This post could step on some toes, but Iâm just going to say it â I donât like foul language. As in, I donât use it. I think it has a lot to do with what I discussed in my post Dignity.
And as much as I donât like it, my thirteen year old canât stand it. The other night I said, âWhat the heckâŚâ and all heck broke loose. âMom, you already say âcrap,â now this is just too much.â
Sheesh, I didn’t realize I was such a potty mouth.
When I was growing up the âShâ word meant âshut upâ and the âFâ word was âfart.â And I’ve kept it that way in my own home, although fart has moved into the âacceptableâ language realm. Just donât say it around my mother.
My seven year old is, of course, totally concerned with what is and is not appropriate to say. At least once a day we discuss words that may or may not be “bad.”
âMom, can I say âoh my?â Mom, is âyikesâ a bad word?â
The word stupid gets brought to the table quite often. Is stupid a bad word? Well, not technically, but like guns, it all depends on how you use it. Occasionally, âstupidâ gets back on the list of words they can say but it rarely lasts five minutes before somebody done called somebody stupid and, just like that, âstupidâ is once again off the table and back on the list of bad words.
English is a second language for all four of my children, so the discussion of what words are âbadâ happens a lot around here. Of course I donât use âbad languageâ at home but they still hear it in school and on TV so they are often confused about what is and is not appropriate to say.
The other day my thirteen year old and ten year old were discussing the word âdammitâ and if it was a âbad wordâ or not. I explained the origin and clearly emphasized that it was on the âbadâ list. Letâs fast forward to the next day while I am standing with the five year olds and their moms outside of school waiting to go into Pre-K. You know where this is going⌠My little P decides to hop across the center walk way and very loudly proclaim, âDAMMIT!â for no reason at all.
Mortified
Appalled
Ashamed
The fact is, I was more concerned with what others would think of me as a mother than why my little one said that. Sigh.

Little Stinker
PS: She was, of course, immediately corrected and set back on the straight and narrow.Â
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