Whenever I hear a parent address their child "bud" or "buddy" it just doesn't ever sound warm or affectionate or even feel like a term of endearment to me. It sounds kind of cold. I could never imagine addressing either of my kids that, but maybe that's my take on it.
Edited to clarify: Whoa! I didn't mean to bait anyone in justifying this. It was more out of curiosity b/c I was not born in American and so my parents and most of their friends never used this word for their children. Before becoming a parent, I only hear the word buddy as the beginning of a rude remark, as in when taxi driver gets cut off and he yells out the window, "Hey buddy, what the f--- ". Or a guy wanting to pick a fight in a bar saying the another guy, "Hey buddy, what're you looking at?" I was hoping maybe somebody could explain the origin of this term when using it on children, but I guess that is really a dumb pursuit.
Second footnote: People who think I'm judging them need to be a little more imperturbable. I wasn't trying to stir up anything. That said, I should have taken a little more thought writing this OP rather than dashing it off on a whim. For that, I apologize. If you call your child buddy, you are not cold. Cold was the wrong word to use. I'm not sure of the right word to use. And even if I could find it, it would describe the way the word feels to me and not describe the person using it.
Names like "Bucko, Half-pint (to the person who wrote about Little House on the Prairie in this thread), and kiddo are examples of other terms that might be said with a lot of affection but doesn't stir up a soft fuzzy feeling in me. But then I don't get a lot of Americanisms like "buddy," country music, baseball and football, etc, even though I've practically lived here all my life.
Edited to clarify: Whoa! I didn't mean to bait anyone in justifying this. It was more out of curiosity b/c I was not born in American and so my parents and most of their friends never used this word for their children. Before becoming a parent, I only hear the word buddy as the beginning of a rude remark, as in when taxi driver gets cut off and he yells out the window, "Hey buddy, what the f--- ". Or a guy wanting to pick a fight in a bar saying the another guy, "Hey buddy, what're you looking at?" I was hoping maybe somebody could explain the origin of this term when using it on children, but I guess that is really a dumb pursuit.
Second footnote: People who think I'm judging them need to be a little more imperturbable. I wasn't trying to stir up anything. That said, I should have taken a little more thought writing this OP rather than dashing it off on a whim. For that, I apologize. If you call your child buddy, you are not cold. Cold was the wrong word to use. I'm not sure of the right word to use. And even if I could find it, it would describe the way the word feels to me and not describe the person using it.
Names like "Bucko, Half-pint (to the person who wrote about Little House on the Prairie in this thread), and kiddo are examples of other terms that might be said with a lot of affection but doesn't stir up a soft fuzzy feeling in me. But then I don't get a lot of Americanisms like "buddy," country music, baseball and football, etc, even though I've practically lived here all my life.