The F-Word

My daughter, Olivia, is almost six, and my son, Jake, is nine months old. While Jake was babbling one night, Olivia got excited and said, “It sounded like Jake said ‘What the hell.’”

I couldn’t help but laugh and Olivia clammed up, afraid she’d said something wrong. I told her it was a harmless saying and there’s no such thing as bad words, just bad intentions. I assured her it wasn’t a big deal.

Then last night Jen and the kids played Name that Acronym. They we’re laughing out loud at some of their guesses, but things got interesting when Olivia wanted to know what the F stood for in LMFAO.

The F-Word was not a satisfactory answer.

Jen and I had already had these discussions, our views on language very similar. George Carlin’s Seven Dirty Words and Anthrax’s “Startin’ Up a Posse” are good examples of where I stand. But it was still a little odd to hear Jen say it with Olivia and Jake looking right at her.

Fuck. Yep, that was the word of the day. Jen did an excellent job of explaining it, taking away the word’s forbidden attraction and power. It’s just a word, but it’s not always appropriate to use it. Jen finished up with we don’t use that word very often and where we wouldn’t want her using it.

I was feeling pretty optimistic the strategy was going to work and then Jake turns to Jen and said, “Dad taught me this shit like three fucking weeks ago.”

That’s obviously just a joke, it was four months ago, Jake’s first night of teething. I kept saying over and over, please just go the fuck to sleep.

Whenever it was, we’ll keep an eye on the kids, make sure their love of swearing is nowhere near mine.