Early on in my pregnancy my husband and I agreed that it was completely unreasonable to expect our child not hear curse words. My husband is surrounded by severe cursing on a daily basis and often brings that home with him. It is also in the music he listens to and the people we hang around with. So we agreed that when Joli got to the age that she could say those words we would begin teaching her that it is inappropriate for children to use them. Well that time has come a lot sooner than we expected and as Joli is not even two-years-old yet, we completely understand that she is just to young to be taught the concept of appropriate language. So we have chosen to say nothing in hopes that if she does not get a response from us, she will not continue to use the language. This response seems to backfiring. When Joli uses these words she does not use them and look at us for a reaction or even notice whether or not we have heard her or not.
Example #1:
A few weeks ago Joli and I got up early to take Joe to work. Since I was driving and we are not usually driving during a time when there is traffic I was frustrated. A few minutes after moving down the freeway at a snail's pace a motorcycle comes whizzing through the cars and continues on its merry way. So I said "Here we are barely moving, and there goes a fucking bike." Joli pipes up in the bike seat and says "Fucking bike!", but not in a way that said "look what I just said", she said it in a way that said "Oh I'm so excited, look mommy! A fucking bike!" My husband in seating in the passenger seat trying not to let Joli see that he is about to wet his pants, all the while trying to figure out who on earth he can call at 7:30 in the morning to tell the story to.
We didn't hear too much more curse words for a while after that. That's not to say that there weren't a few words that Joli simply mispronounced that made us stop for a moment. In fact she has a list of words that we usually have to do a double take on. One small example of that is the word "soap". This is the first time I have ever heard a child take such a simple, innocent, and clean word and turn it into "fock".
So we went several weeks without any other kind of incidents until a few days after Joe left. Then I walked out onto the porch to hear Joli repeating "shit, shit". Apparently the small clothes dryer had fallen over and she was in the process of figuring out how to pick it up. Yep, that's my daughter.
Another day or so went by and Joli and I went out shopping with my friend Kacie. While we were out I decided that since we hadn't really had much breakfast we should supplement with a Jamba Juice. Joli took the initial first sips and some of dripped out onto her blanky. Kacie said "Oh no her blanky", and Joli simply looked down, pointed at the drops and said "Oh dammit." Completely matter of fact as though she uses the word on a regular basis and it is not in any way unusual that she said it!
So now I am at point where I have to figure out if I should respond and risk having her turn it into this fun thing that gets a reaction out of mommy, or should I just let it go and hope that she grows out of it. Watch out playdates, here we come!
1 comment:
Y'know, I don't know how you can explain "inappropriate" to a child that young. And if you tell her those words are "bad" or "no!" then she's just gonna use all that strong will micheviousness and use them liberally. I think you're on the right track with ignoring the words but if you really don't want her to use them, you'll probably just have to watch what you say around her. She's clearly picking up on you (and Joe's) speech patterns and so much of what we say we don't even hear ourselves say. Little mumbles and curses when we open a stuck drawer or drop a potato on the floor. We never cursed when the kids were little, although they did hear MY mom use words like dammit and shit. William heard cursing a lot when he was an older kid as by then he had four teen siblings, but he never cursed around us. Even now since we've reverted to cussing like sailors. So I think you might just have to watch what you say for awhile. It's not that I think any given word is bad or that it's bad if Joli uses them, but it's all about if you want to deal with her using them around other people and their reactions. Especially in a school or group setting. And yeah, I think there are times when it's more or less appropriate to swear. My standards are based on the way I was raised and the time I was raised in I guess, modified as time went by. So I think it's a good thing to have her learn those things too. You can model perhaps by, when you say a cuss word (since I truly don't expect you to NEVER say them), you can follow up for her to hear "Oh, that's a word I should have only used at home. Oops." Or something like that. And now, fuck! Look at the time. Dammit it, I better get back to work. That shit is piling up. Hehehe.
P.S. Y'know, you might want to ask Kristen. I know she has a lot more colorful language than even ME and her kids don't use the words. ASk her what she's done as they are still pretty young.
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