My kids couldn’t be more different. At least when it comes to certain things. Jason is the quiet one who is a stickler for the rules. Ryan, on the other hand, tends to have a motor mouth, and while he doesn’t go around breaking rules left and right, he’s not quite the Hall Monitor that his big brother is.
So last night, my wife gets it in her head that she should teach our kids a few curse words. Before you start gasping and reaching for pitchforks, she’s not going around turning them into little George Carlins. She just wants them to be aware of them in case my kids overhear them, so they’ll know they’re bad words.
As she starts saying the first one, the dreaded “S” word, Jason covers his ears and screams, “Don’t say it! I don’t want to know!” See, curse words are bad, so he doesn’t even want to know what they are.
Ryan, on the other hand, must’ve said, “What is it again?” about 10 times. He kept asking my wife to repeat it. And each time she did, Jason would cover his ears and scream again. It was truly one of the more ridiculous moments in my life.
She then gave them a second curse word. And I was about to interfere, thinking she was going to drop an “F” bomb for some reason. But no, she just told them about the word “Ass.” And again, the same reaction from both kids. Ryan kept trying to say them, so we’d scream at him that he’s not allowed. He even came into our room later that night and mouthed the two words to make sure he had it right.
I looked at my wife. Her eyes widened, and she merely muttered, “What have I done?”
Did you teach your kids curse words so they wouldn’t start saying them?
Photo via Go Retro!
Wow, they should come live in my house for a week. Mind you I’m a nice Christian lady, but!!! There are times I let it fly. I’m sorry to say I didn’t have to teach my kids. Am I a bad mom? Be very thankful indeed they don’t know them, believe me soon enough in our society or on tv they will hear them.
Hah. Hey, Kim. It’s tough being an adult sometimes, isn’t it? All this self-censoring we need to remember to do. 🙂
Thats funny. I’ve never used curse words bcos it was strictly not allowed in my home, but I always use it in my head.
Hey, Phileo. Good thing your parents couldn’t read minds, right?
My oldest used the S word few months ago. My wife called him on it and his response was “Mommy, I’m growing up.” Couldn’t help but laugh, but then again I’m sure he learned it from listening to me anyway.
Enjoying the blog, Andrew….say hi to Allison for me
Hey, Andy! Great to hear from you! How old is your oldest? That totally sounds like something my younger son would say.
Oh man, that made me laugh!
That’s what I’m here for!
Fun!
I grew up without any word barriers, and I think it was a good thing, as long as the rest of the society around me didn’t care about bad words as well. In America, though, people care, so I must be careful with my kids. When a kid over a certain age starts saying “bad” words, it comes to represent his education, his class, his manners… But really, it’s just words.
Thanks for the comment. Where did you grow up? And I agree, it is just words, but words unfortunately can be pretty powerful.
I grew up in Israel.
I agree that words have power, but I also think bad words have power because we give them that power. Don’t get me wrong, I don’t use bad words around my kids (not too much, anyway), because they live in a place where these words are powerful, but most countries aren’t as obsessed as the US is with words and with censorship, and you don’t see anarchy there.