Outnumbered Two to One

Most of the time I try to keep the profanity to a minimum. I know how quickly children can take a parent’s colorful vocabulary and run with it, usually during the most inopportune times, like a trip the pediatrician’s let’s say, or during story time in Kindergarten.

Unfortunately, on occasion, the expletives slip out.

See back when I was a rebellious teen, filled to the brim with anger and angst, my word choices were determined strictly based on their power to shock and offend. I was a smart enough girl who used the F word in a very broad capacity, attaching it to nearly every phrase in my efforts to emphasize whatever point I was making.  Do teenagers ever have points?

As a parent, I’ve matured (somewhat) and come to the conclusion that my children dropping the F bomb in grade school could be somewhat detrimental to their reputations. Not to mention mine. So I generally refrain from using “bad” language in front of the children, most of the time. My husband will be the first to admit that I could use a generous lathering of the mouth with a bar of the nastiest soap available. Sometimes these words eke out without my conscious knowledge.

Last Friday though, I was on the telephone with an old friend (hi, Julie) whom I’ve known since thereabout the third grade, engrossed in conversation for the better part of an hour as I wandered through the house prepping dinner and doing minor chores. After I hung up, my teenager sidled up next to me, put a hand on my shoulder and whispered confidentially “You sure do curse a lot on the phone, Mom.”

“Er, what do you mean?”

“You were cursing a lot. I heard you.” She looked taken aback. She’d witnessed a side of me she rarely sees, unapologetically offensive and somewhat angry, nothing like the patient mom that does her laundry and puts up with her own crummy attitude.

“Aw, honey,” I began, “Stop eavesdropping on my @#%&ing conversations.”

Jeez. A little privacy would be nice occasionally.

For the record, I didn’t curse at my lovely teen, although sometimes she takes me to that dangerous edge. I was however honest with her and explained that while using these “adult” words for either emphasis or comedic effect has its merits, using them too often will give people the impression that her vocabulary is limited and her manners lacking.

Today, after much internal debate, she confided that she was going to stop using colorful language for the reasons I described. This daughter of mine, who while sassy and surly, has never uttered an expletive in our house, apparently has the mouth of a sailor when she’s at middle school.

I blame the parents.

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