Eight year old daughter spits a little too much outside the sink basin when brushing her teeth tonight…
Daughter:“Oh sht”
Me:“What’d ya say?”
D (matter of factly): “Oh shit.”
Me (slight pause/stutter): “Don’t need you using that…that’s a bad word”
D: “No it isn’t”
Me: “Where’d you hear that expression?” (as if I didn’t know)
D: “From you guys”
Me: “Go ask your mother what she thinks of that expression”
Six Year old Son after she leaves the room: “Shit stands for shut up, right?”
This was true denial on our part. I know I imagined this happening too, knowing full well how many times it was said, in the appropriate context, with no noticeable reaction from the peanut gallery.
A friend and I were out one day and he brought his young son, who was around two years old.
We stopped for Chinese food. My friend and I made a couple of jokes about cooking cats. It was the first time the boy had ever had Chinese food and he apparently loved it. So much so that when he got home that evening and his mother asked him if he wanted hot dogs or macaroni and cheese, he told her “kitty”. And his mother saying, “No, dear, I’m asking you what you want to eat?” And he answered again, “kitty”.
You just have to explain that there are words that grownups can say and kids can’t. Children understand that adults have privileges denied them - staying up late, watching whatever they want on TV, going out by themselves. Cursing is one of them.
At the same age, my nephews would have used an extremely indignant voice. Both of them had a stage where they reckoned that everything had to have one word to represent it and every word had to have a single meaning. They found the existence of synonims and polysemic words absolutely offensive, evil and dastardly. Mean, too :mad: The Niece’s reaction to being told that things have more than one name was “but that’s wrong!”
The Proud Daddy: “It’s the way it is”
Niece: “Is still wrong! Pick one!”
I just realized why I find it so irritating when a certain coworker does that :smack: it’s cute when the person is 3, not over-30! That’s a developmental hangup I hadn’t encountered before…
When I was a kid, one of our next-door-neighbor’s sons came toddling over for a visit (he can’t have been older than five). “This is a *nice *house!” he exclaimed. “Our house is a real shit house!”
This is true. My grandson, at age 5, was helping me build a fence. As you may know, home improvement activities frequently cause cussing. And young Michael asked if he could have a swear to use while we worked. Being a generous grandma, I gave him the word dang. My, how he tried to wear that word out. Everyone needs an outlet; he’s 7 now, and it’s still his swear for when things get frustrating.
