Family Language by the Stephens Girls.

Every family has a lexicon it uses on a daily basis. You know how it goes. Children say funny things and they become integral bits of language used to communicate within the family unit. We have several we use; in fact, my nickname, Naurnie, is one of them. I feel as though our family has quite a few of these. I'm not sure if it's more or less than any other family, but I sometimes feel as though we communicate with these little bits of phrases and words that were mostly concocted by me or my sister before our brains were able to keep up with our ability to chat.

Lately, I've been noticing that some of our family vocab has made its way into pop culture. Not because of the Stephens family is plugged in, but because of pure and hilarious coincidence. Here are two such examples.

want to kidnap us? don't even think about it. we've got a password.

Family Password.

When I was a little girl, we had a family password. The password served as some sort of security detection system for our undeveloped common sense. If a friend's mom was going to pick you up at school, before you got in the car you had to ask if they knew the family password. If they didn't, NO DICE. Trust me. I was the kind of kid who followed rules EXACTLY. If you didn't know the family password, there wasn't a snowball's chance in hell that I was getting my curly headed ass in your car, even if I knew your daughter who was already buckled into the back seat or even if I knew YOUR family password. For some reason, all of my friends had a password. Maybe there was a pamphlet sent home from school about the dangers of riding with strangers and how to prevent someone from kidnapping your child. Maybe one mother thought this up and all the other mothers jumped on the bandwagon. Either way, I'm not really sure where the passwords originated, but we all had one. Our family password? HORSE FEATHERS.

(Please note: This password is no longer in use by the Stephens family. If you want me to ride in your car, you'll have to know the NEW password.)

One day, I was digging through NPR Tiny Desk concerts on YouTube, and lo and behold? There is NOW A BAND called Horse Feathers. This is clearly a conspiracy to kidnap the Stephens girls.

Front Bottom.

Most children and their parents also have words for their private parts. Some are silly. Some are just downright funny. But another popular phrase amongst the South Highlands mothers of Shreveport, Louisiana in the late 1980s was "swimsuit area." This also spread like wildfire, much like the family passwords. You know, this is actually pretty responsible. Whatever bits your swimsuit covers are off limits. My family, however, had another term used for private parts that are exclusively found below the belt of females. The term "front bottom" was coined by my younger sister, Caroline. Obviously your bottom is in the back. What else would you call what's in the front? A FRONT BOTTOM. DUH.

I found out toady that there is ALSO a band called Front Bottom. Which I happen to find to be incredibly funny. I wonder if they did this on purpose...