A few weeks ago, one of my fellow Sisters in Song* burst into rehearsal with the proclamation, “You guys, I’m the worst parent ever,” and proceeded to pull out her phone.
*An all-women’s vocal music ensemble, we’ve been together since 2018. We think.
You may be thinking, “I wonder what was on that phone!” or perhaps, “There is no way to tell what she was going to show you!” but you would be wrong. As all Parents With a Sense of Humor know, there is only one situation that combines the horror/delight reaction of this friend’s show-and-tell: kids swearing.
Sure enough, our little group was treated to the moving image of her oldest son (3) in a full rant about his little brother (1) taking his favorite toy car. Excuse me: his FUCKING car. This sweet, blonde cherub of a child is clearly and repeatedly declaring that his brother, “took my FUCKING car” (his emphasis was exquisite) and as his mother showed us this video with a mixture of pride and shame that is unique to these occurrences, the rest of us were doubled over with maniacal giggles. Because there is nothing more hilarious than when children swear.
If you don’t agree with me, there is at least one of three things going on:
You have never encountered a child swearing. Please go to your social media platform of choice and search, “kids swearing.” Make sure you have a chunk of time and have used the facilities before you begin.
You are a Parent Without a Sense of Humor. Don’t worry, you will develop one when you let yourself breathe and realize that children are tiny humans who will constantly and consistently embarrass you throughout their lives, and it is rarely a reflection on your parenting skills. (Sometimes it is. But that’s generally also funny.)
You think swearing is evil. I can’t help you there. Well, I could go off on a rant about how words are just words until society decides there’s something wrong with them and that intention is what makes a curse word threatening not the words themselves, but nobody wants me to do that.
Nearly every parent I’ve talked to has had the experience of a child pulling out a magnificent swear an a perfectly inopportune moment, and realizing that said child is merely repeating what they had heard uttered in the car/kitchen/sporting event the previous day. Children are incredible mimics — which is why they are such incredible learners… pay our teachers! — and as parents, we are their example of how to act in the world. Fortunately, parents are (by and large) human, and have a tendency to make big, whopping errors in how we comport ourselves. I say “fortunately” because it would be a tragedy if children were raised by people who never made mistakes. How do we learn to make-and-then-correct our mistakes if we are not given a model of how to do so?
Ohhhhh I can hear you… “Susie, you said that curse words aren’t inherently bad so why are you equating using them with making a mistake?” WELL, I WILL TELL YOU. We tried very hard not to curse in front of our kids before their brains could develop enough for The Lesson. The Lesson is this: We use different language depending on the circumstance. The Minnesota Academic Standards English Language Arts K-12 require that teachers instruct students to be able to:
Differentiate between contexts that call for formal English (e.g., presenting ideas) and situations where informal discourse is appropriate (e.g., small-group discussion); use formal English when appropriate to task and situation.
Now, you could point out that this particular standard is deeply slanted toward white culture and you would be right. But I’m just addressing cursing at the moment, and none of us want our kids to drop an F bomb in school. That is universal, I believe.
There is definitely an age cutoff for this particular phenomenon. In fact, the sweet swear spot is rather narrow. Most kids don’t start saying words that are recognizable to the wider public until 2 or 3, and I can tell you from experience that when the 6-7 year old swears at you it is not amusing. Early Childhood is the ticket — go find all of your friends and acquaintances with preschool kids, and ENJOY.
The age cutoff is extended on one condition. I only discovered this two years ago, when our household adopted a new member: Jane the Cat. Jane brought with her a level of chaos our family had not seen for many a year, and my son (12 at the time) responded accordingly:
Son: “She’s a hellraiser!”
Me: “Excuse me?!”
Son: “Oh, it’s just a saying. Like, ‘I’ll be damned!’”
I don’t usually include the comment section when I give you a Peek into Facebook Past, but my friends were too on top of this outburst not to share:
Friend 1: “Is he secretly an old man?”
Friend 2: “I bet he yells at the neighborhood kids to get off his lawn!”
Friend 3: “Wait ‘til he starts saying, ‘Hells Bells!’”
It turns out, as long as the curses are old-timey, they are always good for a laugh. So go ahead and teach your kids to say, “By the double-barrelled jumping jiminetty!”
It will serve them their whole lives long.
Thanks for reading.
Love, Susie
Really @#$%^%$# funny!