I agree with Kalhoun and most of what Monstro said. I’ll just add that when kiddoeaddi (now 19) does let fly, I expect her to be colorful, creative and gramatically correct.
I also wanted to add that “gay”, “retarded”, and racist terms are not allowed, and will get the kids in more hot water than regular ol’ curse words.
One day when I was about sixteen I said “Shit!” in front of my dad and he looked at me and said something like, “I guess you’re old enough to say that, aren’t you?” His little girl was growing up, after all, or something like that.
Otherwise I don’t remember it ever being an issue, though I don’t remember swearing around my parents much, if at all, before that. I don’t remember swearing much at school before that, either. I guess I was a late bloomer.
There’s the difference with my son. He’ll say it, then look around to see if he gets away with it (hope he never takes up poker, he has no poker face). Being cruel, I’ll feed him a little rope and see just how much of a noose he wishes to tie. I don’t say anything. Sure enough, every time, almost always within 15-20 minutes, he’ll try again. What he says in school, amongst his friends, is his own business. I’ve been there, seen that, done that, and got the t-shirt to prove it. It’s not done at home; it shouldn’t be done in the presence of any authority figures.
Yer goddamned right, I curse like a mother-fucking sailor!
My son joined the Navy earlier this year and he told me that he’d always thought my “I learned to swear in the Navy” excuse was weak. But now that he’s been in the Navy he knows what I meant – sailors do have terrible mouths on them! My husband is an exception – he did 26 years in the Navy, 12 years enlisted and the rest commissioned and he rarely swears at all. No tattoos, either.
Bus kid is going on 20, and to this day, won’t swear in front of me. When she was a kid, when I let loose in front of her, I’d follow with “just hear that, don’t say it”.
Exceptions are of course made when driving. When she was young, she often heard that certain words were “driving words”. So of course, one day when she was 3, she’s riding in my parent’s driveway in her little plastic scooter/car. The neighbor boy got in the way on his tricycle, so she honked her horn and said “get out of the way asshole”.
And guess who got blamed?
Nowadays, the worst you can get of her mouth is “jerkface”.
Yes.
I teach my son that they are just words. I further teach him that there are situations where it’s probably not a good idea not to say them.
It goes like this:
ME: Truck
7 YEAR OLD SON: Ooooo. YO SAID THE F WORD!!! UMMMM AHHH!!
ME: NO, I SAID ‘TRUCK’, NOT ‘FUCK’.
As long as he knows the social limits of various words, I’m not going to shield him from them.,
My sixteen year old isn’t allowed to say certain words, although we tease each other all the time with the words “whore” and “lesbian”. I don’t know how this started, but it’s all lighthearted fun. She wouldn’t dare use a cuss word in a negative way. I never really stated that she wasn’t allowed, but it’s always been understood.
I do know that when she writes in her journal she cusses like a sailor. I have no problem with this.
I cursed in front of my mother one time in the 26 years we lived together. This was while I was in labor and I was begging anyone to give me some mf’ing drugs. 
Our daughter will be 18 in a couple weeks. She has been cussing at home for a LONG time. We really don’t have a problem with it. We’ve never heard her use ‘f**k’, and I made it clear that I didn’t want to EVER hear the word ‘God’ before or after anything that was a curse word. She’s abided by that rule to this day.
Sigh - my children won’t let me swear. I remember pushing a stroller through ten centimeters of newly fallen snow, wind and snow blowing in my face, two children (um, 1 and 3? 2 and 4?) in the stroller, and I let off a “faens drittvær!” which corresponds more or less to “fucking damn weather” in severity (if not in literal translation). Whereupon the oldest piped up with a “Don’t swear, mommy!” And no, he’s never heard that from me…
I tell my children that swearing is useful if you’re very, very, frustrated, angry, in pain or whatever, to let off steam. I would react if I heard them using it a lot in casual conversation. But they’re 7 and 9 now, and I’m still the most-swearing person in the household. Odds are I’m influenced by my father – when I was a child, I remember one of his favourite sayings were: “Hell if I know where the kids learn to swear” (“Je skjønne nå faen meg itte å unga lære å bæinne hen.”)