Mommy Speak

When you become a mother, you suddenly are introduced to a whole new language. A new vocabulary enters into your conversation that you never before would have dreamed of being interested in, much less discuss in public at great length. You thought pregnancy was a weird club, with dialation, umbilical cord, cervix, colostrum, etc. Motherhood brings on an entirely new class of code words to mask what you really think in the interests of riot control.

"I don't think they are a very good influence on each other" translation: your kid is a bad influence on my kid.

“Someone needs a nap” Translation: your kid is being such an unbelievable brat that you say this in a vain effort to reassure surrounding adults that your little angel doesn’t normally behave like this. Give it up. You’re not fooling anyone.

"I wanted to help them work this out, but he won't stop for me" Translation: stop your kid from doing whatever it is that he's doing to annoy my kid.

"My, they have a lot of energy, don't they?" This was said to me when I took all three boys to get a haircut. The wait was interminable, so in order to stop them from tearing the shampoo bottles off the shelves, I took them outside and had them run laps to pass the time. Translation: can't you just make your kids sit down and be quiet?



Teachers have their own code as well, but I'll have to get back to you. I haven't cracked that one yet.