How I taught my kids the 2nd most offensive swear word in the English language.

I'm sad to report an unfortunate escalation in the level of profanity in our household.

The twins' foray into salty language started innocently enough.   If they tripped or dropped something, they’ll pipe up with an “oh darn!” or “oh crap”.   We let it slide because frankly, it was adorable.

Adorable turned to hilarious in June with the douchebag incident. One morning Charles was resisting getting dressed and I jokingly warned him that “only a douchebag walks around with no shirt when it’s 17 degrees out. You don’t want to be a douchebag do you?” Fast forward 2 days. We’re at the grocery store and in walk a couple of Jersey Shore rejects....

Kinda like this only less cut and more orange.

Charles shouts with unrestrained delight “LOOK MAMA!  IT'S A DOUCHEBAG!”  And just in case anyone missed it the first time, B chimes in with “No Mommy, ITS TWO DOUCHEBAGS!”   Yeah, I should have been embarrassed but I  was laughing WAY too hard.  Just the idea of these two yahoos being called out by a couple of two-year olds.   It was priceless.

Where does my tolerance for bad language end you may ask?  I found out last week-end.   I do make some effort not to swear in front of the kids but occasionally something slips past the filter.   At breakfast I burned myself badly on a hot pan and let out an emphatic  “Mother f#cker!”  The kids didn’t seem to notice and I forgot about it. 

Later that day, I was investigating a suspicious silence and found them out in the garage playing in the tent trailer.  They were taking turns mimicking my transgression and giggling like mad.   Conventional wisdom in these situations is don't make a big deal about it.   If you scold them or worse start laughing, they may use the word even more, just to get a reaction.    So I ignored it… but it didn’t go away.  

They found many opportunities to break out their new word.  In the car, in the house, while at camping....  We were walking in the woods and came to a fork in the trail.  Charles didn't know which path to choose so he throws up his arms and shouts "MOTHER F#CKER!!"  Greg and I just about peed our pants.  Is there some kind of parenting medal for not laughing in situations like that? 

It’s typical really.  They never pick up any of my fake curse words like “Firetruck!” or “Son of a Biscuit!”  or  “Mother of Pearl!” or "Jeebus Crispies"  But the one time I slip up, it’s burned on their brains forever. 

So we had a long talk and I think I’ve convinced them to edit it from their vocabulary.   The big stumbling block was that Charles wanted to know WHY it was such a bad word.  WHY would it make people sad if he said it?   Would it be ok he said it when he was alone?   I had trouble coming up with a good response.  I'm certainly not going to explain the definition of the word to a 2 year-old. 

I will probably explain when they're older though as an additional deterent.   I recall an incident from my junior high days.  My dad and I were arguing about whether I was allowed to use the word ‘bugger’.   It was a popular insult among my peers and I didn’t see the harm in it.  Finally my Dad asked if I even knew what the word meant.  Turns out I didn't.   Having my Dad explain it to me was probably the single most mortifying incident of my teenage years.   I have never uttered the word since.  Even now just typing it makes me shudder.

Unfortunately, it will be years before I can pull something like that with the twins.   In the mean-time, we’ve added #6 to our whiteboard.