&^%* bleep, bleep, %#*&

I faithfully keep up with several blogs, some written by family and friends and some written by strangers.  My favorite blogger, one who writes like I wish I could and who says things I totally feel, is here.  Today I went on her site to catch up and read this fabulous entry.  It is an entry that I deal with regularly because I curse.

I grew up in a house that encouraged language.  Both of my parents cursed, not in each sentence, but when they felt the word fit what they were trying to convey.  My father was a marine and shit and dammit were just a part of his vocabulary.  My mother was an English teacher who used many words that I had no idea of the meaning (she sent me to the dictionary to find out), but when she injected a curse word into her rants we knew she meant business.  Neither of my parents used the "f" word, but I knew it.  I heard it.  I grew up, unconsciously, knowing that there were words that I could say and words that I shouldn't say, as all children do, but I was never sheltered from curse words at home nor punished if one such word came out of my own mouth due to frustration or what not.

In high school I took a Semantics class from a teacher that taught a "bad word" segment in the class.  He started the lesson off by having everyone in class give him the finger and say, "Fuck you" out loud.  (You could opt out of this lesson).  Some kids couldn't wait to say it.  Others had a hard time getting the words out for various reasons.  Those reasons were discussed in class and by the end of the week long lesson we understood that while these words' meanings weren't harmful (i.e. shit is just poop, bitch is a female dog, fuck is sex, etc.) the connotations might be to certain people.  He taught us that sitting in a restaurant with our friends saying, "fuck" in our conversation was fine when the tables around us were unoccupied, but that it wasn't when there was a table of senior citizens next to us.  I wrote in my paper (we always had to write a paper after the lessons) the story of my friend's babysitting kids who when they got mad would call her a "hockey puck" and then giggle and cover their mouths.  While "hockey puck" meant nothing or the literal meaning to my friend who cared less, it obviously meant something more, a code word, to the children who thought they were getting away with something naughty.  It reminded me of something my neighbor friend and I made up.  When we got really mad at our brothers we pursed our lips and made a squeaking noise at them.  To them it meant nothing, some silly gesture, but to us....hee hee it was a code for a naughty name we invented to call them without them understanding.

As I got older I heard more cursing.  I used it myself.  I like the words, think them appropriate when I use them, and I try to behave and remember the lesson I learned from my Semantics class.  When I had children I decided to share that same lesson with them when my daughter came home from school and told me a child had used the "s" word in school and had gotten in trouble.  Not knowing if her "s" word was my "s" word I asked what the word was and she didn't want to say because to her the connotation was something naughty whether she understood that or not.  Bottom line for her was the kid used it and got into trouble.  Turned out the word was "stupid" and for me that raised a lot of issues because I thought being afraid to use that word was, well, stupid.  So my daughters and I had a discussion about words.  I thought they should know that words themselves are not "bad", but that they are harmful when used in such a manner.  Calling a playmate stupid was harmful, but saying you felt stupid when you didn't get a joke or understand a math problem was okay.  We talked about curse words and the fact that some people absolutely abhor them, and that knowing your surroundings and the appropriate way to use those words was important.  Over the years, as they have grown older, we have often revisited the word conversation.

My daughter recently expressed annoyance at a male classmate who referred to others or the things they wore or did as "gay".  That word to my daughter is unacceptable used in that context.  Her uncles are homosexual, married to one another, and that is normal and fine and dandy with us.  When the boy at school told someone they were "gay" for wearing an outfit she thought that harmful and took offensive.  She told him so and he laughed at her and called her "gay".   Another classmate used a derogatory term for her African American classmate that also haunted my daughter and made her mad. We talked again about the use of words and their meanings.  When I read some of the comments on the entry that I had read in the above blog I ran across this video and applauded what she had to say.

My eldest daughter hears cursing every day at school.  She isn't shocked, sometimes she believes those words are called for, but she doesn't choose to use those words herself.  Both girls admonish me at times for my use of curse words, and a lot of times it opens a door for more language conversation such as the "gay" remarks above.  We spend our lives trying to protect our children.  We want them to be safe, but the reality is that life is dangerous.  I can't keep them from hearing offensive words any more than I can keep them from violence or crazy, road raged drivers.  They're living in a world where a lock down in school is something they practice preparing for like we did for tornadoes.  What I can do is teach them how to act, how to behave, and how to be kind to one another.  In the end that is what I think matters most.