RAISING CAIN
My Kids Swear, and I’m Okay With It
Growing up, I never got to experience what it was like to have my mouth washed out with soap.
My husband had that pleasure, as did plenty of my friends who are also my age (40s). Maybe my sister and I didn’t really swear that much in the presence of our parents, or maybe they didn’t notice when we did. Frankly I don’t remember my parents swearing with unusual frequency, either.
Nowadays, I swear a lot. My husband swears a lot too, and his favorite is ‘God dammit.’ I like to say ‘what the fuck’ or ‘what the actual fuck.’ Sometimes I say these things in front of my six and eight-year-olds because my lizard brain likes to kick my rational brain to the wayyy back of my consciousness whenever my emotions kick into overdrive, which is quite often. I’m not necessarily proud of the fact that I swear in front of my children, but I don’t feel like it’s the worst thing in the world, either. Maybe I am just a terminally flawed human with a very faulty off switch in my brain.
When my kids were even younger and would parrot us, we would double over laughing. There is just something so damn funny and cute about small children using very foul language, is there not? And when they used the words correctly I couldn’t help but feel an overwhelming sense of pride. “Hey at least they’re using it right,” we’d look at each other and say before half heartedly attempting to reprimand them for something they had zero concept of.
My eight year old recently asked me why certain words are considered “bad.” We googled it and found some unsatisfactory explanations based in etymology, sociology, linguistics and anthropology, so I concluded that at the end of the day it’s somewhat arbitrary — and people can assign whatever meaning they want to words. At the end of the day, words are just words with some notable exceptions. If my kids ever used hurtful or hateful language, I would have a very different reaction, and very different conversations would follow. What I’m referring to here is a somewhat limited list of common “four-letter” words.
So after our research, we came up with some strange rules in our house around swearing. My kids are allowed to say “crap” and “dammit” when they are at home and no friends are over. At first this was novel and exciting and they used the two words whenever the opportunity arose, which was shockingly frequent, but eventually the novelty wore off and the words didn’t elicit the same kind of excitement. So they did what kids do, and pushed the envelope by asking if they could drop F bombs and say the “S-H word” and I said no. They grumbled and pressed me on it and I asked them if they wanted to lose the “privilege” of saying “crap” and “dammit.” They dropped it and decided to be happy with the two bad words we deemed acceptable.
To date, these strange rules haven’t been terribly problematic.
My kids know not to say these words at school.
They know not to say them when friends are over, especially younger kids. We talk very openly and honestly about swearwords and I don’t feel that I’m in a position to tell them no you can’t swear, when I do it all the fucking time. I love swearing. I love saying them and I love writing them. I think they can punctuate a feeling or thought oh so perfectly. I also find it liberating and cathartic. Perhaps there are other equally cathartic outlets out there, but I really enjoy swearing.
Will I be positively mortified the day one of my sweet cherubs slips up during a playdate and drops an F bomb in the presence of another child’s parents? Absolutely! Well, it depends on the company, to be honest. But there are worse things, are there not? My kids are generally good kids. They’re not bullies and they are kind and compassionate to those who live outside of our home. If they use a bad word from time to time, what’s the true harm?
Our kids will inevitably sit on their therapist’s couch one day for a long list of reasons, 88% pointing to my husband and me, but it’s unlikely they’ll sit there and say, if only my parents didn’t let me swear so damn much…
Maybe I’m a truly terrible parent.
But maybe we should all let our kids swear.
Maybe we shouldn’t sweat the small stuff… and what matters in the end is that we do our best to raise good and kind humans who share their crayons and ask the new kid to play at recess. The rest as they say, is a mother fucking wash.
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