I Don’t Use Baby Talk

Years ago, before I had kids, I was walking across a park with a friend when a little boy of about 4 or 5 wandered by. I looked at him and said, “Hello, how are you?”

Confused by my formality, the kid scrunched his face and quickly scampered away. I felt like a narc.

My friend laughed at my bizarre attempt to engage the toddler, noting that I clearly had no idea how to talk to children. He was right. Now that I have a child of my own, I know a little better.

But my approach hasn’t necessarily changed. I don’t use baby talk. Read more about I Don’t Use Baby Talk …

19 Oct

Dad and Buried Posted in discipline No comments

Teach Impediment

The reality of being a dad has a way of completely upending your pre-parent expectations.

A few months ago, I wrote about looking forward to the “Rose Is Rose” portion of toddlerhood, in which my son would babble adorably and I’d be forced to puzzle out what he was saying. Like a sophisticated, more intelligent version of The Da Vinci Code (with much less Jesus but a much better vocabulary).

Unfortunately, it’s not difficult to decipher my sons favorite words, most of which revolve around refusing to eat things, refusing to do things and refusing to stop doing things. It’s not really that adorable.

The funny pages lied to me.

The Decipherists: Top eee!

When I was a kid, I used to read the funny papers every morning. I loved “Garfield” (for some reason), as well as “The Far Side” and a few others. There was a brief period when I followed “Rose is Rose,” which was a light-hearted strip about a couple and their new baby.

Here’s why, from Wikipedia: From the comic’s debut in 1984 until the strip published on 9 August 1991, the character of Pasquale spoke only in a ‘phonetic baby talk.’

It was fun to try and decipher what the kid in the strip was saying, kind of like when I was in high school and helped my friend decipher Rush lyrics. It was a game. Now, suddenly, my life is like that comic strip, except it’s a little less fun.

And hopefully my son’s baby talk phase won’t last seven years.

Dad and Buried

Tag: speech

I Don’t Use Baby Talk

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Teach Impediment

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The Decipherists: Top eee!

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