*$&%^ or Swearing When You Have Kids in the House

I swear. No, I mean, I really do swear. You know, I cuss - I say all the cuss words I know on a fairly regular basis (well some are reserved for special times). And my kids are constantly calling me on it. Now, when they were much smaller, I couldn't say ANYTHING without having it repeated, so I had to learn to hold my tongue. But who hasn't let a shit or damn slip out and have a precocious toddler repeat it? Once, when Doug was changing a lightbulb, it popped in his hand and he reacted with "Son of a bitch!" For two months after that Hayley, then 2 years old, went around saying "bitch, bitch, bitch" at random. She finally put two and two together and one day, when she was mad at me for saying no to something (another Barney video? no Pop-Tarts for dinner?) she slapped me on the backs of my legs and shouted "BITCH!" Excellent. But I did try to hold back when they were smaller. However, at some point, kids cross that line between repeating everything and KNOWING they are not supposed to say certain "bad words". And then they become the swear police. Their eyes grow wide and they give a little gasp and say "Ohhhh, you said a SWEAR! (or "the S word" or "the B word" or whatever)" I find it amusing, and I certainly do not want my children swearing, but I say it's my choice as a grown-up to swear or not. It's not like I'm slinging the F word around every five minutes. But shit, damn, hell, bitch, ass........those are sometimes just more descriptive that shoot, darn, h-e-double hockey sticks, beeyotch and bum. For a while there was a debate in my house as to whether "crap" was a swear word and could you say it? And I explained it this way - it's not a "swear word" per se, but it doesn't sound very nice when a little kid says it. (You may argue here, that it doesn't sound very nice when a grown-up says it, to which I will say shut the hell up you judgemental freak!). Anyway. Now that my kids are a bit older (and have taken the liberty to include "crap", "sucks" and "beeyotch" into their daily language), I find myself not censoring as much. As in (while child is in front of the TV), "mom can you get me ______" to which I might reply "Get off your ass and get it!" I mean, really? I COULD say "darling, could you please get it yourself?" but that might sound like "por favor, yo quiero Taco Bell". Basically speaking a foreign language. Because that's just not me. I know, I know, the parenting books all SAY to model good behavior etc. But my parents swore like sailors and I NEVER swore in front of them until I was an adult. So, I knew my limits. And my kids do, too. Maybe they swear at school occasionally (although I know for a fact that Hannah's friends make fun of her for NOT swearing), but as long as they talk respectfully to adults and don't swear in front of them, I'm fine with that. When I occasionally go off on one of my crazy banshee cleaning frenzies I might shout "THERE IS TOO MUCH SHIT IN THIS HOUSE!" but it's TRUE. You know, that stuff you just can't categorize, like plastic skeletons, sticky spider webs, miscellaneous marbles. It's just SHIT. That sums it up nicely. I remember once Harrison, age 3, walking into the family room while we were watching TV and saying "what the hell is going on in here?" He was just trying it on for size and really had no idea what he was saying but what did we do? We laughed our asses off, that's what! Because it's FUNNY! Another time, not too long ago, Harrison, being the pre-teen that he is, kept telling stories about his day, which always seemed to include a kid on the bus saying the "S word". He would pause in the story and say "can I say it?" and I'd always answer "NO!" because we all know he's just looking for a reason to swear. Well, finally one night, in the middle of dinner I made him stand up and say ALL the swear words he knew, out loud, just ONCE ("and then you can never say them again"). I figured it would get it out of his system. What it did was give me an education! I didn't know half the words he said when I was ten! I didn't know some of them till I was twenty! Wow. Times have changed. And children, well, they DO pick up on things we do and say. For example, once when Arlie was a toddler, she wanted to ride her battery-operated fire truck. It needed batteries or some such thing, and Jeff told her as much. Her reply? "Well, get off your ass and fix it!" Out of the mouths of babes. They're precious, aren't they? Well, hell, it's time to wrap this up so I can go eat some shit for dinner. Damn. Happy Friday!