Recently, I attended a dinner party. A couple brought their two-year-old girl with them. One never knows how a toddler and a fancy restaurant will go down, but the little girl held up through a four-hour dinner with panache -- coloring on her paper, eating her chicken strips and sweet potato fries without complaint, and generally being well behaved and social.
Towards the end of the gathering, the little girl ended up sitting next to me. So we're sitting there, chillin', and she was doing something cute with her large red bib, when I cooed, "Aren’t you a good girl?" Her mother -- a very nice woman, by the way, don’t get me wrong -- leaned over and said, calmly but firmly, “We don’t use the term 'good girl.' "
In New York City, the land of extreme-parenting, there's about a million different ways one could go wrong around a child in the eyes of the hyper-vigilant parent, and I had just bumped smack dab into one of them. In using the term "good girl," I had unwittingly crashed some parental ordinance of which I had no knowledge, but had been scolded for nonetheless. It wasn't one of those things that you could classify as obvious not to say around a child. Such as, say, "muhthaf**king crackwho*re."
I knew that I should shrug off a little micro-mothering without taking it personally. But my mind began pulsing with self-criticism: Why did I call her that? Didn’t everyone know to avoid the term 'good girl'? Sheesh, I might as well have just handed her a Barbie doll and told her she needs to grow up to look just … like … THAT.
I wondered why the term "good girl" was bad. Could being called this cause the child grow into a miserably martyrish "people pleasing" adult who denied her own needs in order to be "good"? Had I just unwittingly committed her to years of therapy? Should I have avoided any value judgment and stuck with the facts, saying something like, "Aww, you are a female child playing with her bib."
A couple of nights before, I’d spent a few hours with the two-year-old daughter of a friend of mine, and had repeatedly used the Aww, you’re a good girl line. My friend had not stopped me. In fact, she looked quite pleased. Sometimes, you just wish parents would all get the same memo.
Have you ever said the wrong thing in front of a parent?
Image via Tammra McCauley/Flickr
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Comments 125
Because "Good girl!" and "Good boy!" are words that we use to praise the dog.
And there are other ways to praise a child's manners. You could say "Wow you are so polite." or Just tell them "you have very good manners" The idea of not calling your child good (Gender isn't the issue here) is that by constantly saying that your child is a good girl/boy you are ingraining it into their identity and If they do something bad or are punished it challenges the child's identity and makes it harder to cope. I'm not saying the theory is perfect but I don't see how rude it is to politely tell someone who is interacting with their child that you would prefer them to not say something.
But she is a girl. And she was good. What's wrong with telling it the way it is? Where does talking to a pet come into this? I never for a second thought that's how you'd talk to an animal. And if you do, so what? Like Rach said, what else are you supposed to say? "You're such a good little ----?" Are we not to praise children anymore?
Since I work with children, this sort of thing kind of happens to me all the time. I oblige the parents wishes but I secretly think they are insane. They get completely crazy when it comes to food too. I understand the seriousness of a food allergy, but some of the "organic" police get a little nutty. The "sugar" freaks are just as bad, high fructose corn syrup is one thing, but insisting on only agave nectar can be a bit much, especially when the parents don't limit themselves to these same restrictions. I am never serving food to kids but I have to overhear this and I want to stand up and scream...I was raised on highly processed food, high fructose corn syrup and I watched television morning, noon and night...it is going to be OK! Sometimes parents can go to far with this stuff.
I am a parent of four and I've said the wrong things to my kids in front of myself. ;)
"Muhthaf**king crackwho*re" hopefully is a ways off for me, though. Lol.
You know, if that's how you choose to parent then go ahead but don't expect all of society to know or do the same. I think it's extremely rude that someone would correct you for saying something that was- SO OBVIOUSLY- well intended on your part. I'm offended and I wasn't even involved! She could have instead joined in and said something like " Yes, ____ your behavior was excellent at dinner tonight, you colored quietly, etc..." I'm so thankful I don't live in a big city where people care more about doing things "correctly" than they do about people.
When i was in high school, I babysat for a family that insisted that everyone around them use the phrases "good job" and "bad job" when the child performed well/poorly. No "attaboys" (they were a family of boys), no "good boy". Always "good JOB". I can understand, paradoxically, not using "bad BOY", but the "good boy" and "attaboy" restrictions always bothered me. And I never once ever thought it made it sound like I was talking to a dog. for the record, I refer to my dog as "fella". :)
I was also taken to task by soneone else who had named his son after himself - this child is a true "junior". But we were NEVER, ever to refer to him as "Junior". Well, one day (again, I was in high school, making my way through babysitting gigs), I slipped up and called him "Junior" - a term that I had generically been using with ALL of the boys that I babysat at one time or another. Boy, did this man take offense. I received a five minute lecture about how this child was NOT to be referred to as "Junior" because, he was NOT a clone of his father (even though THAT'S HOW HE NAMED HIM) and he was "his own person" and would be allowed to form his OWN identity.
Ironically, this child has grown up to be an absolute clone of his father.... despite the fact that, to my knowledge, the word "Junior" was never again used around him, except as a suffix to his formal name.