Swearing

This is a revised and shortened and re-submitted version of an article I wrote months ago.


My 6 year old son shot off a swear word at the dinner table. I had asked him how his day was and obliged. David had learned a new word at school. Not in the classroom of course, one of his peers had impressed him with it in the school yard, a place where children receive another education altogether. It wasn’t a shocking word, certainly not by today’s standards, but I knew that if I didn’t put a stop to it straight away there was going to be more to come.

I asked him if he knew what it meant and he said no. But it had made quite an impact with his friends so he wasn’t sure why I had suddenly put on my serious face. I explained that it wasn’t a nice word and that he would never hear his dad or I say it. I really didn’t want to hear him repeat it again. In fact, I said, only if he ever heard me utter a swear word in his presence he had my permission to do the same.
I didn’t swear a lot then or now but everyone does it at some time or another and I wasn’t the exception. If I had just missed a bus or bumped my not so funny bone or got a larger than expected electricity bill I could count on a naughty little word slipping out. After my conversation with David, I spent decades saying ‘shoot’ and ‘fruit’ and ‘pickle my grandmother.’ Hard to do at first but after a while it came naturally. So ingrained is the habit that I still say ‘shiver my timbers’ on occasion.

I’m not a prude and as I’ve said, swearing has its place, I just don’t like it replacing communication. I sometimes hear young adults talking among each other or even when addressing adults producing at least one swear word per sentence. They aren’t necessarily being rude, it’s just their way. It doesn’t offend me but I’m sad to think that it’s the only way they know and that they don’t understand (possibly wouldn’t be interested) that they are depriving themselves of the ability to communicate effectively in a society that values it.

Encouraging my children to talk to rather than swear at me while I still had influence was the way to go. I didn’t think that I’d cured David of swearing, I was sure that when he was at school and in the company of friends he reverted to rough and tumble little boy type. That’s okay. Everyone wants to fit in with their group, even adults. I just didn’t want him to bring it home with him. I wanted David to know what my expectations were and to understand about boundaries.

My mother tells this story about my brother who was in high school at the time. He had brought a friend home and introduced him to my mother, then they went off to his room. They were talking loudly as is the way with teenagers, about teachers and friends and what they had been up to that day. My brother’s friend suddenly swore and my mum heard my brother say, ‘don’t say that, my mother will hear you.’ That was the day, she said, my mother knew she was doing something right.