I don’t know about you, but I’ll be 30 this year and every day I am trying to figure out how to hang on to my youth. Shopping at Forever 21, trying to keep tabs on who Taylor Swift is currently dating and staying on top of pending One Direction reunion rumors. I still have teenage sisters and I try so hard to connect and emulate them that I think my husband is starting to become embarrassed.
But no matter how many chokers or platforms I buy, if it’s not my screaming children in the back of my third row SUV with the roomy trunk that reminds me of my age it’s the fact that the landscape of slang is constantly changing and I just simply can’t keep up. I have more text messages than I care to share with my sisters asking them what something means.
But why do the teens have the monopoly on determining what these phrases and words mean? I decided to re-imagine what some of the popular (and easily defined) ones would mean if they had been originally coined by the 30 and 40 something-year-old parents instead of a generation that thinks Missy Elliott was “put on” by Katy Perry at the 2015 Super Bowl.
1. Low Key
Teen Meaning-
To keep something low key: to not announce it; to have a quiet gathering; opposite of a large party or big group of people; not much emphasis, closely aligned with a normal night out doing the usual stuff.
Parent Meaning-
- When you and your husband have to watch Game of Thrones on volume 20 because you are still co-sleeping and just got the baby to sleep.
- When you put your baby to sleep and have to sneak out of their room.
“After I put Ella to sleep I had to low key get out of there before she woke up!”
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