No-gendered terms of endearment

I honestly don't see the problem with using different terms for boys and girls. My title is gendered (mummy) and so is their dad's (daddy). We have sons and daughters, husbands and wives and so on. Why can't terms of endearment be gendered to.

I thought erasing gendered language was the aim of the trans movement.

Would your DH find it easier to call them both sweetie (seeing as it's a name he uses already?)

I have 3 boys (ages 1, 3, 5) and call them all sweetie, darling, gorgeous, or 'lovely boy'

I hadn't actually thought about it before now but definitely have never used mate/champ/buddy maybe because they're young still.

Bertrand given this thread is in feminism chat there probably aren't many posters who use gendered endearments.

I've never in my life called anyone of either sex mate, buddy or champ. I'd feel a fraud trying to use those terms just as I would if I tried on an accent not my own.

I actually noticed on a recent visit that my BIL, who in all honesty I don't know very well, calls his ds mate - he has no dds - but I don't know many people who call kids mate. He did call my DD mate when asking how she was - it looked like an expression of well-meaning awkwardness as I don't think he has had any experience talking to almost teen girls in decades, but he did opt for mate... I suppose that might be what he calls all children!

Yep. The country is crawling with little girls being regularly referred to as mate, buddy and champ. Not gendered at all!!!!!

I used to call the children I childminded (boys and girls) sweetheart, but I don't think I'd use an endearment for a child I didn't know at all...

I don't speak my first language to my children's friends which possibly makes me more formal with them, but even when doing volunteer duties at the primary school and when I've been in to talk to classes I've either known names or just done the open palm not-pointing point gesture.

At work I look after very severely disabled adults and have heard myself calling them little mouse and treasure, which are typical endearments used here for children other colleagues do too.

I call all children I don't know mate or kid. All children that aren't mine actually. I don't like using terms like sweetie for strange children - just a personal hang up really, I mean they might not be sweet at all!

Also I live in quite a hippy / right on area. It is nigh on impossible to tell half the time whether the children are boys or girls as clothes, hair, etc is so carefully unisex. So you quickly have to get used to being gender neutral.

I had an Irish friend who called her DD the little woman - I don't know whether it's an Irish expression or not.

I agree though the problem is the way the OP's DH chooses to use those endearments. Like many on this thread I use the same ones interchangeably for both my DD and DSs. My DH actually never uses endearments at all except putting the ee sound on the end of their names (both sexes).

My kids are all called baby, sweetie, sweets, and sproglet interchangeably, boys and girl.

None of them are ever called buddy or champ or little man or woman because those terms don't come naturally to me, and I've never called anyone Hun

Leader?

None of those pet names are "gendered" I don't think. You don't need new pet names, you need your DH to not choose to use different ones for your children depending on their sex. Nothing wrong with calling a girl mate or buddy, nothing wrong with calling a boy sweetie (I do). The issue is why is your DH not treating your children the same.

Yeah, "young lady" brings to mind a Swiss finishing school where they were made to walk along with books balanced on their heads to encourage good comportment.

Maybe that's just me

*not to him, don't know where the hmm came from!

I call DS pudding, bab and love. He's 17! But still my bab. (Or the babby if I'm talking about him hmm it to him)

I think it's also interesting to think of what you would call a child you don't know. Young man has a very different vibe to young lady, to my ears at least.

I call my female friends "lads" sometimes.

I call my niece "mate, buddy, friend, pal, cutie, gorgeous". Do the same for my nephew.

"All DS'S current pet names imply equality between him and DH (buddy, mate) or bigging him up (champ). Which is lovely. But 'sweetie' implies cute and little. Not quite the same."

I think that's a very interesting observation. Although the term he uses for your ds could technically be used for a girl, it would be quite surprising to hear.

I call mine bunny and chick. And lovely.But the both also have specific pet names as well.

Also

Squidge
Poppet
Poppetblocks (no idea where this came from)

In our house:

Monkey
Bug
Monster (said affectionately, not as in 'you're being a monster)
Monkeybum

I dislike "young lady" and always have; I think that "young woman" isn't used for girls whilst "young man" is for boys shows a difference in how children are addressed, as I said with the connotations of "ladylike" behaviour being expected.

At work, I tend to address groups of kids as Year Whatever, chaps, or people. As in "Right, Year 9, listen please". "People, you are blocking the corridor, line up single file please."

Kids I don't know names of are young man or young lady. "Put that phone away, young man". "Walk down the corridor, please, young lady".

I agree IfyouseeRita. The terms used for boys often elevate them if that makes sense, for example to the level of "big man" (there definitely wouldn't be an equivalent for a girl who as I said would never be referred to as a "woman" - unless describing a growing body which is another issue of sexualisation being the one way girls are seen as adult if that makes sense), the equal "mate" which shouldn't be gendered but is rarely used for girls and so on. The ways children are addressed depending on their sex does send messages out about how each is viewed, with terms used for boys routinely suggesting equality, power etc in my opinion.

As you say, terms such as "gorgeous", "love", "sweetheart" should be able to be freely used towards boys by people beyond their immediate family but it'd be extremely unlikely a man especially would use them, yet men and women would happily to girls.

Beyond immediate family I should add.

It isn't a matter of those terms being gendered in themselves, it's a matter of adults constantly using them for one sex and not the other.

I've always noticed this with my son who gets called "mate", "sir" and "big man" by adult men. It strikes me as odd.

There should be nothing wrong with "sweet pea" "gorgeous" "love" for boys but you don't hear it often.

They do get "little lady" though, but I know lady is not a popular term...

Which to me backs up the point I'm making due to the connotations of "lady", the idea girls and women should act in a "ladylike" manner and so forth. Boys are often referred to as "little man", "young man" etc but girls would get "lady" in its place if anything. As I said, even adult women are routinely referred to as "girls".

Gendered or not , why care ?

Really? Where do you live - the 1950s? Perpetuating gender myths is bad. It deters our girls from aiming high, and stops our boys developing a more nurturing side to their nature.

Or do you think your dd's place is behind the kitchen sink and your ds's place in the pub while her indoors cooks his tea?

This has got me thinking.
I call my boys "love" I think. Same as DH, thanks love etc.

But DS2 we actually call "Josie" which I suppose is a girls name?
Dd we call "Shpoopy" or "Shpoops" can't actually remember why but we all use it, more than her name.