[Artemisia] Smalls and language

[Sarah Natividad]

I have four kids.  There's a four-year age gap between the two older ones
and the two younger ones.   The older ones have different interests and
abilities than the younger ones, so it's useful to make a distinction
between the groups.  We call the two younger ones the "littles" and the two
older ones the "bigs".  So I might say to my husband, "I'll stay home with
the littles and give them baths, you take the bigs out for ice cream."  It's
shorter to say "bigs" and "littles" than to say "Miranda and Ben" and
"Philly and Tony", or "two older children" and "two younger children".  The
kids don't think it's demeaning, because it gives voice to an actual
distinction between the two groups which they are glad to have
acknowledged.  Outside of the family, because we don't expect that people
will understand our use of "bigs" and "littles", we use "two older/younger
children".  So I would think "smalls" would be a perfectly good word to use
for small children with whom one's familiar.  I wouldn't go around calling
strangers' children "smalls" though.

I'm new so I don't know all the proper lingo yet.  But even after reading
this discussion, I don't currently have a problem with either children or
underwear being called "smalls", as long as everyone keeps all their smalls
clean. ;)

-- 
Sarah Natividad
http://curiousworkmanship.etsy.com
http://organicbabyfarm.blogspot.com