Entry · catalog no. 3467

the children

/ /ðə ˈtʃɪldrən/ /thuh-CHIL-drun

phrase · Harlem / nationwide · 1980s

✓ Verified

In ballroom and wider Black queer culture, the community itself — especially its younger members and those raised up within a house. "The children" are your people in the scene.

“The children came out in full force for the ball, every category packed.”

Origin & Attribution

Harlem ballroom culture of the 1970s and 80s, the Black and Latino LGBTQ scene of houses, mothers, and balls. Captured in the 1990 documentary Paris Is Burning, "the children" names those belonging to the community, gathered under house mothers. Much of today's mainstream slang — shade, realness, werk — comes from this same world.

1980s

Standard in Harlem ballroom houses for the community's members

1990

Paris Is Burning documents the ballroom scene and its language

Region of origin

West

Midwest

N.East

South

Nationwide / diaspora

Harlem / nationwide · 1980s

Spoken by

Ballroom scene

$THECHIThe Record · cultural traction

▲ Rising

46 yrs

ahead of the mainstream

50/100

peak cultural energy

Introduced to English by the culture — logged here before the mainstream caught on.

Cultural usage — the recordMainstream search interest

First used

1980

in the culture

Cultural energy indexed from documented usage, search interest, and citation frequency. The recorded date is the archive’s permanent point of record.

Hear it spoken

By region — how it actually sounds

@auntiereg

Atlanta, GA

@deltasoul

Memphis, TN

Contribute your pronunciation

Citations & Sources

■

Paris Is Burning (dir. Jennie Livingston) — documentary · 1990

film

+ Cite a source