I curse like a sailor, which is weird because I was in the Army. I make no bones about it, I swear and I swear constantly. I tried not swearing once. Didn’t take. It’s just how I talk. If you ask my wife, once I get rolling in a conversation with like-minded adults, the F bomb will come out about as often as the word THE. Trying to not swear is like trying not to use E in a sentence. In my team rooms swearing was habitual. On the range it is all too common to throw out phrases like “Hey F*&kstick” when trying to get the attention of someone about to commit a catastrophic failure, or shouting “f*&k no you f*&king f*#k” in response to a migraine-inducing question. Tactful? Hardly. Did it get the job done? Absolutely.
This type of verbiage just became part of my everyday lexicon. Spending a lot of time around people who think, act, and speak the same way inevitably leads to some behaviors that are not so easy to remove. In some situations, I temper my language. For example, when I worked within the Capitol building, my language was much more professional. It was not always easy, but I managed. Mainly, I did this by limiting my speaking to only when necessary. When family is around, I try to keep my swearing to a minimum, for fear that my mother will smack me upside the head, as she is wont to do (which, I attest, is far more damaging than swearing). When meeting new people I tend to feel them out until I see which way they lean in the language department. Eventually, once I’m comfortable enough around them, though, the F’s start flowing. The reason is because I speak what comes out. I don’t hold back and I don’t spare feelings. Life is too short to worry about whether or not people say Shit. Swearing is part of me and I don’t change who I am for other people. Like it or lump it. But I also know when to pick my battles. I’m not stupid.
Which brings about why this is such an interesting topic. As a father with a toddler at home who repeats everything I say and do, it seems inevitable that my child is going to start slinging some F bombs around. Case in point, not too long ago she tried to get into the car, only to find it locked. When I explained to her the door was locked, she sighs and very dejectedly says “Dammit”. Last week, upon rehashing the story of her being stung by a bee at a wedding we went to, she throws in there a “What the hell” when explaining her shock of being stung by said bee. She’s three. There is only one person she got “What the hell” from, and it was obvious who it was when I used that exact phrasing with my wife not two hours later while mid-discussion with her. Am I bad parent for my child swearing? I would be a bad parent if I didn’t explain to her the words that I used and why she shouldn’t use them. But me saying them, in front of her? Is that really so bad? Well, let’s see.
I searched the Google-machine for articles about swearing in front of your children. And lo-and-behold, there are nothing but blogs, like this one, that have tons and tons and tons of opinions about it. But scientific studies? Not so much. Which means, there really has been very little research done on the effects of swearing in front of your children. There is a lot of hyperbole, like if you swear in front of your kid they will grow up to be terrible bastards who throw cats off freeways. Or that they, you know, end up having a potty mouth when they are older, which is scientifically proven to be…not polite? I guess. Basically, the consensus from many of these articles is that if your children end up swearing, people will feel like you are a bad parent. Good thing I don’t actually care what people who aren’t raising my child think!
What I did find was a lot of blogs using the same information over and over again to justify the acceptance of swearing in front of your kids, and that comes from this dude who is a Professor of something or another at the University California at San Diego. His name is Benjamin Bergen and he basically says to totally swear in front of your kids, because he does! But here is the article: LA Times. I won’t tell you how to think, so you can draw your own conclusions. About every blog written since this Op-Ed in 2016 uses this dude as justification for swearing. Kind of like how lawmakers keep using the science of some 9 year old kid like 10 years ago that we need to ban straws. I mean, it’s easy to keep using this Prof. Bergen as a good works cited page, because there is very little to detract from his conclusion. Most of the mantra on swearing boils down to societal norms and what we find to be taboo versus acceptable behavior in children. At the end of the day, there just isn’t any evidence to suggest that parents who swear in front of their kids end up having shittier kids than say parents who give their children an all soy diet.
The context of swearing is what is most important. In my humble, non-scientific-based reasoning swearing AT kids is a whole lot worse than swearing in front of them. Science is available that details the psychological effects of swearing at your kids and using extremely harsh language with them when disciplining them or chastising them (Parents Who Scream). And swearing at my daughter is not something I would ever do.
I have no issue dropping shit, or hell, or damn, or even the occasional fuck in front of my daughter. I don’t do it just to do it, but because it is added to the flow of normal conversation. It isn’t like I am at home with her alone and just start dropping curse words while I talk to her. “Hey kiddo, what the f*&k do you want for lunch?” No, that ain’t how I roll. But if I am in conversation with my wife or another adult, then I am not censoring myself. If my daughter hears it, or repeats it, then it is my job as a sensible adult to explain to her what the word I used was, why I used it, and help her find alternative words that can be used in place of that naughty word. Have I called another driver on the road a “f*&kin’ idiot” while my kid was in the car? Absolutely. I live in California, and no one knows how to drive here except for me. Have I heard my daughter ever call anyone the same thing? Nope. Is it hypocritical to tell my daughter to do as I say, not as I do? Nope, just damn fine parenting. My daughter may also wonder why she can’t drive, even though daddy does. Well, I would tell her she has to wait ’til she is 16 before she can drive. That is when she will be ready to handle such a responsibility. Same thing with cursing. You can curse when you can demonstrate to me that you can handle the responsibility that comes with cursing.
I don’t swear in front of other kids, unless I have been given the go-ahead. And when out in public, like restaurants or parks or the like, I don’t use curse words, either. Usually. It takes a lot of restraint and I essentially have to be a different person because I accept that many people find cursing to be “rude” or “unbecoming of an adult”. I fully disagree, but then again, I’m different. So can you swear in front of your kids? I’m pretty sure most of you do, or have in the past, and they turned out just fine. If any of your kids turned into douche nozzles because you swore in front of them, I’d really like to hear about it. Chances are they suck for far worse reasons than that. I know not everyone will prescribe to this methodology, and that is your right as a parent to disagree with me. Just remember, I also don’t f*&kin’ care.
