[IrishLake]

Originally Posted by chi-o_cat

I wonder if the writer of this blog, a Theta, saw the Twitter posts saying "Baby kittens- run to your litter box!" from a Theta collegiate member on bid day.

My girls would get a phone call over this.

Originally Posted by SydneyK

I love it!
(Do chapters really give New Members baby bottles and rattles?!? )

I WOULD BE LIVID as an advisor, and insulted as a new member.

Originally Posted by MaggieXi

I agree that this is a great blog and the term "baby" should not be used to refer to or describe new members of any organization. I know that the term "baby" came about when I was a junior (gah! 13 years ago!). It was the year that Rush became recruitment, Rushees became Potential New Members and Pledges became New Members. Campus panhellenic had decreed that we were to use all the new terms and added that we were not allowed to call the new members, or even the PNMs "Girls" or even "new girls" or "Ladies" because it was derogatory (I'm not sure how Ladies was derogatory, but it was on the list of words that we could no longer use). However, the word Baby was not on the list.

So the sororities who had names for their new members - Phis for Phi Mu, Rosebuds for AOPi, continued on with their tradition. Since the rest of the orgs on campus didn't have names for their new members and could essentially only call them mouthful "new members", and a year before called them pledges, adopted new names for the them. Zeta had "Zeta Babies", AXiD had "Little Xis", Sigma Kappa had "Kappa Kuties", etc. I don't know when all of them changed over to "Babies", but eventually they did. But I think a lot of this Baby calling came out of the fact that they could no longer be called "Pledges" and "New Members" is a mouthful and boring if you compare it to the groups that have names for their new members.

IMO, Pledges is far less derogatory than Babies.

Yep, the change happened when I was an active as well. Annoying to be scolded for saying "pledges."

Originally Posted by DeltaBetaBaby

Agreed. I've said this previously: every org should come up with a respectful name for its new members and use that uniformly. Officially, I only know of the two you mention above and Alphas for ADPi, and while I'm sure there are others, some don't have anything, and nobody is going to say "new member".

Incidentally, the writers of this and the other article on this topic come from Theta and APhi, two groups that don't have a name for the NM's, AFAIK, so I'll take the giant liberty of suggesting some: "stars" for Theta, and "ivies" for APhi. They get harder from there: AGD..."ferns"?

I think calling our new girls "Stars/Little Stars" is a great idea, I've talked about it before with others.

Originally Posted by TNVol

Count me in as another who cringes at the "baby talk". In a related mode, I also cannot abide by the cat connection with Theta. We are kites, we are ΚΑΘ, not KAT. That would be Kappa Alpha Tau. I'm not a kitty cat, I'm a Theta.

I bugs me, but not to the point that I'm super passionate about it. The skit that hooked me during my own rush was a Theta "Cats" skit with songs. Hearing my future mentor sing "Memories" made me nearly cry! We never had a huge cat connection other than that though.

Originally Posted by Always AlphaGam

Baby Squirrels just creep me out.

I would also be weirded out by baby squirrels.

Originally Posted by TriDeltaSallie

Yes, Tri Delta pledges have always been called Pearls. It is part of our ritual and symbolism.

I agree the baby stuff has to go. And I sincerely hope Theta also gets on top of the finger on the mouth thing because it is just gross looking.

I will take the finger over the mouth over "Theta Baby" any day of the week. It's meant to be funny.

Originally Posted by thetalady

No big deal to me.... I know that it is also the ASL sign for vagina. Doesn't bother me.

Doesn't bother me either. I'm fine with this hand sign, the 2-sister arm sign, and the single person crossed arm sign.

Originally Posted by 33girl

The fact that 18 year olds who have never been cognizant when the "old" terms were used, still use them, just shows that this attempt has been a spectacular failure, and everyone just needs to go back to using "rush" and "pledge" and get over themselves.

Agreed