Good job! (was Dweeb (1964))

[Tom Kysilko]

At 8/3/2004 04:17 AM -0700, Jonathan Lighter wrote:
>  (Or, as I'm starting to notice, "Good job!"  Which sounds rather odd to me.)

When our daughter (b 1978) was a toddler in Evanston IL, my wife and I
noticed that other parents of toddlers around us had apparently adopted
"Good job!" (spoken with the same tones one would use with "Good dog!") as
the universal unvarying formula of praise for young children.  Therefore,
we resolved never to use that odious expression and amused ourselves by
employing as wide a variety of praise terms as our creativity could
manage.  But things got so bad that if we said "Way to go!" to someone
else's kid, the parents would immediately jump in with a "Good job!"

Perhaps this had been going on for a while, and as new parents we became
suddenly atuned to what people were saying to their children.  But it sure
felt as if some child-rearing (excuse me, parenting) guru had proclaimed,
"Thou shalt praise thy children with the words, 'Good job!'"  Does anyone
know if there's any justification for this feeling?

   Tom Kysilko        Practical Data Services
   pds at visi.com       Saint Paul MN USA
           http://www.visi.com/~pds