#43- 17 Words for Family, Pregnancy & Parenting

Hi there! Welcome to episode #43 of The Real Life English with Gabby Podcast! In this episode, I’ll be teaching you 17 phrasal verbs, slang words and idioms all about family, parenting and pregnancy. This is an essential topic to most cultures around the world due to the fact that family and kids are so important to people. For this reason, it’s important that you learn to discuss this topic with confidence. After listening to this episode and using this Study Guide, you’ll be able to speak about parenting and pregnancy confidently and be one step closer to speaking English like a native speaker.

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Study Guide includes:

• Definitions and example sentences
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• Transcript for additional practice

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Transcript

[00:00:00] On today's episode of the Real Life English with Gabby podcast, I'll be teaching you 17 phrasal verbs, slang words, and idioms about family, parenting, and pregnancy. You'll be learning words like bun in the oven, helicopter parent, prego, baby bump, and more. Let's get to it.

Hey there, welcome to the Real Life English with Gabby podcast. I'm your host, Gabby, your fun and friendly English teacher from the one and only New York City. My goal is to teach you phrasal verbs, idioms, and slang that will help you speak English confidently and understand real American conversations.

Are you ready to improve your English skills? Let's jump right in. Let's go.

Welcome, welcome, welcome. Greetings from New York City. Today's episode is an interesting switch-up from episode number [00:01:00] 42, which was all about politics in the USA. I just want to say thank you for all of the awesome feedback that I got from you all about that episode. I really, really loved reading the feedback. It seems like a lot of you like episodes that are themed after current events, so this is probably something I will be exploring in the future. Stay tuned for that. For a lot of you, it was words of comfort about the current political situation, but it was all positive, and it was great, so thank you for that.

So why did I pick such a different theme for episode number 43? Well, that's because I'm actually pregnant. That's right. My family got a beautiful surprise, and baby number three will be [00:02:00] joining our family in August. If you've listened to previous episodes, you know that I have two young sons who are seven and three and a half. Well, a little girl will be joining our family this summer. So, by the end of the year, I'll have three kids aged eight, four and a half, and a newborn. It's going to be a very fun and exciting year for sure.

This is why things have actually been very inconsistent with English with Gabby. My Instagram and TikTok comebacks were delayed, my YouTube channel comeback was delayed, the podcast has been very inconsistent with which days of the week they're coming out, and skipping weeks. You know, I was supposed to run another round of my [00:03:00] course, Real Life English, and all of that has been delayed because I was so sick during my first trimester.

In English, we say that pregnancy is in three trimesters. For any of you that have known a pregnant person — which is most of you — you probably know that the first three months, the first trimester, women get very, very sick. So I was very sick, sicker than with my previous two pregnancies.

So, my apologies, but I'm finally in my second trimester, feeling good, and so I will be able to bring back some consistency. I also was teaching a new class, and so I had to prepare. I used to teach at a wonderful school called Kaplan International here in New York City — an amazing school. I taught there full-time for 13 years, and last year I decided to leave [00:04:00] because I needed more time with my kids and more time to focus on English with Gabby. So now I teach at a university, and the schedule is a lot lighter. Normally, I only work two or three days a week, and it's only for a few hours a day.

But I had a new class, and it was a lot of preparation, so it was just a very chaotic start to 2025. Now things have calmed down a bit, thankfully. So, stay tuned for a lot of things that are happening — that were supposed to happen in January — but they'll be happening soon. Stay tuned.

For those of you who are parents, this episode will be very valuable to you because you'll be able to have more conversations in English about your family. For those of you who are not parents yet, or aren't even planning to be parents [00:05:00] in the future, this will still have a lot of value for you because new babies, pregnancy, kids, and parenting are such common topics. It's such a core part of all of our cultures. You know, we have friends in those situations, so many TV shows and movies touch on these topics. My hope is that this episode will help you become more confident speakers of English when it comes to family matters.

Today, you'll be learning 17 new phrasal verbs, slang words, and idioms. Let me tell you exactly which ones you'll be learning. I also decided to put a bonus word in there, so really you'll be learning 18. Here they are:

• Bun in the oven
• Expecting
• Settle down
• Knock up
• Baby bump
• Prego or preggers
• Ready [00:06:00] to pop
• Pop out
• Due date
• Have your water break
• To go into labor
• To deliver
• Act up
• Look after
• Grow up
• It takes a village
• Bring up
• Helicopter parent

Before I read you the story that has all of these words in context, I just want to remind you that there's a free study guide waiting for you that will help you remember everything you learned in this episode. It'll take you a bit deeper with practice exercises and more. To get that study guide, click the link in the episode description, and it'll give you instructions on what to do. Then, moving forward, you'll have access to the folder that has all of the study guides from every episode so that you can access them whenever you need them.

Okay, so let's get to the [00:07:00] story. I'm gonna read you the story that has all of these words in context. I want you to listen as I read the story and see if you can guess the meanings of the vocabulary based on the context. Okay? Here we go.

Nina was over the moon when she found out that she had a bun in the oven. She and her partner Carlos had decided just last year to settle down, but the news that she was expecting still came as a surprise.

"I guess we're really doing this," Carlos said, laughing nervously. "Looks like I knocked you up."

As the months passed, Nina's baby bump grew bigger and bigger. By her eighth month, she joked to her friends that she was prego and ready [00:08:00] to pop any day.

"I feel as big as a house, and I hope to pop this kid out soon," she groaned.

Her due date was quickly approaching, and everyone in her family was on high alert. One evening, while they were out for dinner, Nina suddenly gasped.

"I think my water broke," she said.

Carlos jumped up so fast that he knocked over his chair. They rushed to the hospital, where the nurse told Nina she was about to go into labor.

Hours later, after a lot of pushing and deep breaths, Nina finally delivered a healthy baby girl. Their daughter, Isabella, didn't take long to show her personality. She would act up when she was hungry or tired, crying loudly until someone came to look after her.

As Isabella grew up, Nina and Carlos realized that parenting was no easy task. It really does take a village to bring up a child, and they often relied on their parents and friends to help out.

Carlos, however, became a bit of a helicopter parent, constantly checking if Isabella was too cold, too hot, too bored.

"Relax," Nina said. "She's just playing with her toys."

Despite the sleepless nights and endless diaper changes, they loved every moment of watching their little girl grow. Parenthood was a wild ride, but they wouldn't trade it for anything.

The end.

Okay. Now, let's talk about what all of the new vocabulary means. Firstly, in this story, you heard multiple ways to refer to someone who is pregnant. So, [00:10:00] we're going to go through those first. First, we have the expression, "bun in the oven." A bun is a type of bread, and so we say, there's a bun baking in the oven. This is a playful way to say that someone is pregnant. This suggests that a baby is cooking in their mom's belly, which is the oven. So, for example, she has a bun in the oven and is due in November. The other way to say that someone is pregnant is to say that someone is "expecting." I know this is a little bit strange. I think this came from people saying that they were expecting a new baby, and people just stopped saying anything after "expecting." So now we say, she's expecting. I tell some people when I share the news, I say, "Oh, I'm [00:11:00] expecting."

Did you hear that my sister is expecting? Yes. Our first nephew will be here soon.

We also have the expression "knock up." Well, this is a phrasal verb: to knock up, to get knocked up, or to be knocked up. This is slang, and this is a slang word that means to get someone pregnant. This is very much used informally and humorously. So, men will say, "Yeah, I knocked her up," and women, like, I might tell my friends, "Guys, I got knocked up," and it's just a funny slang way of saying pregnant.

She was surprised to find out that she had been knocked up again.

Another way that we say that we're pregnant is "preggo" or "preggers." This is an informal, funny, light-hearted slang term for being pregnant. This is very often used among [00:12:00] friends in very casual conversations. For example, she told her friends that she's preggo once again. So, I might say to my friends, "Yeah, being preggo in the summer is tough," or, "Guess what, guys, I'm preggers." In New York City, we say "preggo" a lot before "preggers."

Next, in the story, we see that they decided to settle down. "To settle down"—we have talked about this in previous episodes—means to start living a more stable, quiet life. This typically involves marriage, buying a home, and having children—basically becoming more consistent in the future. For example, they decided to settle down and start a family.

Next up, we have the term "a baby bump." A baby bump is a slang term, and it's the noticeable growth of a pregnant woman's [00:13:00] belly. As the baby grows, the baby bump becomes more noticeable, typically starting in the second trimester. Her baby bump is getting bigger and bigger each week. For me, I have a tiny baby bump right now because I'm about four months pregnant, but by the time summer comes—oh boy—it'll be pretty big.

Next up, we have the expression "ready to pop." This means that someone is extremely close to giving birth. It's used to describe someone who's in the final stages of pregnancy and looks like they can give birth at any moment. She looks like she's ready to pop any day now.

On that same note, we have the phrasal verb "pop out." "Pop out" means to give birth. Usually, this is a humorous way, a casual way—this is [00:14:00] slang. Well, it's a phrasal verb, but it's also slang because it's very informal. So we say, "She can't wait to pop that baby out." She just really wants to give birth and have the baby come out.

Next up, we have the term "due date." We use the word "due." So, when I tell people I'm pregnant, they ask, "Oh, when are you due?" This is the expected date. So we say, "Oh, her due date is..." or "She's due..." and then you say when. This is the expected date that a pregnant woman is likely to give birth. Of course, this is almost never accurate. For some people, it is and it's amazing, but it's pretty rare.

Next up, we have "when your water breaks." You see this a lot in movies where there's a pregnant woman, and then you see like a gush of water just on the floor, and she's like, "Oh my gosh, my water broke!" [00:15:00] That's the expression "when your water breaks" because this is when the amniotic sac bursts. This signals the start of labor and that childbirth is approaching.

Then we have the term "go into labor." We call the process of having the baby "labor and delivery." "To go into labor" is the process of childbirth. When a woman's water breaks—sometimes the water doesn't break first, but contractions start. Contractions are the pain that women feel as the body prepares to deliver the baby. We call those contractions. And the whole process, we say "going into labor." So if you go to a hospital, we'll call it the "labor and delivery" [00:16:00] section.

Then next, we have the word "deliver." This means to give birth to a baby. This refers to the actual process of bringing the baby into the world. We would say, for example, "She delivered a healthy baby girl."

Next up, we have the phrasal verb "act up." This is when a child behaves badly. This child causes trouble, throws a tantrum, often seeking attention. We also actually use this for technology. So, "My computer is acting up. I have to go to the Apple Store because things are not functioning correctly." But specifically, in the context that we're using it today, it's when a child is acting badly. In the story, I used it a little bit differently, like whenever the baby acts up—meaning the baby's crying—which, technically, for a baby, they're not really acting badly. Normally, we use this [00:17:00] for older children who can more control their behavior.

Next up, we have another phrasal verb. This one is pretty popular, and it is "look after." "Look after" means to take care of someone, especially a child or an animal, or even maybe a sick relative. You do this by ensuring or making sure that their needs are met and that they're safe. They asked their parents to look after the baby for a while.

Next, we have "grow up." This means to gradually become older and more mature, both physically and hopefully emotionally. For example, we often say, "Oh, she's growing up so fast." "He's growing up so fast." "Oh, her kids, my grandkids, my nephews—they're all growing up so fast or so quickly."

Next [00:18:00] we have the term "it takes a village." This is a really common term for parenting, and this expression means that raising a child requires the support, the care, and the effort of an entire community or village—not just the parents. This is something we say often: it truly takes a village. My parents live a five-minute car ride away. All of our immediate family lives close to us, and it truly does take a village for us. Some cultures do this more or less, but it's a very common expression that we use.

Next up, we have another phrasal verb that's very common: "bring up." "Bring up" means to raise a child. This includes teaching them how to behave and helping them grow. A lot of students get confused between "grow up" and "bring up." So, "grow up" is something that you typically do yourself. You grow up—you become older and more mature. "Bring up" is something you do for someone else. We brought up my children in Brooklyn. Many people say, "Oh, where were you brought up?" "I was brought up in New York," or "I grew up in New York." So again, "grow up" is something that a person does themselves. "Bring up" is something that someone else does to a child.

For example, they're doing their best to bring up their daughter.

Next, we have a funny slang expression, and that is a helicopter parent. If you don't know what a helicopter is, a helicopter is a plane, a type of aircraft. It uses spinning wings [00:20:00] called blades. So it has a blade on top and usually one blade in back, but different types of helicopters can have different amounts of blades on the sides. But typically, the helicopter has open sides. It's used to transport medical patients, smaller groups of people.

So, a helicopter parent is a slang expression for a parent who is overly involved in their child's life. They're constantly monitoring and controlling their kids' activities, often in a very extreme way. Helicopter parents typically do not give their kids much freedom to do things without them.

For example, "He's such a helicopter parent, always hovering around his son." Hovering is like hanging around his son. We say that helicopters also hover — it means that they can fly above ground without really going too far.

I'm going to [00:21:00] add — I know that I started by saying 17 words. Really, you learned 18 because I added "to be expecting." But in the last sentence of the story, I said, "Parenting is a wild ride, but they wouldn't trade it for anything." So I want to teach you "a wild ride" because this is a really common idiom. It describes something that's exciting but also unpredictable — an experience full of ups and downs.

It's often used to describe marriage, parenting, graduate school, or maybe a crazy new job. So again, it's something that is super exciting but also very unpredictable. For example, "Parenthood has been a wild ride for them."

So, there you have it. You just learned [00:22:00] 19 new phrasal verbs, slang words, and idioms that will help you talk about parenting and pregnancy. I really hope that you enjoyed this episode, and I was really happy to share my baby news with all of you. It's going to be an exciting year! Thanks so much for tuning in. Don't forget to go grab your study guide.

Well, that's a wrap for today's episode of the Real Life English with Gabby podcast. Be sure to download today's study guide so that you can learn how to use this vocabulary confidently. If you enjoyed this episode, don't forget to subscribe for more weekly adventures in English learning. Also, I'd love to hear from you, so please leave me a review.

Thanks so much for tuning in.