I speak corporate to my kid. Intentionally, mostly. And it is working in ways I did not fully anticipate.
My almost five year old has started doing the thing where everything is never or always. I never get to do that. I always have to wait. I never saw that. Classic toddler hyperbole, completely normal, also categorically false most of the time.
This morning I pulled out a term.
“Baby, that’s a generalization.”
I walked him through it. When you say never or always you’re making a sweeping claim that undermines the actual point you’re trying to make. If you want me to take you seriously, be specific. Tell me you really wanted it. Tell me it’s been a long time. Don’t hand me a never — I’ll pick it apart every time and you’ll lose the argument before it starts.
He listened. He processed. And then he switched.
“It’s been a long time since I got to do that.”
Still a little dramatic. Directionally correct. I’ll take it.
Then we got to school and he used another generalization and caught himself when I raised an eyebrow. Oh yeah. That’s a generalization. And corrected it on his own.
I almost cried in the drop-off line.
My husband does not share my enthusiasm for corporate speak at home. He has made this clear. When I come home and start talking about alignment and bandwidth and circling back he gives me a very specific look that I have learned to interpret as please stop. Fair enough. Different audience.
But my son? He’s eating it up. He loves understanding things at a level that feels real, not dumbed down. He wants the actual word for the concept. He wants to use it correctly. And apparently he will deploy it at school within twenty minutes of learning it which is the fastest adoption rate I have ever seen on any initiative I have ever run.
I’m genuinely curious whether anyone else is doing this — bleeding corporate vocabulary into parenting or into their marriage — and what the results have been. Success stories welcome. Horror stories also welcome. My husband will probably relate to those more.
Are you a corporate jargon household or does that stay strictly at the office? Tell me in the comments.
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