Is being referred to as ‘the missus’ really that bad? Reporter Rebecca Whitfield-Baker doesn’t think so

In 2024 it seems just about any word can cause offence, but maybe it is time to focus more on actions and intentions rather than putting a moralistic slant on every syllable uttered.

More Political Correctness Ahead sign.

It’s a funny world in which we live, increasingly having to navigate what is OK to say and what’s not.

A time when basic descriptors and benign observations can cause offence and when minding your Ps and Qs is less about saying “please and thank you” and more about worrying how a comment might be interpreted.

I recently came across a parenting blog that listed “10 things you should never say to your kids”, apparently due to the potency of the words to scar your child for life and set unrealistic expectations.

It included phrases such as “Great job” (when your kid has, well, done a great job), “Practice makes perfect” (when you’re trying to teach perseverance), “You’re OK” (for example, when a child scrapes their knee), “Let me help” (when a young person is struggling to finish a task).

Avoid, too, the New York-based Parents commentary warns, telling your child to “Be careful” (because you might just distract, causing them to fall and hurt themselves), to “Hurry up” (it might stress out your cherub), or that you’re “on a diet” (promoting an unhealthy body image).

Puh-lease. I reckon I’ve regularly said nine out of the 10 – as well as a few more such as “If you don’t get a wriggle on, I’ll shoot a firecracker up your butt” – in the 18-plus years I’ve been raising my two sons, who seem to be doing OK.

Although, a while back, I did write how one had come from school lamenting he’d been born in the wrong era, reasoning he’d have been better suited to his late grandfather’s generation.

A time, on reflection, that seemed much simpler and less complex; an age when you knew who you were and where you were going, especially if you were a boy or young man.

When it was OK to tell a girl she looked pretty and gentlemanlike to open the door for a female friend – not because you thought she couldn’t do it herself but as a show of respect.

A period that offered less space to cause offence and more opportunity to be an individual; when a harmless joke or cheeky sledge was just that.

These days it seems you need to think carefully before you say just about anything.

Over Christmas, my interstate sister-in-law told me she was chided while scoring at her daughter’s cricket match for asking if a particular batter – her batting partner wearing the same coloured shoes and helmet – was the “tall or short one”.

“You can’t call someone short,” she was curtly told.

Luckily for me, the officious parent hasn’t ever been earshot when I’ve helpfully described my batsman son to the game-day scorers as “the one with the bubble butt”.

Meanwhile, I was at the receiving end of a telling-off, from my 10-year-old nephew, when I referred to the skin colour of a man – at the centre of an entertaining holiday plane incident I witnessed, featuring a man reminiscent of Eddie Murphy’s 1988 Coming to America character.

Back in the office this week, I vocalised that I felt fat and “overly chubbified” after way too many weeks of indulging in Christmas treats and tipples.

That remark set off an office debate on whether it was appropriate or not to utter the word fat, with the younger demographic arguing loudest that it wasn’t.

Right or wrong, it doesn’t change the undeniable fact that I do need to step up the exercise and ditch the delicious extras in the coming weeks and months, for my own health and comfort.

We all have pet hate words and phrases, for me being referenced as “the missus” is one, something I’d often be called by shearers when I was married to a Mallee farmer.

“Shhh … the missus is here”, they’d say in warning to hold off on the swearing and shed talk as I entered with morning smoko.

But the thing is, while the word itself may have grated on my nerves, what was more important was the sentiment behind it, a showing of good manners and respect, to care enough to consider how someone else might feel stepping into their rough and ready realm.

As rates of loneliness, depression and anxiety reportedly soar, I can’t help feeling we’d be better off focusing on that old adage “actions speak louder than words”, rather than fixating on the words themselves – tut-tutting and putting a moralistic slant on every syllable uttered.

Instead, we could once again teach our kids kindness, smiling more often at strangers, helping others when we can and paying an old-fashioned compliment.