When Adam Lane Smith (@TheBrometheus) decided to brag about his children's achievements on Twitter, I don't think he expected the reactions he got.
The father of two from Wisconsin used his smarty-pants children as a way to argue against baby talk, citing the way he and his wife only speak to them in full sentences with complex vocabulary, which, he says, has advanced their language skills.
It came off super pretentious, so, naturally, Twitter went after him. Users responded to Smith's claims with their own children's (fictional) exaggerated abilities. Others even threw their pets' talents in there to really drive the comedy of the situation home.
Assertions ranged from multilingualism to superhuman powers, each more sophisticated than the last.
Spoiler alert: No matter how you talk to your kids, they're still kids, and will turn into angsty teenagers.
For the record, plenty of studies have found that baby talk helps children relate to their parents' language when they're very young. According to child development specialist Rebecca Parlakian, 14-month-old babies who had been listening to baby talk since they were 6 months old showed better language skills than those who hadn't.
No matter what kind of tone you're using or how many vowels you're drawing out, though, just talking to your babies and exposing them to language is the most important thing -- doesn't matter how you do it.
"Whether it's [what the research world calls] parentese or not, the most important thing parents can do is use language to connect with their babies and toddlers, to describe the world around them, to ask them questions and to have a back-and-forth exchange," Parlakian told TODAY. "That is, hands down, the best way to help little ones learn to talk."