Going parental: Potty mouth parents in denial

Here’s the gist: I have a potty mouth. No denying it. I drop F-bombs and A-bombs like they’re going out of style. Most of the time I manage to earmuff ^[1] my daughter or at the very least, wait for her to leave the room. I’m an adult, I can say what I want. But I don’t want my daughter running around cursing or even worse, teaching her friends to curse.I accept the fact that one day she too will be dropping bombs. I’m not going to say I look forward to it or will condone it, I just accept that it’s going to happen, and like everything else, I’ll deal with it at the time.

Cursing in my family wasn’t a big deal. If I cursed at my parents, forget it. A shoe was definitely being hurled at my head. But if I let an A-bomb or S-bomb out and it was appropriately used, it generally went unnoticed. Here’s an example of appropriate cursing in my house when I was a teenager:

“I’m having a really hard time in math. My teacher keeps calling on me when he knows I don’t know the answer. It’s embarrassing and humiliating. He even smiles when I get the answer wrong. He’s such an asshole.”

To which my mother would reply, “What kind of teacher does that? I’m calling the school, that’s unacceptable.” (Think Jewish Bronx accent when you hear it in your head; it’s funnier that way.)

See? No reference whatsoever to me using the word asshole. Because it was used appropriately. The guy was an asshole and he got off on making me feel like an imbecile in class. Unacceptable to my mother. Suffice it to say, calls were made and I was switched to a different math class where I ended up with an A. So there, Mr. Levine, you really were an asshole. Even my mom thought so.

I do have a point here, and it’s this: If a parent ever calls me and tells me that their child has been walking around cursing and saying that my daughter taught their kid the word(s), I would listen to the parent, apologize profusely, and then talk to my daughter about it. What I wouldn’t do is deny it up and down and go on and on about how my daughter would never say those words and it couldn’t possibly have come from her.

Earth to stupid parents in denial: your kids hear every word you say and like it or not, they’re out there repeating them. If I call and tell you your kid taught my kid a curse word and you deny it, you’ve done two things:

1) You’ve called my kid a liar and now I think you’re an ignorant douche bag and I’m fantasizing about smacking you in the mouth.

2) You’re ignoring the fact that it really may be your kid running around teaching her entire 1st grade class the word “asshole,” and you’ve just completely disregarded it and let her get away with it. Because that’s the way we effect change in our children.

Even if it wasn’t your kid, the time has clearly come to have the “no swearing” talk.

The reality is that our kids hear everything we say, everything their friends say and so on. Instead of living in denial, just face the fact that your kid may too be a potty mouth and you need to do something about it. Or as I’ve said before ^[2], if you don’t deal with it, then I guess I’ll just have to.

Big ups to my PMC’s. You know who you are.

Going Parental appears every fucking Thursday. Have a nice day.