Musing on R-rated Sentence Enhancers from a Pre-PG13ager.
Since we share so much of life together, I’ll confide a lighter moment from the weekend with you.
My beautiful, engaging 10-year-old daughter dropped the F-bomb on me. KA**BOOM.
(Now if this is so horrifying that you will never invite her to play with your daughter or ever speak with me at the store, I completely fabricated this post out of the inexpensive Pottery Barn curtains hanging in my kitchen.)
* * *
Saturday morning.
I informed the children they needed to pick up sticks in the yard so our teen could mow.
This request was met with much G-rated complaining and gnashing of teeth.
I pulled them outside where they picked up one stick, sighed and pouted.
After 20 minutes of this, we managed to have a wagon full of twigs. We pulled them to the metal-fire thingy in the back of the house, so we could roast marshmallows that evening. (See, I’m a good mum.)
At this point, my daughter sat down and refused to go back to into the yard.
I gave her a reminder pat on her rear.
EXPLOSION.
RED-FACED and tears, “I’m not picking up anymore F-ING sticks.”
“WHAT did you say?”
Gray-faced, scared 10 year old, “I said ‘flippn’. I said ‘flippn’.”
I took away all her possessions and privileges, casting them as far as the east is from the west.
No electronics or television this weekend. No playing with friends for an entire week. No iPod Touch for the week.
I stopped there. And sent them back in the yard to pick up more sticks.
* * *
Talking later in evening with father, I asked her where she heard that word.
“You. You said it that day in the hall last summer.”
There was one day in early June I had a bitty temper tantrum of biblical portions because no one was listening to me or helping me around the house.
I might have used that particular word.
Why, do they have to remember everything you do wrong and forget all the times you wiped their tears and vomit-encrusted faces? The times you cleaned the same vomit off bedroom carpet while suppressing acid climbing up the back of your throat.
How for 48 hours after attending a Justin Bieber concert with them, your ears felt as if they were crammed with cotton balls as you sat at the bottom of a 12 foot deep pool.
The time you made gallon after gallon of lemonade (running to the store for more ice and mix) so they could keep making a profit on the street corner.
* * *
The only time I’ve ever heard my mother swear was singing “Hell, Hell to Hell with Georgia” during a football game. (For someone raised in Fitzgerald and Waycross, mother’s years studying interior design at the University of Florida really took.)
At seven, I came home from a friend’s house and used the word “fart” and couldn’t sit down for a week.
At 13, I told her to “Shut up” and had a bar of Ivory Soap crammed in my mouth.
* * *
I know chances are pretty good my daughter has heard that word from others sources besides her mother’s mouth. It’s almost in vogue with the overnight popularity of Go the Fu*k to Sleep. It makes it seem so cute, so funny.
It’s not cute and it’s not funny.
I’m pledging to expect proper language, words respectful in tone, subject and manner from all inhabitants of this house.
The one exception being the last Saturday in October.
Please tell me someone else has dealt with this?
When I was about 10, I said “bull.” “Oh what Bull.” I still remember it. My mother was doing something in the tub. Filling it for my bath maybe? (Though I doubt it. She didn’t do those kind of things) Well.. yeah. Hell was unleashed. I never swore in front of my parents again, except for once, when I almost got hit head on on Snake hill. With steep inclines and turns to boot, it was very much a skin of my teeth save. And out few THE f word. My mother called me David(my brother), when she scolded me. At the time, I was about 19.
My kids have yet to cross that line, though “frick” is a favorite. “Sucks,” too. We recently discussed who decided such bad words are really bad words. Who was it, who’s mouth gaped open when verbally assaulted?
I think you can be more than assured that your daughter has heard the word at school, on the bus and most definitely on tv. It’s impossible to shelter her from something used as widespread a words. There are so many, you see. And they are everywhere. Just as long as she knows it is never, ever acceptable to be used, especially in public and most certainly in front of her mother. 🙂
You’re too kind,Ginger. My oldest is bad about wanting to tell me to “Just shut up.” He starts saying..”Just shh… Just sh..” and turns his back on me. It’s a different world. Some things are better….some things not so much.
How old is your oldest? I pulled the “I own you until you are 18” phrase on my 14 yr old last week. He tries to flex his independence over me but I have something he doesn’t, on his side. My husband. Teenagers are so much fun.
Great Ginger. He turns 18 in about two weeks. But I think your rule applies if mom and dad are still paying his bulls. ( or bills)
It absolutely applies if you pay the bills. I so don’t look forward to eighteen. xoxo
Sydney, in wonder of what was going on, once said “What the…?” That was it, you know, how people say “What the? and imply the last word. Well, that was all she said. Then she had to endure a 15 minute conversation with me about the tone and the implications of saying “What the…?” and how most people end with an ugly word and how it’s never appropriate. I then told her there are millions of words in the English language to help you express yourself without using curse words. I’m sure she only heard “blah, blah, blah” but I continued and she hasn’t said that again. At least not around me 😉 I’ll keep her young as long as possible
Oh yeah, and I make her pick up sticks.
not for earning money either, just “because she is a part of our family”
Karen, Joe is a big one for saying “What the heck?” Don’t think i say that ? But I just don’t know anymore. I use the “part of the family” around here. I don’t know if it sinks in but it surely doesn’t do anything to improve their attitude.
my (6 year old) daughter came home from a very close friend of mine’s house saying that she had learned a new word from my friend’s 5 year old.
it was the same word your little 10 yr. old angel said. i was-just like you were- mortified.
i told her it was an ugly, ugly, word and to never, ever, ever, ever say said word again. and i also told her not to repeat said word to a friend by re-telling this story, because then they would tell another friend, and the word would go on and on forever.
try making that stick with a wide-eyed 6 yr old little girl. sheesh.
now, she won’t even say anything that ends in ..”uck”. yuck, stuck, muck, buck…etc. she said if it was that ugly of a word, then changing one letter probably didn’t help much.
i’m okay with that. 🙂
That’s cute Jill. ( re not risking any “uck” sayings). That trigger memories of my sister repeating the word at about 7 because she saw it written on the bus.