Why we are changing our name to New Kids in the House.

Our journey started in 2016 when we organized playgroups and sewing workshops for refugees. Two years later we founded a company and worked together with friends we made in those early days. We chose our name because of what we experienced in that time when so many new people came to our neighborhood: “New Kids in the Hood”. And of course we liked the pun on the legendary nineties boy group “New Kids on the Block”.

It’s now 2020 and we’ve learned a lot. For example that words are crucial. When we chose the expression “in the Hood” we didn’t research it a lot and we didn’t ask ourselves where it came from—or more importantly whom it came from. It was just part of our pop cultural vocabulary and we thought we were using it the right way.

“In the Hood” is the act of being in the ghetto, according to the Urban Dictionary (one source of many that say the same). It’s a term coined by black Americans and people of color and it’s mostly known through the movie “Boyz in da Hood”—a story about gang violence and the struggle to survive in the poorer neighborhoods of south central L.A..

When the first negative reactions to our name popped up this summer we didn’t get it. Then we talked to people and learned about systemic racism and felt more and more uncomfortable. Trivializing the hard life people have “in the Hood” by misappropriating language for our branding is offensive and racist. We are sorry for that.

We want to be an inclusive brand. A brand for families from diverse cultural backgrounds. A brand that is respectful to people and their way of living. That’s why we are changing our name to “New Kids in the House”. From now on we will use “New Kids in the House” on all our products and in our communication. Starting in 2021 we will also rename the company.

We wish you all the best and we hope you like our new name as much as we do.

Sarah & Florian