"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

[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.