A humorous and relatable account of the author's experience learning the unique jargon of parenting, comparing it to moving to a new country.
I live in the Netherlands and speak several languages. But when I became a mother, I had to learn a whole new vocabulary. For me, becoming a mother was an experience as disorienting and confusing as moving to a new country. I had to learn new behaviours and customs as well as which brands of diaper and baby food to buy.
And little did I know that moving to the Netherlands after the birth of my first child would entail having to learn a whole new tongue besides Dutch, but about the highly specific language mothers and fathers around the world now use to talk about being parents. And even though I spoke Polish, German and English by the time I had my eldest daughter (and have since learned Dutch and a bit of Russian), I struggled with this particular one. Unsure of myself, I started reading parenting books and spent a lot of time on online forums, where I tried to find answers to my questions – or, when there weren’t any, then at least some support or understanding. It was on BabyCenter that I first discovered this new parenting language. I often found myself resorting to Google to understand what people were saying. I had to familiarise myself with acronyms such as DS and DD (dear son and dear daughter), CS (caesarean section), EB (extended breastfeeding) and CIO (cry it out). This was also how new words such as pacifier, stroller and other baby-related terms entered my vocabulary. And all that after I had already taught myself the long and complicated terms related to pregnancy and birth: gestation, episiotomy and perinatal mortality, among others. It didn’t take me long to notice that even the things I read in Polish were translations of books by English-speaking authors such as Tracy Hogg’s, which I suffered through just to try to understand why my daughter would not stop crying. Spoiler alert: it did not hel
PARENTING LANGUAGE JARGON HUMOR EXPERIENCE
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