Modern Parenting Slang: 20 Phrases Mums And Dads Are Likely To Use Once They Have Kids

'Carmageddon' and 'cesspool' made it on the list.

Naturally once you’ve had kids your everyday vocabulary is going to change to include all the nappy changes, sleepless nights and baby sick.

But have you heard of these slang phrases that modern parents have started using?

Lisa Williams, founder of parenting site TantrumXYZ, kept seeing the terms cropping up so decided to create a list of them all. 

“I love all the terms my friends and the parenting community use to describe the sometimes difficult elements of parenting,” she told The Huffington Post UK.

“I decided to compile them all in one place so everyone else knows what we’re on about.

“If the Oxford Dictionary wants to include any of them in their next edition, they are welcome to!” 

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Some of the phrases you may have heard before (like ’clean eating’), but this list shows that as a parent, the term has a whole new meaning.

Others, like carmageddon, manage to capture the horror of a disastrous parenting moment with one word.

Here are 20 of the phrases from Williams’ list - how many can you relate to?

1. Bedtime stories = When you need to spend an hour watching Instagram stories to relax yourself after a stressful bedtime

2. Beer o’ clock = Four hours after your kids wake you up, no matter what time that is

3. Box settling = When you stick your kids in front of Netflix/kids’ TV to relax them before bed

4. Breeders’ digest = The short-form version of events for busy, tired people, for example: ‘Can you give me the Breeders’ digest of that?’

5. Bus wanker = The person who stands in the bit for buggies and wheelchairs

6. Busy child = Polite way of referring to a child who won’t sit still: ‘Your little one is busy, isn’t she?’

7. Carcolepsy = When your baby nods off the second you switch on the engine

8. Carmageddon = Being trapped in the car with tired, hungry children

9. Cesspool = The ball pool you plonk your kid into, despite knowing no one’s ever cleaned the bottom

10. Circle of Neglect = A jumperoo

11. Clean eating = When you serve Ella’s Kitchen straight from pouch to mouth

12. Cork = Dummy/pacifier

13. Crap cradle = The baby bouncer, when your baby needs a bit of turbulence in order to poop

14. Dadtronising = Adverts/books/items which assume dads are all bumbling idiots who shouldn’t be trusted with scissors, let alone a baby

15. Digital babysitter = iPad

16. Fashionably late = When you turn up not only late, but also sporting baby sick or another bodily fluid somewhere about your person

17. God squad = The godparents. Belief in God is not normally a requirement

18. Grannoying = When one of the grandparents gets judgy with you 

19. Grannouncement = When one of the grandparents makes an annoying statement, subtly aimed at you: ‘We weaned all our babies at four months and they were fine’

20. Granvy = When you think your kid prefers your folks to you.

To view the full list of parenting slang phrases, visit the TantrumXYZ website.