Darn!

All done. Thanks for the patience.


‘Shit!’ I bumped my not so funny, funny bone and called out an uncharacteristic swear word. It was a painful knock and caught me off guard or I would have said the usual ‘shiver my timbers’. For over two decades I had trained myself to use such euphemisms, as bulldust and fudge but the swear word just slipped out. Mild by comparison to some others that I know, but I was rusty.

My sons who were the reason for my disciplined approach were well out of their teens by the time I had said that word in their presence. I’d grown so good at hiding my first rate command of curse words that when this small one found its way into the ether it proved a shock to their system. But they didn’t hold it against me for long because by that time I had achieved two rational beings with a great vocabulary, capable of communication, negotiation and reason.

It all began when primary school David came home from school one day brandishing a swear word at the dinner table. I asked him if he knew what it meant and David admitted that he didn’t. ‘Well if you don’t know, why say it?’ I asked. I explained that it wasn’t a nice word and I’d rather he didn’t use it. But that if he ever heard me say anything he considered dodgy, he had my permission to do the same. I put a clamp on my tongue after that and made darned sure I darned well did not swear in front my children. Dashed hard work at first but I got the hang of it after a while.

I would have had to be living on Mars (or Venus) not to realise that outside the house, David and his brother were exchanging impolite words both with each other and their peers. When your children leave the home environment they leave behind the people who are the first and most powerful influence on them. From crèche on you can expect your children to have experiences without your being around to explain or to moderate them. Children don’t live in a vacuum, so they are likely to develop a broader perspective on life outside our sphere of influence. I just made sure that my children had a chance to learn about family values before they got to that point. I answered all their questions as often as they asked them and as openly as clearly their age allowed, even if the questions sometimes proved awkward. (Mum, how old are you?)

This is why, as soon they opened those baby blues, communicated. Children may not understand your words at first, but the sound of your voice washing over them will be soothing. Soon they will associate that inner voice called a conscience, with yours. And if you talk to them now, they’ll talk to you later. As they get older they will spend increasingly more time with their friends and teachers and co-workers and less with us, but they will keep that voice with them. Keep up the communication and they will bring home the various views they’ve absorbed. That’s when you get the chance to discuss and debate them and sort out the facts from the unsubstantiated opinions. It’s called strength through communication and not a swear word in sight.

I did such a good job of it that when Mark turned 14 he turned the table on his neurotic mum. He wanted a skate board. I didn’t want him to have one. Visions of broken bones and knocked out teeth got in the way. Mark offered to work to buy the board, and buy knee and elbow pads. He spoke convincingly of concepts like all care and even more responsibility and before I could say, hoist by my own petard I was (reluctantly) agreeing. A year later, he got his skate board. It didn’t stop me from worrying, but I was sure that I could trust him to take care.

I don’t find swearing offensive; I’ve just never seen it as a substitute for reasoned debate. In the misty dark ages we were expected to read and analyse the issues of the day. And we took turns to debate the different sides of each one. It taught us that there is more than one way to look at the world, and that there are many ways to convince people about your point of view. A word or two and a finger judiciously applied these days seems to have replaced reason. There’s nothing more effective (how can you argue with it) than a crude statement of intent to stop you in your tracks.

I feel sorry that today’s parents have to contend with word contracting, text messaging children. Computers used to be glorified typewriters with monitors and fishermen used nets to haul fish out of the ocean. Now our children are surfing it. Our slick communication gizmos are great tools but they haven’t brought humanity closer. C U, FU, I heart U. What does it mean? I watched somebody buy a ticket from a machine recently. This young man went past the ticket box, where a human being waited to serve him, in order to do so. We used to send our children out into the world; today the world comes to them. I find the exponential growth of technology frightening it discourages communication and doesn’t leave parents much time for that head start I once had. I suggest that the old fashioned way of communicating.