I failed completely to censor in front of my kids, and sincerely hope they're successful in not swearing in front of people who'd mind. I think they're okay, but it's hard to know.
It's not so bad. The mom in the commercial is actually pretty adorable.
Whoa: the actress:
Melissa Mohr has recently been dividing her time between writing a book about swearing and hiding it from her kids. She received a Ph.D. in English Literature from Stanford University, specializing in Medieval and Renaissance literature. She lives in Somerville, Massachusetts.
Good for her!
I failed completely to censor in front of my kids, and sincerely hope they're successful in not swearing in front of people who'd mind. I think they're okay, but it's hard to know.
My parents were remarkably good at it, to the extent I don't think I ever heard them swear except in pain (and rarely even then). Yet I'm an inveterate swearer in inappropriate circumstances. I don't think it's an inherited trait.
Cassandane swears in front of Atossa more than I do and I occasionally complain about it, but not much. Really, she hears a lot worse on the bus or sidewalk. I'm worried about what's going to happen when she picks up the N-word. That'll probably happen within the next year.
It's just such an intrusive collaboration that we all feel semi-burdened by, so that teachers don't get yelled at by other parents who don't want to discuss scatology and sex with their kids.
That's pretty glib - it's obnoxious to hear your kid rattle of a string of swear words. But the knowledge of the swear words should not be a big deal.
When Tatsu was three and Hitsuji a couple of months old, we were all cosleeping. I'd had a broken night with the baby and had just got back to sleep at about 5 when the cat came yowling and scratching at the door. I rolled out of bed, opened the door, picked up the cat and slung her bodily down the stairs, then crawled back into the futon muttering (I thought sotto voce) "I'll kill that fucking cat."
My movements had woken Hitsuji, who started to cry. Then from my other side came a cute little toddler's voice:
"I'll kill that fucking baby."
My kids are tic-like with the swear words - not clinically, but not hyperbolically, either - and it is pretty annoying. (Pokey has a tendency to just ramble "fuck fuck duck suck fuck fuck fuck fluck tuck fuck..." while staring out the window or something.)
Just sit down and watch Deadwood with your kids.
8 is fantastic. We freely swear in front of the kids, and I swear at them. They continue to think "stupid" is just about the worst thing you can say, so whatever.
Swearing is like drinking. You should have to earn by existing for fifteen to twenty years.
Ace, in her daycare circa age 2, was told to stop saying "what the heck!" which I've since picked up from her and find kind of hilarious to say, and Hawaii, in a different class circa age 5, was told not to say, "What the!" which Lightning McQueen says a lot, and was going around the class.
My stepdaughter once said, "I fucking love the New Adventures of Winnie the Pooh!" It struck me that no one else could say that sentence without the slightest hint of irony.
When people say "I fucking love science," I get a little nervous because among the things produced by science is the fucksaw.
I fucking saw science. And it blinded me.
I happened to mention to my mother-in-law that I swear like a sailor, and she was surprised. I told her that, obviously, I wasn't going to swear in front of her!
My son is always giving us shit for swearing in front of him.
I have probably told this story before, but one of my kid's first words was fuck. She was playing adorably with her blocks on the floor one day while my mother was visiting us and she just matter-of-factly said, "Fuck, fuck, fuck."
"Oh, look," my mother said. "She's playing trucks."
She also (my kid, not my mother) sat down on an inflated balloon one day, when she was about 19 months old. It exploded under her butt and she looked at me in startled amazement and said, with perfect intonation, "Christ!"
Later, when she reached the age of reason, we struck a deal, such that she couldn't swear until she was 15. That lasted until she was 12, as I recall. But at least she (MOSTLY*) doesn't swear at school.
(Mostly: last week she got in trouble in Crafts class because she said too loudly that her current project looked shitty.)
8 is the greatest parenting story of all time.
My son (who is younger) curses all the time. He has managed to get his older sister to pick up the habit. I never curse unless I just mashed my toe into the wall or something, and my wife curses occasionally. So basically, it's our reward for not homeschooling.
3- We know her, our kids went to preschool together, the fucking rug rat pant-shitters.
In 5th grade gym, I was tagged out in a few rounds of some game, and said "Damn..." and another time said, "aw, shoot." The gym teacher brought me in front of the class and berated me for swearing, and I defended myself by telling how I'd said shoot, not shit, not realizing he was referring to the "damn."
The worst thing my parents ever said in front of me as a young kid was "beans and balderdash!" I've only ever heard it from the two of them.
Also I don't think those are her kids in the ad, although I haven't seen them since they were really young, and I don't recall her having a third.
I do not swear in front of the nephew. He's at repeating stage, anyway. All of the seriously strong language I use is stuff like "in trouble", "time out", and "bad boy". He often gives his Thomas trains time outs as well. He makes them do naughty, un-trainlike things like go off the track and then sends them to their shed. He rules Sodor with an iron fist.
Topham Hat is a sadist. Did you see what he did to James?
I nearly got expelled from a Catholic high school after saying "fuck you" to the lunch lady, who had demanded that I pour out the drink I had paid for rather than taking it with me to a lunchtime geometry test I couldn't reschedule (annoying, but not that terrible of her). After taking about five steps away, I decided that was not a cross worth dying on, went back, and apologized. It seemed that this spontaneous apology saved me from expulsion, but I was suspended for a week from school. Among other punishments meted out at this school: the son of the head of the board of trustees reportedly put a cherry bomb in a toilet and blew it up into the ceiling for laffs, for which he was given half a day's in-school suspension. But you couldn't drop the f-bomb on the lunchroom staff.
(Mind you, the toilet bomb story is hearsay and I was a complete asshole as a young teenager. I remember my history teacher pulling me out of class after I'd stood up to yell at a misbehaving classmate, and hissing at me: "Look, you're getting an A! Why do you care what these idiots do? Calm down and shrug it off already." It was decent of him.)
OT: I'm at robber baron u. The restroom has a sign saying "employees must wash hands." When did that rule spread to non-food service employees? And does it cover graduate students with fellowships but not actual jobs?
11: Selah also thinks "stupid" is the worst thing a person can say, but uses it well. "I stupid TOLD YOU I wasn't going to stupid do that stupid thing, Mommy!"
8 made me laugh out loud.
And I DO sometimes swear like a drunken sailor in the privacy of my own home. And I DO feel absurdly guilty about this.
My mother never actually swore (or not in front of us, at any rate) with actual four-letter curse words. But she had some standard expressions of exasperation which, if we're being really strict, involved 'taking the Lord's name in vain' (and also the names of a few saints).
My mother: "Well, Jesus, Mary, and Joseph!"
Me: "Mum, you're swearing."
My mother: "I'm not swearing: I'm praying."
I like the Kraft Dinner ad.
I used to try to not swear in front of the kids. But often failed. And now don't give a shit.
The adult offspring both swear freely when at home. Kid C (16) doesn't really swear much in front of us, although presumably he does when with his friends. Kid D always looks very embarrassed when she accidentally swears, which is very funny - I'll be sad when she doesn't care any more.
I swore at my son the other day. He had literally just tried to bite my ankle at the time, though.* My wife was still annoyed at me for having sworn, though.
I swear much less now than when I was younger. I'm from the 'swearing as punctuation' part of Scotland.** The more bourgeois I get, the less I swear.
* tantrum.
** I've never seen the density of swearing reproduced in films, even when they try to be gritty. I expect the same is true for lots of other parts of the UK.
8 is so wonderful, the guys loved it too (dramatic reading at dinner), hi from all of us back in SF, Ume!!! The kid hits the boards again this afternoon, there will be body percussion we are told.
And paging Lizardbreath - read a Catherine Fox novel (Acts and Omissions) on flight home and laughed so hard almost caused alarm to companions, have you read anything by her? Loving homage to the Barchester Chronicles, updated to contemporary fictional cathedral close. Ultra niche, inside CoE baseball humor, suspect you might really enjoy her.
My parents swore like crazy -- I think it came from their workplace culture -- although my mother was notably artless about it (I still remember her calling my father "bastard butt" once during an argument, which I now cannot say out loud without giggling.)
I didn't pick it up from them but then in my own pre-science working life became very sweary and what's irritating is that now my mother has decided she's anti-swearing and every visit home features constant monitoring of my language for words I learned from her in the first place.
I always wonder about swearing in front of kids, because I've retained the tendency and it turns out to be hard to predict which of my friends mind. On the other hand I often spend Sundays at the pub with some friends who bring their 5 year old; the father inevitably becomes drunk and loud and inappropriate in a way that was huge fun before the kid but now makes me feel uncomfortable. I mean, they're generally good parents, the kid shrugs it off, and hey, it's not my kid anyway, but if it were, I can't imagine tolerating that.
8 is indeed awesome.
I just spent 48 hours on a silent retreat at G M Hopkins old seminary and I didn't say "fuck" once. Do I get points?
15. Tonstant Weader fucking fwowed up.
36. George MacDonald Fraser remarked in his war memoir that his working class comrades seldom if ever actually swore; they were divided between those who never uttered taboo words and those who peppered their conversation with swear words as punctuation, but without any malice or even meaning.
those who peppered their conversation with swear words as punctuation, but without any malice or even meaning.
Definitely some truth in that.
37: Haven't -- I'll look her up.