War of Words

“Kids! Dinner!” I often bellowed shamelessly from the window of our fourth floor walk-up on Patch Barracks when our family was stationed in Germany. The Vermont Strasse playground adjacent to our building was typically crowded with military children of all ages at that time of day, but as long as I yelled loudly enough, our three children always came running.

Primarily, I use words to communicate information, give directions, ask questions, and explain things. As a busy military wife and mother of three, I’ve adopted a no nonsense approach involving direct and informal use of words, with plenty of colloquialisms thrown in.

In order to get my family to clean up after dinner, I might say, “Okay kids, everyone’s gotta pitch in. This kitchen’s not gonna clean itself, ya know.” At bed time, I’d say, “C’mon kiddos, time to hit the hay! And don’t dilly dally unless you wanna drive your poor mother cuckoo.” And in the morning, “For Criminy’s sake, you kids are slow as molasses!”

I thought I was being a good mother, but I recently discovered that some people in today’s divisive, politically correct, oversensitive, everyone’s-a-victim, cancel culture society of snowflakes, believe that by using the word “kids,” I degraded my children. 

“Children aren’t baby goats!” they argue, offended that lazy, inarticulate reprobates like me compare children to dirty, braying farm animals. 

As someone who raised goats when I was a kid (see what I did there), my children should feel fortunate that I compared them with such sweet, affectionate creatures. Trust me, locking horns with my billy goats, Popeye and Brutus, was easier than getting Hayden, Anna and Lilly to eat their broccoli. 

Yet, the belief that the term “kids” is demeaning to children persists today.  While it’s true that the word’s Norse origins prove a clear connection to goats, its use as a reference to human children dates back to 16th-Century England as a term of endearment similar to “lambs.” Even Charles Dickens used both terms in Oliver Twist:   

“So you’ve got the kid,” said Sikes, when they had all reached the room, closing the door as he spoke. 

“Yes, here he is,” replied Nancy. 

“Did he come quiet?” 

“Like a lamb,” rejoined Nancy.

My casual language also got me into trouble on social media, when I inadvertently started a dumpster fire on Facebook by posting the following question in a military spouse forum: “Do you think military brats are more resilient than their civilian peers?”  

“Your use of ‘military brats’ is offensive!” one milspouse immediately shot back, firing the opening salvo of a war of words that raged on for hours until the Facebook Page’s monitor shut off the comments. In the melee, I was thrown summarily under the bus by one faction of military spouses, who characterized me as a careless “older” military spouse oblivious to contemporary perceptions about archaic and offensive language. Other milspouses and actual military brats came to my defense, commenting that they took pride in the term “military brat” because of the honor and sacrifice it represents. 

When the digital dust settled, I researched the history of the term “military brats” and found that the Facebook fracas was much ado about nothing. Research reported by the U.S. Department of Defense indicates that the term “military brat” has two possible origins, neither of which impart any negative meaning. 

In the British Army, the term “barrack rat” was used to describe children of soldiers in the eighteenth century, and it is believed that the phrase may have been shortened to “brat” sometime thereafter. Also, children of British Army soldiers posted to British colonies were referred to as British Regiment Attached Travelers, or B.R.A.T.s. 

Although no definitive proof exists of the origins of “military brat,” there is no evidence of any pejorative meaning. In fact, when “Army brat” appeared in a 1942 edition of The War Dictionary of slang terms, it was defined as a “term of endearment,” just like the word “kids.”

With so many real conflicts in our world today, it seems silly to wage wars of words over terms of endearment. With only good intentions, I’m proud to say, my kids are military brats.