Calling an unborn baby girl "a little bitch"

[Pandoraphile]

And then going on to refer to older nieces as "little bitches"?

Overheard the nail salon and I couldn't believe my ears. It wasn't being said nastily, it came across as a term of endearment

AIBU to have been shocked??

Given that you think it's ok to use classist terms of abuse like rough as a badger's arse, you're unqualified to speak for decent, well mannered, well raised people

I don't think it's classist.

My great-gran was solidly WC and always very poor, but she wouldn't hold with "common" behaviour or "dirty language". It was the same as blueing your nets and whiting your doorstep. You kept standards up even if you were living in vegetable soup all week.

I don't like the word 'bitch' applied to children. In my mind it implies that they are somehow nasty, conniving and malicious.

We're all qualified to dislike certain terms. I don't like any of the terms used on this thread but I know that others do and use them.

Nobody said we weren't.

However, someone who uses terms like rough as a badger's arse simply isn't qualified to speak about what's acceptable to decent people. Which is a different thing entirely.

When I was a student teacher on placement we were talking about nicknames and I asked the yr1 class if anyone had a nickname.

One of the boys eagerly put his hand up to tell me his dad called him Little Shit.

I think it's a vile and unnecessary thing to say.

I can understand someone venting their feelings by using such words, although i am unlikely to ever use them myself, but to use it in a context where no derogatory meaning is intended is just weird.

My mother used to call me a slut. What she actually meant was that my bedroom was like a pigsty.... slovenly might have been appropriate, but she failed to grasp that slut's meaning had progressed from what it meant when she was young.

I do not, however, think that in the majority of English-speakers' minds bitch has become an acceptable term of reference for anyone.

Why use derogatory terms as terms of endearment when there are so many genuinely nice ones? I honestly don't see the point.

I’m probably as coarse and sweary as they come but I’d never call my kids bitches or cunts or anything like that. The worst I think I’ve used is ‘horror’ or ‘grotbag’. My DS favourite word for a while was Cretin.
I hate it when you hear horrible stuff said to kids in public, it really makes you wonder what’s said behind closed doors.
Kids are sponges and they really pick up on everything and then copy. I’ve modified my behaviour when I’ve caught one of the dc copying it!!

Pengwyn... 'a little horror' isn't quite the same, in my opinion. It's usually accompanied by a smile and hair ruffle.

Onion Yes they are. Call your kids what you want in private but if you do it in public then people will silently or not so silently, have a opinion. That poster's view was of the parents who use those terms at least, not the children.

whambam I'm curious about which part of Scotland exactly you are in, any clues?

I'm geordie as they come and common as muck, I don't think "little bitch" is acceptable.

I call my DS "little chod" and DD "little bot" that's about it.

I don't think it's classist.

My great-gran was solidly WC and always very poor, but she wouldn't hold with "common" behaviour or "dirty language". It was the same as blueing your nets and whiting your doorstep. You kept standards up even if you were living in vegetable soup all week.

Doesn't make the use of the term rough as a badger's arse not classist, though. It doesn't matter whether you think this isn't a working class attitude, the poster I quoted evidently does.

The reality is that working class people take a wide variety of positions on this as on many things, but even if they didn't, it wouldn't make the term ok.

Onion Yes they are. Call your kids what you want in private but if you do it in public then people will silently or not so silently, have a opinion.

No they're not, and you saying that people are going to have an opinion doesn't refute my point.

People may think what they wish, but if they use terms like rough as a badger's arse to demean people of a particular social class, they are unqualified to speak about decency. And it's just a fact that this is a different thing to being qualified to have an opinion: they aren't the same concept.

That poster's view was of the parents who use those terms at least, not the children.

Again, doesn't refute or even address the point you're arguing with.

Doesn't make the use of the term rough as a badger's arse not classist,

I don't think it is classist. It's taste-ist (and a bit uncouth itself TBH).

I'm going to get myself in trouble skipping about using uncouth as my word of the day now

Pengggwyn... for me it's about tone of voice. You can call somebody 'a little horror' and it's said with a smile, not with aggression, as far as I know.

Calling somebody a 'bitch' or a 'bastard'... well I've only ever heard that said in anger and it made me feel so sorry for the child. They don't understand when they're young that a parent doesn't mean it.

That's the way I see it anyway.

I wonder what the reaction on MN would be if someone posted that they knew a man who publicly referred to his wife and her sisters as bitches?

No it's horrid OP and not acceptable in most social groups. She sounds rough as fuck.

*Agree

It very much depends on how.

A few years ago I would have echoed your thoughts but ever since I heard a very nice and well manored lady crying over her dying child’s body whilst repeating “poor little bitch” over and over I’ve worked out that different people use words different ways.

She was not being insulting

Onion well maybe then I just agree with her. People that use those terms in public will get the judgement and I'm not going to keep on arguing the point.

And badgers arses are quite soft really

I need to find a badger to check that.

Onion well maybe then I just agree with her. People that use those terms in public will get the judgement and I'm not going to keep on arguing the point.

Ok, if you think the use of classist terms of abuse is acceptable, you're another one who isn't qualified to lecture anyone about decent people. Glad we've got that clear.

It is, of course, perfectly possible to make arguments about social class on this issue without doing so. Pengggwyn has made that point whilst simply referring to working and middle class people. A useful example to some of you, it seems.

I don't think it is classist. It's taste-ist (and a bit uncouth itself TBH).

It is classist. It has class connotations. You can't make those go away.