The K Word

There are days when I swear the only thing I’m going to be remembered for when my teaching career ends is the bunny suit. But just a few days ago, while drafting my new manuscript, I realized there was something else I have an unbreakable association with in the minds of many of my colleagues.

One day, a long time ago, I was picking up my students from the cafeteria after lunch. As they were returning their trays and lining up, one little scandalized tattletale came up to me with a look of earnest distress, telling me how someone else in class had said “the K word.” Of course I had no idea what she meant. I answered with what has become a standard response to such matters over the years: “Thank you for letting me know. I will speak to them about this later.” She walked away, satisfied that justice would be carried out.

Polite society demands that some offensive words are referred to by only a first letter, since using the words themselves has become justifiably unacceptable. I’d like to propose the time has come to add another word, an actual K word, to the list of verbal taboos: 

Kiddo.

Years ago, if not decades by now, while enduring a specifically purgatorial staff development session, the presenter used the word “kiddo” what I would estimate to be approximately once every one hundred seven seconds. I became so preoccupied with waiting to see when it would come up again that I began doing something I hadn’t done since my undergrad days: keeping tally marks in the upper left hand corner of the composition book I was using to take notes. (I rely heavily on notebooks such as these during staff development; either they help me organize and process the important ideas of the day, or, if I’m particularly less than engaged for whatever reason, they’re great for writing down jokes to keep myself amused.) My tallies numbered well into the dozens by the time the session had ended, and I hadn’t even started at the beginning.

Then, sometime later, that word began to spread. Like a pathogen. Maybe it just started catching on or maybe it had always been there, and it just took the frequency of that one particular session to permanently tattoo the frustration on my brain. Either way, it had become impossible to avoid and only grew progressively worse as time went on. You know how health professionals tell us not to use antibacterial soap because doing so actually aids in the development of superviruses? In my school district, “kiddo” has grown to the point of being a verbal supervirus. 

So what’s my problem with this word? What is it about “kiddo” that gets me so riled up?

1) It’s meant to sound endearing, but it’s not. It’s usually intended to be a linguistic compromise for people who want to come across as professionals in a professional setting, but also want to project how they have enough warmth and familiarity regarding children to keep from seeming clinical and distant. 

2) It’s degrading. Maybe only mildly so, but still. Anytime someone calls someone else “kiddo” to their face, they’re sending a message about the relationship they have with that person, and usually the person on the receiving end is either younger or less experienced. You want proof? Ask Siri. Or here, I’ll save you the time and tell you what she says: “NOUN (informal) / used as a friendly or slightly condescending form of address.” Notice how she didn't just stop at "friendly."

3) At least in the educational world that surrounds me, it has devolved into becoming a tag so generic and overused that it has lost all meaning. I’m sure you know what that’s like. If not, pick any word you can think of and repeat it to yourself, out loud, at least thirty times. Listen to yourself say it. Eventually it will start to leave a bad taste in your mouth, and you’ll start thinking things like, “What does this even mean? How did this configuration of letters ever get put together to represent any kind of a concept? Do I sound like a complete moron every time I say this word out loud? I’m starting to think I do.” Don’t believe me? Try it. Here’s a word to experiment with: Soap. Thirty times, out loud, listening closely. See how you feel about it when you’re done.

4) For too many people, it’s become a code word, something akin to teen slang. If someone chooses to refer to any plurality of children as “kiddos” instead of “kids” or “children” or even, dare I say, “students,” they are making a choice to associate themselves with a larger group who does the same thing. They’re using lazy verbal shorthand as a way to communicate they're referring to students in a professional capacity, but are still trying to maintain a dose of warmth and fuzziness in doing so.

I can’t stand the word. I just used it in a manuscript because I wanted to convey something negative about the character who says it. I refuse to watch the movie “Kill Bill Vol. 2” because it’s revealed before the end that the real name of Uma Thurman’s character is Beatrix Kiddo. Whenever I’m sitting in a staff meeting and or any kind of professional development session with people I know and the presenter uses the word, I feel several pairs of eyes looking at me, waiting for my reaction. And even if people are subtle enough about it to not turn and look at me with a big smile and try to catch my eye, I know several of them are internally laughing at my pain. 

So please, everyone. For my sake, and for the sake of whatever goodness and purity there still might be in our society, let’s all agree to put the “K word” behind us.