My Kid is Sweary AF

I might have f*cked some shit up.

WARNING: As the title should suggest, this post is going to be real sweary. Lots of F and S and B words! But it’s also a funny story and given the context, I opted to leave them in. I hope you will forgive me.

Everything’s fine, we’re all fine, it is indeed f***king fantastic! Photo by Etienne Girardet on Unsplash.

I’ve made some critical parenting errors, which should shock exactly none of you.

Now, we all remember those kids who were raised on healthy snacks, regulated TV time, and a curfew. Those poor saps will never know that feeling of lounging on the couch with a bowl of Sugar Snaps and a full sugar Coke blazing a fiery trail down your throat, while you and your sibling watched Porky’s through the squiggly, pixelated HBO screen as soon as your parents left the house.

My kid would be different.

There wasn’t much I felt confident about as a new mom except my, “give them bad stuff early and they won’t want it later” philosophy. If we made it a point to not clutch our proverbial pearls when our son screamed, “Poopy butt butt penis fart face!” just as the lights dimmed in a packed movie theater, surely the lure of gratuitous vulgarity would lose it’s luster before he even mastered sight words.

Boy did I fuck that shit up real good.

I Come From Sweary Stock.

I was raised by a sweary mom. I shit you not, she used to call my brother and I “fuckies” as a term of endearment.

“Come set the table, fuckie!”

“Hi, fuckie! How was school?”

“Come here, you little fuckie! Let’s watch Matlock and snuggle!”

My mom loved to swear. And she made it look so fun, how could I not model that behavior? When I was in college, we saw Louie Anderson at a West Palm Beach comedy club and that was the first time we heard the phrase, bag of dicks. My god if those three little words didn’t become our love language. Suddenly bags of dicks were everywhere! I bought her coffee mugs, cards, even a glamorous little pouch she kept her gambling winnings in all emblazoned with the words or variations of BAG OF DICKS.

Her Mother’s Day gift circa 1997. This is now my son’s favorite mug.

So yes, this rotten-tongued little apple stayed real close to tree that bore her. And then that apple had an apple, and well, the cycle continued.

I don’t know what swear word first imprinted on my child, but I do remember him loving it. Toddlers have what? A 2.3% command of their native language and yet know with 100% certainty when a word they hear is “bad.” I remember telling my son that some words mean naughty things and can make people feel uncomfortable and therefore only adults should say them. (What???) Also those words are very dull and boring and not at all fun to say.

“Do you ever hear Rubble from the Paw Patrol say the word Mommy just said? See? Because it’s a boring, silly word!”

Know Your Audience, Kid.

Then one day my son came home from daycare and said his friend Lucas was “comfortable” with bad words so they decided it was okay to say shit and damn in front of each other.

Umm, hmm…I mean, was it okay? If a sweary little tree toppled in a forest and only another sweary little tree was around to hear it, did it really say something bad? I decided to just wait for the disciplinary hearing the daycare will surely be setting up and turn this into a How to Be a Responsibly Sweary Child teachable moment: Know Your Audience.

“The daycare is not an appropriate place for you to use your bad words. Most of those kids don’t have your advanced vocabulary and it shouldn’t be you and Lucas who teaches them. Just make sure no one else can hear you.”

Nailed it?

What to do When You’re Sweary but Also a Rules Follower?

My kid still wanted to swear, but was also afraid of getting into trouble. So we implemented daily “swear time” where for 2 minutes we (he and I) could say all the bad words we wanted to in the safety of each other’s company and then not again for the rest of the day.

“Get ‘em all out now,” I would tell him. “Empty your mouth of all the bitches and ballsacks so one doesn’t accidentally slip out during circle time!”

“Okay, Mommy! I’ll get them all out!”

Then we’d end our two minutes by checking each other’s mouths to make sure an errant hell or fuckhead didn’t get caught behind a molar.

“I found a butt crack, Mommy! Right under your tongue!”

But What About the Father?!

Oh right, Bart.

Mr. Manners.

The puritan parent.

He didn’t know about our two minutes in hell mommy-son bonding time, but he did notice his bawdy baby’s burgeoning vocabulary. For whatever reason he did not associate this with the foul-mouthed harpy he married.

“So weird,” he mused. “Is he watching YouTube when we’re not looking¹? We have to start punishing him when he uses inappropriate language!”

Oh, shit!

Well, first we’d need to define “inappropriate.” This kid had one parent who felt bad calling a Chicago Bears receiver an idiot for fumbling the ball and another who literally just shouted, “Who wants some mother fucking dino nuggets?!”

That’s an assload of mixed messages right there.

It was becoming apparent that perhaps my Give them all and they’ll want nothing permissive parenting play was perhaps a colossal failure.

So I tried to make swearing educational.

“How about instead of saying bad words, you practice writing them!”

Fuck. But also love so it’s not all bad!

Once during the pandemic times when Bart and I were supposed to be teachers, I tried to teach our son the difference between a ch and a sh sound.

“Chhhhhh, you know, like…BITCH,” I said.

Bart came into my office when the lesson was over and asked why I chose bitch as my example word.

“Literally all I could think of!” I said. “You try teaching Language Arts to a first grader! It’s not that easy!”

Bart, the English major, walked away shouting, “Bunch! Punch! Hunch! Munch! Such! Teach!

This cursed house was becoming well know among the pre-school set. When his other friend, Marcus came over they both immediately rushed me and asked, if they could swear during their playdate.

“Welllllllll, Marcus” I answered. “What would your mom say?”

“She says it’s okay as long as it’s in private and you say it’s okay.”

What’s that? Another permissive parent with a loose command of her child’s language? Far be it for me to make young Marcus feel uncomfortable in our home.

But Bart was right. While I had yet to get any complaints from his school or parents other than Marcus’s mom, it was only a matter of time before he forgot his audience. Just a few days prior we were at Home Depot waiting to get a key made and I heard him mumble, “What the hell is taking so long?”

I mean, he was right. It was taking an inordinate amount of time to get service, but when your four-year-old’s dialogue sounds like it was crafted in the writers room from The Wire, it’s time to admit defeat.

When we got home with our new keys, I sat him down and told him we had to have a serious talk.

“I love you so much,” I began. “You’re such a smart, kind, funny kid. But Mommy might have messed up a little letting you swear so much.”

His eyes got big and he looked like he was going to cry. This was worse than taking away his pacifier!

“We have to stop swearing…so much,” I said. “Mommy too. How about we get one swear word a day. And you can choose to use it whenever you want as long as it’s just between us.”

I saw him contemplate this. Perhaps he knew it was one or none. Perhaps he could tell it hurt me more than it hurt him. Perhaps I told him if he agreed we could eat a Marie Callender’s frozen peanut butter cream pie for dinner and watch four hours of grown adults tearing open bags of Calico Critters Baby Sea Friends videos.

The one-swear-word-of-the-day rule was working. My son would find me when he was “ready to say it” and after making sure we were alone, he put his face close to mine, grabbed my cheeks, and whispered asssssssssss craaaaaaaaaaack! And then burst out laughing.

“Oh, that’s a good one,” I would say and when it was my turn I would stare him dead in the eyes, hold his tiny hands, and murmur, shit knuckles.

And then we’d move about our days being utterly pedantic and unoffensive.

That Damn Chupacabra.

One evening when my son was in kindergarten his school held an art show. The halls were brimming with excited students eager to show off their projects and parents already Googling, “hotels near the Rhode Island School of Design.” It was more widely attended than a Banksy opening. As my son and two of his friends ran off in search of snacks, we heard a ruckus coming from near the library. One of my son’s classmates was in full-blown meltdown mode. This was the same child who allegedly hit another kid with a broom, flushed the teacher’s keys down the toilet, and may or may not have raked her chupacabra-like fingernails down the length of my son’s arm because he wouldn’t give her the Fudge Stripes cookies in his lunch. There’s no sharing food at school, Chupacabra Girl! Some kids have food allergies! JEEZ!

On this fateful night, she was rolling around and screaming on the freshly waxed floor, threatening to tear all the painted paper sparkle fish masterpieces right off the wall. Her mortified mom alternated between attempting to stand her up and act like nothing unusual was going on.

It was DANGEROUS and SHOCKING and FRENZIED and just the sort of thing you expect at an elementary school art show. The other kids were horrified and amazed. With the exception of the noises coming out of the chupacabra, the halls were silent. I caught my son’s eye, saw his cheeks turn up in a smile, and knew in my heart of hearts what was about to happen.

Oh no no no! I pleaded. Not now! Not here!

I saw his mouth move and his upper teeth lightly touch his lower lip. I knew that shape. I knew that sound.

“FUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUCCCCCCCCCCCCCCCCCCCCCCCCCCCCCCCCCCCCCCCCCCCCCCCCCCCCCCCKKKKKKKKKKKKKKKKKKKKKKKKKKKKKKKKKKKKKKKKKKKKKKKKKKKKKKKKKKKK !!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!”

Well, the chupacabra’s mom was happy. No one could hear her child’s screams over sounds of 184 parents, teachers, and fellow students laughing their ass cracks off.

All but one parent of course.

“We’ll talk about this at home,” Bart said.

Shit!

SPOILER: Nothing Has Changed!

I know I’m supposed to say we curbed the kid-cussing and all is right in the world but alas, my son and I still drop at least 75 swears a day. The only difference is that he doesn’t stand out among his friends anymore because they’ve all finally discovered the thrill of a vulgar vocabulary. Apparently our house is still a sweary haven. On any given day the chatter coming from behind his bedroom door sounds like an episode of South Park.

So yeah, maybe not all my parenting tactics are winners², but I’m trying to be good.

I swear.

XO,

Shelly

A card I got from my mom years and ago and have hanging on my wall.

1. I mean, probably. Was I supposed to monitor that too?

2. Umm, aren’t you trying to get us to buy your parenting book? Why, yes, I am! HOW TO DUNGEON MASTER PARENTING coming this November! Pre-order it now!