LOVING parents never tell you their child is an irritating, destructive little shit and instead use words like ‘spirited’ instead. Here are some other euphemisms.
Spirited
You might think a ‘spirited’ child is lively and determined, but you’d be wrong. It’s just a way for a parent to describe a child who has emptied a jar of mayonnaise into their handbag that doesn’t include the word ‘bastard’.
Confident
Everyone wants their child to have a certain level of confidence, but not the kind where they think it’s fine to smack another kid around the head with a bit of Brio because they’ve got the train they want. If they say ‘confident’ they probably mean ‘small bully with psychopathic tendencies’.
Knows her own mind
If someone tells you their child knows their own mind they want you to think they are intelligent and assertive. What they actually mean is that as soon as they start a conversation their child yells ‘No talking, mummy!’ at an ever-increasing volume until they meekly comply.
Passionate
‘Passionate’ has very positive connotations, unless it’s applied to a three-year-old having his fifth tantrum in Tesco because you won’t buy him the bottle of Toilet Duck he has bizarrely set his heart on. Sounds better than ‘f**king annoying’ when apologising to the cashier though.
Boisterous
A boisterous child sounds quite fun but it’s actually a tacit admission by the parent that their child has smashed the screen of yet another expensive television with a plastic dinosaur and they don’t know what to do, so have been frantically googling ‘affordable boarding schools’ all morning.
