The Queen Mother of All Swear Words

So, tonight I’m in the kitchen putting together dinner while Trophy Husband wrestles around in the living room with Thing One and Thing Two. They are wild as all get-out, and getting to the point in the playtime when someone is either going to get hurt or get mad. There is a lot of funny name-calling – some of our family favorites being “chicken punk” and “toot head” and I don’t hear exactly what is going on for most of it, but suddenly I hear the loud and clear call of my husband, beckoning me to the living room. And he’s using the Father Voice, not the Daddy one.

“Your son just said a very, uh, inappropriate word.”

For those who have sat through hours and hours of The Christmas Story marathon that is on television every year, you are no doubt familiar with The Queen Mother of All Swear Words? Yep. My sweet little six year old boy tested the boundaries of acceptable language by dropping an F-Bomb.

Now, my husband was floored because he didn’t know where Thing One had picked up this little gem, but I remembered an experience a few months ago when we had our first discussion of Very Bad Words.

Thing One and I were out with another child who was just old enough to be able to read anything she saw, including crude words spray-painted on public garbage cans. She is a touch precocious, so when she saw the graffiti she made a big deal about knowing it was a Very Bad Word, and of course the more I tried to minimize it, the more she tried to maximize it. So, in order to avoid her explaining all of the nuances surrounding this particular Very Bad Word to Thing One while they were off playing by themselves later, I took a deep breath and jumped right in.

“Thing One, some words are not meant to be used by children. If you walked around saying F$#@ to people, they would not know what a sweet, intelligent, and wonderful boy you are. They would assume you were bad. They wouldn’t let their kids play with you.”

It didn’t totally satisfy Thing One, but it shocked the heck out of the other child to hear such a direct explanation that included use of the actual Very Bad Word. And really? My point was to send a message to her as much as him. This was not to be discussed later when Mommy wasn’t around.

And somehow, the subject never came back up. Until tonight. Tonight the playing went from rambunctious to rowdy, and the language crept from Chicken Punk to Idiot to F#$%. And tonight during The Talk, he was much more inquisitive.

“What does it mean?”
“Why is it a bad word?”
“What makes it a bad word?”
“How old do I have to be to say it?”

Whoa.

Well, I’m not going to lie. My main concern is that he not go say it to any of his friends at school or in the neighborhood, especially the ones whose mommies are becoming my friends. If I have to go back to being The New Mom walking to the park alone every morning, or not having anyone to drink wine with after yoga, I might just go insane. So I lay it on as thick as I can, all the while trying to sound calm and cool-mommy, so he won't just shut down and stop talking to us.

“Thing One, if you went to New Friend In The Neighborhood’s house and used that word, their Mommy and Daddy wouldn’t let you play with their children anymore.”

“Using ugly words does NOT make you look like a grown up, it makes you look like a kid with bad parents.”

“If we hear you using that word again, we’d have to take away lots of privileges, like television or even playing football this summer. We can’t let you go be around other kids if you’re going to teach them bad things.”

And it is definitely one of the times that being a Christian comes in handy. Because whenever I am at a loss for how to explain something, I use my favorite stand-by: “Because that’s the way God made it.” And I had to say it because I don’t really know why the F word is Very Bad, but Crap is only Kind of Bad. And why don’t we let him say ‘stupid’ or ‘shut up’? And aren’t there words we use all the time that have uglier meaning that these? War? Murder? Cancer? Diet?

So, I probably handled it all wrong, and what I did say probably assures that he teaching New Friend In The Neighborhood this new tidbit as we speak, but I am hoping other parents won't hold it against us. Because if there is one thing I really hate, it's drinking wine alone.