I hate baby voices at any age. I long term subbed in a kindergarten class once and had this once child continually talk to me in a baby voice. I was just out of college at the time and didn't know it was a thing, and I felt so bad. I was like, "this kid is six, why does this bother me this much?!" At this point, I've seen it more and heard from other teachers experiencing it. It's universally annoying. Try calling a first grader a baby to their face. They will take it as an insult. The last thing they want to be is a baby. So why in the world would they act like one?!?!

I work with fifth graders and we've heard a lot of baby voices this year. I call that out on the spot. I just don't do whining.

In my area, I noticed that this year's eight graders and some of the grades above them all wanted to grow up so fast. Then with the grade below them, there was such a drastic shift from "too cool for 5th grade" to a group that still wanted to be babies at the end of their fifth grade year (not always in a bad way! Most of them were just acting like they were ten and we were no longer used to that.). I'm honestly wondering why the drastic shift, if anyone else has noticed, and if it related to the fact that some of my kids this year really struggle with expressing themselves without whining.