. Which means he ended up in the corner.

Kiddisonification: When your toddler enters the phrase where they name all inanimate objects. For example, in early 2003, our daughter nicknamed two of the washcloths in the bathtub "Sadaam" and "Starburst.”

Primogeniseat: The seat in your car in the backseat behind the passenger seat. If you want to know which kid is a mother’s favorite, check who is sitting in this seat. From the driver’s seat, you can see the kid in this seat and chat with them while driving. You can hand them snacks. If they drop something you can reach the floor beneath that seat whereas you can’t reach the floor in the seat behind you very easily without being double jointed.

The seat behind you? If you put your favorite kid in the seat behind their kicking of the seat will quickly make them your not-favorite kid.

In child abuse cultures, this seat is known as the Slap Seat.

Pump and Dump: When a mother who is breastfeeding goes out for a night on the town and consumes some adult beverages and then, in order to not poison her child, pumps out the breastmilk and dumps it out on the street for the hoodlums to get at it.

Soft Serve: A description for what young kids’ poop looks like in potty-training books. In real life, it will actually look like this twice annually. You may be tempted to take a picture, but you should not.