Kids Swear, Okay?

Sitting at my kitchen table last week, I heard my son say, “Dammit” while he thumbed his iPhone in the family room.

“Dylan,” I spoke up, “I’m right here.”

“Oh geez, Dad, sorry,” he said.

And that was it. No yelling. No taking away his iPhone. No lectures.

There are some parents who would have gone ballistic at this point - maybe even cursing at their child to not curse. This isn’t to say that the boys are allowed to swear in the house, it’s just not a capital offense.

I do not possess some higher parental knowledge that allows me to lead with zen-like platitudes. Its just means that to think that my kids are above swearing is foolhardy. Getting overly engaged in the policing of language is like picking low hanging fruit.

And really, how much of a hypocrite could I be? I have been practicing swearing since I was their age (about 13.) Since then, I have become so skilled in cursing that I can deliver a sentence with up to 75% swear words. There are days when I don’t tell the people in my life that I love them, but never a day when I don’t say the word “fuck.” So be it.

A year ago, when the boys got their first iPod, they had asked about downloading a song that had the “Parental Warning” graphic attached because of the word “fuck.” (At the behest of my wife, I was going to try and avoid swearing in my blog, but I would’ve had to type, “the ‘f’ word” or something like that. So silly!) I said, “Listen boys, I really don’t care about you hearing a bad word. I care a lot about you hearing songs that talk about drugs or hurting people. So yeah, you can get it.”

OM effing G! What kind of parent does that? Well, I guess one that knows boys will be boys, one who realizes that teenagers like to swear the way that Fox News likes leggy blondes, and one who is glad his kids recognize that coming to me to ask about downloading a song is being responsible. Thats the high fruit, dammit.