No, this is the thing: it’s perfectly normal in the UK too. It may well have been American originally, but calling children “kids” has been common in Britain for about a century, now; certainly longer than a number of other words and phrases that have crossed the Atlantic since, and which no-one thinks twice about. It’s a casual, informal usage, sure, but I’m of the mind that anyone who objects to any informality at all probably does, indeed, have a stick up their arse.
Wait a second–there’s NO Crisco in the UK? 
I don’t know about the UK, but I’m in Ireland and ‘kids’ is totally normal usage here among my generation (the generation that actually has little kids).
I have no idea what Crisco is, though.
Fair enough. The fact that the author mentioned her parents picked up the usage in Canada and specifically mentioned that the word was perceived as an Americanism in the UK lead me to believe otherwise, but I will take your word for it.
If this is a whoosh on me, it’s a damn good one and I’m prepared to take my lumps.
Crisco is a brand of shortening and the earlier phrase “…you do not like shortening names or words,” could mean she doesn’t like the brand name Crisco. It was meant to be a joke (a play on words), but I’m not going to further hi-jack this thread by asking what they use for shortening in the UK.
(What DO they use for shortening in the UK?)
I think it’s a silly, arbitrary thing to fuss about. It’s been a normal informal usage for probably a century or more, and if you have a prescriptivist leaning, it probably has as much etymological claim on being the “right” word as “child”, being from O.E. “cild”, which in turn was from “kiltham” (more or less). The parallel with German “kind” might also be a consideration.
Plus, it follows standard pluralization, instead of the etymological boondoggle that is “children”. 
*You *may have “kids”, but I have blessed offspring.
Just kidding. She’s 30 now, but she’s always my kid.
Lard, vegetable shortening… the usual stuff. Crisco is apparently available in some places (Tesco has it, it seems, but I don’t shop there, so I’ve never seen it), but it’s nothing like as well-known here as it is in the US.
I call anyone who could be under 50 years old a kid. Now get the Hell out of my yard! 
Thanks, WotNot, good cultural exchange. But someone was supposed to say, Go away, KID, ya bother me.
I kid; that’s what I do. 
“I don’t like shortening names or words.”
It’s a shame that Stell and Hel can’t get on the kidlet bandwagon. That way, they wouldn’t have to clutch their pearls so tightly.
Children? What horrible kind of modern mother would refer to them as children? Bryly Khrystyne and Spartacus Nottinghamshirehave actual names you know.
My kids are angelic bundles of joy, but yours are rotten, spoiled brats.
Stella and Helen are grups.
Let me put it this way: I speak English, and I call “kids” “kids”. Which is now, at this source, listed as Definition #1:
So (aside from the parallel with German “kind”) why do we call kids kids? Why not lambs, or foals, or pups, or calves? I think “larvae” works well.
ETA: And Crisco is just a shortening of “one Brand Name for vegetable oil artificially hydrogenated to become artery-clogging transfat”.
Actually, some people might think you sounded gay, and I mean that in the literal sense of being homosexual. Not that there’s anything wrong with that. Not a thing. You’d just be miscommunicating.
I hate “bro” too.
I think it does come from “kind.” Or from Yiddish “Kindleh.” (Kindelach, plural.) And I know lots of people who call children lambs and pups.
I used to be okay with it, but living in Thailand I’ve come to dislike the word “kid” except for baby goats. The Thais find it extremely difficult to say “child” or “children,” so they say “kid” instead (never with an S on the end), except it comes out “kit.” “Kid” is enough on the slang side that you should not use it in formal writing, but they think it’s not slang at all and so use it even then. Gets a little tiring.
And anyway baby goats are cool as hell.