I’m actually fairly horrified that both of my kids have learned swears as a result of my foul mouth. I don’t react excessively, and I do the “adult word” thing, but it makes me sad that I couldn’t keep from swearing in front of them.
Heh - we had Thanksgiving dinner with our two young nephews on Monday, and we hear coming from the basement where they were playing, “Jesus Christ, Logan…” (Logan being the younger of the two). Yeah, my eight-year-old nephew is quite fluent in “blue,” apparently. I don’t make huge efforts to not swear in front of any of my nieces or nephews (from four to 13 years old); I try not to use the heavy hitters in front of them, but I don’t use them much, anyway. I don’t really care one way or another about kids swearing in front of me; my concern would be as others have said, that they default to swearing instead of developing a good vocabulary. They’re going to have trouble in my family if they don’t have an extensive vocabulary to keep up with the rest of us. 
And hugs ensued - positive reinforcement - right?
I agree. I’ve never held that cursing is the sign of a limited mind, although there are plenty of people who suffer from a paucity of words, and must only use swear words. I pity them. I did what others have done here: mostly I didn’t swear when the kids were smaller. I told them when I did swear that they were grown up words and I never thought it was “cute” when they let one rip–just a civil reminder to not use those words. None of them swear much, but they know all the words. I’m not worried–they learned the appropriateness of them and that’s the key.
I can just see Lil WhyNot, brow furrowed, saying vehemently, “infwoowiating!”
IntelSoldier, I love your take on swearing. It’s all about communication and perception. I will be using this logic on my nieces and nephews.
my parents never really swore around me but I learned it form other kids at school regardless, just as every other kid is going to do. Swearing is something that is impossible to shelter your kids from.
That said, my parents always told me never to swear at home. That when I was with my friends I could talk how I wanted, but I needed to learn how to control my speech because if I ever walked into, say, an office for an interview and started dropping F-bombs (or even just saying “like”) every other word people would think I was an idiot and I’d never get hired. (which paid off cause now I’m an English teacher in Japan and my kids will mimic anything I say. The other day I stubbed my toe on something in class and pulled a “ahh holy SHHHHHhhh…map?” and now that class thinks “shmap” is an English swear word, hehe)
IMO that, more than the risk of offending people, is why it’s more important to teach your kids to restrain themselves when it comes to swearing.
I like your style too, IntelSoldier.
I’m not a parent but it makes me really embarassed when I accidentally swear in front of a kid, especially if I’m in public and around kids I don’t know. I reeeeally hate swearing at the ballpark, because everyone is sitting on top of each other. It makes me have to be more clever with my shouting, though
I also hate when I’m in public and someone I’m with swears loud enough for kids to hear. I don’t want to call attention to it so I can’t say anything, I just sink down into my chair.