Mommy, I want to talk about the word F—

The funny thing is that I didn’t go spontaneously deaf, which is what I had thought might happen if I ever I heard my young son say this word aloud.  Maybe it was because this wasn’t the first time.

Rewind a few days.  My husband, four year old son and I are driving downtown in rush hour traffic.  G is chattering away in the back, vying for attention, we’re all hungry and on edge.  Let’s just say the vibe isn’t exactly relaxed. 

Brakes squeal.  A cab driver cuts us off unexpectedly, nearly causing a serious accident.  Hubby honks, steaming, and the cabbie has the nerve to make a rude gesture and yell an obscenity.  You can see where I’m going with this, right?  Hubs is livid, flips the bird right back and out it flies:  “Yeah?  Well, f— you too, pal!” 

So the F-bomb flies out of hubby’s mouth before he can stop it, full volume and the world stops spinning for a moment as I hear it echoing around the truck.  Silence.  Then from the backseat, a small voice rings out.  “Daddy?  What does ‘F— you’ mean?”  Hubs is still fuming and quickly tries to cover it up.  “It’s just another way of saying hi, buddy!”  Indignant, I burst out, “NO!  No, it’s not; it is a grownup thing that grownups say when they are very angry or upset!”  (I’m right, but it comes out a little more self-righteous than I mean it.  After all, he has just never caught me saying it!)  My son considers this; we all fall quiet and make our way home, minds racing.  I cross my fingers and hope we are finished with it.

Only, of course we aren’t.  We get home and G keeps asking why grownups can say it, why is it bad?  So I sit him down and we have ourselves a long chat about most words being good to use to say what we mean.  And some words are strong or serious words that we only use if we have thought about what we’re saying and really need to use them.  Words like stupid, hate, kill and die all fall under this heading for me.  Tell me you killed a mosquito today, not that you killed your friend at school.

Then we talk about swear words, or what we have called bad words in our house before.  Why are they bad?  They are bad words because for a very long time, as far back as people can remember, they have been used in ways to hurt people or to make them feel bad.  Because of this, anyone that overhears them could feel bad or have their feelings hurt just from hearing them.  So kids aren’t allowed to use them.  Grownups are allowed, but most of the time we try not to-or try to use them only in private when we know we won’t hurt anyone who might hear. 

He takes it all in.  This is a lot of information for one small boy.  But he’s a sensitive little guy, concerned with the feelings of others.  He still wants to know we can talk about it more, and what other words there are, and which ones are swear words.  Sigh.  So I make him a deal.  As long as he understands I do not want him ever using this kind of language, he won’t get in trouble if he wants to come ask me a question about a word he has heard.  I tell him to make sure we are alone and then if he wants to ask about a word, we can talk about it.  (I feel a little rush-such a good, modern parent, not censoring my kid, not closing the communication channels.  Mm hmm.  I feel good in smug.  Smug feels good.)

An hour later:  “Mommy, I want to talk about the word F—.”  After supper.  Before bed.  Four times the next day:  “Mommy, I want to talk about the word F—.“

And the day after that:  “Mommy, I want to talk about the word F—.“

Oh. My. God.  I couldn’t take it.  I couldn’t take hearing him say it.  So I finally cracked and sat him down, and kind of desperately said “G, I’m sorry.  I know I said you could come to me and ask about any of those words and we’d talk about it, but I can’t hear your sweet voice say it over and over again.  It hurts my ears.  If you want to ask me about that word again, you have to call it the F-word from now on, okay?” 

Ahhh, censorship is sweet.  And I did try.  Hey, maybe someday he’ll brag that his mom let him say F— for three whole days.