"Language." "Nng, sorry..."

[prog]

So babies & toddlers are starting to inevitably spread through my social group, and are being brought to gaming events, which serve as the mead-halls for my social life. This much is fine. I like kids OK, and I like smart kids a lot, so I honestly look forward to this crop getting old enough to think and talk, so I can start feeling jealous for their awesome childhoods within a whole crowd of delightfully immature "aunts" & "uncles". (Versus that of poor baby jmac, raised by friendless oldsters and sent to bed at 6pm every night. Alas!)

But there is one thing I don't like so much: it's accepted that, when the wee ones are around, all the grown-ups must refrain from using cuss-words. This actually makes me a little annoyed. Actually: rather annoyed, and a little angry, that I must constrain my own behavior for reasons which, when I think them through, seem more harmful than beneficial to the kids in question.

I mean: beyond being a futile exercise (you do plan on sending them to school one day, yes?), it smacks of teaching one's children a known falsehood, setting them up for later disillusionment and confusion. I guess I could see it if we as a group truly abused the words to a nautical degree, but I would argue that we use them as proper language flavoring: salt rather than syrup, if you will. So wouldn't one want to expose their kids to smart grown-ups speaking naturally, rather than teach them the fiction that the words simply don't exist, and are never said by anyone?

Naturally, I say all this as a non-parent, and further one who can't imagine changing this status, not without a rather severe personal mental rearrangement, so maybe there's something magical I'm not getting. Furthermore, were I ever put in charge of a child, I would (barring, again, a drastic change of personal philosophy) teach them during their first sentient Xmas the truth about both Santa Claus and Jesus Christ, and I don't know how different this strategy would be from even the new parents in my current crowd.

Comments

[dougo.livejournal.com]

Taboos are weird. I think the whole reason to make certain words taboo is to preserve their power, so that saying "fuck" means "my feelings are intense enough that I'm breaking a taboo to express them". I.e. if cuss words are outlawed then only outlaws will cuss. Or something like that.

On the other hand, I don't really care about words having power, so the idea of not saying certain words "for the children's sake" seems archaic to me. So I think I agree with avon that it's up to the parent to just avoid "inappropriate" gatherings rather than imposing a G rating onto all gatherings.

[prog.livejournal.com]

There are also different things going on here. Yelling FUCK when something goes wrong is losing your temper, and setting a bad example even apart from the cussing.

On the other extreme, I enjoy the freedom of using naughty words, even mild ones, as very occasional salt in conversation; I actually don't think this makes me look bad, no more than I think cymbal crashes always ruin a musical score. In a kids-included situation, though, each occurrence makes me feel suddenly confused as to whether or not I crossed the line. And I feel the same if I veer out of the way with some silly stand-in word.

I guess with practice I could remove swearing from my used vocabulary entirely and make the whole point moot, but I do not foresee myself putting the practice in.

[aspartaimee.livejournal.com]

anecdotally, here's something for you.

i am in the car with my friend Elizabeth. she gets a call on her cellphone from her kid's first grade teacher. apparently, arthur (the kid) was struck by some amazing science thing they learned in class that he said "huh. ain't that a motherfucker." we think this is hilarious, the teacher doesn't.

this not a phrase which his parents or any of us adults who spent a lot of time around him have ever uttered (but since then, we say it a lot), but obviously he heard it someplace and knew the context in which to use it.

kids pick up stuff. that's the bottom line. it could be from you, it might be from someone else. i say go with what you are comfortable within each situation. in the case of the "swear jar" scenerio where the kid charges a quarter for every swear word, start a tab.

[dougo.livejournal.com]

I guess what bothers me is that the people admonishing "Language!" would probably not care at all if you yelled "Fudge!" or "Mother jumper!". It's really just about that particular series of consonants and vowels that they don't want their children to hear (or don't want to hear themselves).

[aspartaimee.livejournal.com]

this is very true.

most of the reason why i like to swear is because of the sounds. "fuck" is satisfying to say when your are angry because the F and the K sound are harsh. same with combos like "christ on a cracker." when saying "beaver" the B part gets the hard stomp of the accent. it's easy to interchange these words around kids, because the sounds are similar even if the words are different. fudge, criminy crackers, bother etc.

[prog.livejournal.com]

Sometimes I like to say "Rot! Rubbish!! Figs!!!" in that order. Because it's fun, and because I will marry the first person who gets the reference. (Unless I am misremembering it, which would be a shame.)