I swear. A lot. Like, a whole hell of a lot. The common refrain around our house (via Matt) is, "HEY! Watch the eff bombs!" I know I have a problem. But for some reason, I always thought I was just being "me." But I think I got stuck swearing so much because this has basically been my cultural upbringing (NSFW DUE TO LOTS OF SWEARING):
YOU SON OF A MOTHERLESS GOAT! Classic.
But something happened recently. Something that made me both try desperately not to laugh and recoil in horror at the exact same time (which is something that's actually impossible to do, FYI). Henry swore. And he didn't just parrot back. He said something he's heard me say without skipping a beat — and finished my sentence.
Picture this: my whole family is in the car. We have both kids in the back and Matt and I in the front. Someone "changes lanes" (I use that term loosely) without signaling and cuts me off. Matt says, "Woah!" I say, "Did you see that? Holy..." Before I can finish my sentence, I hear my sweet little angel's voice from the back:
Yeah, mummy. WHAT AN ASSHOLE.
Ok, so pretty hilarious if it wasn't my kid or if it wasn't directly my influence that caused the kid to say such a thing, but this was my fault. He spends lots of time in the car with me. For some stupid reason, I assumed that he wasn't paying attention to me since we weren't looking into each other's eyes and singing songs or cuddling, or watching a movie together.
And then, I was told something that was a nail in the swearing coffin — my swearing can be off-putting to people who don't know me and only read, say, my Twitter feed (thanks, Erica). It was like a cloud parted and the sun shone down on me. I'm more than off-beat swearing and comedy vulgarity.
I'm a nice person (dagnabit)! And my child is not going to be the swearing kid in elementary school who teaches all the other kids all the bad words.
So, I'm turning over a new leaf. I'm working hard at tuning down the swearing just because I like peppering it through conversation, and I'm going to save it for when it really matters.
There's a place and a time for everything, dear friends, and I'll leave the swearing to the times when there are just no other words.
Shit yeah.
Do you have a swearing problem or has your kiddo said anything back to you that you didn't think they'd heard?
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