Cursing in front of kids shouldnât be verboten
By Natalie Serafini, Opinions Editor
When I first met my nephew, there were a lot of things I worried about. I worried that I would drop the precious bundle, because I had no idea how to hold a baby. I worried that I was secreting a pheromone, popularly known as âInexplicably Prompts Babies to Cry Unconsolably.â More than these entirely rational concerns, though, I was especially worried that I would slip-up and drop an F-bomb in front of my infant nephew.
So I confess, I worry about swearing in front of kids. Yet, I canât think of a reason why the cleanliness of my speech should be so much of a concern in the presence of children. What are we trying to protect? Perhaps because of the innocence, which children are an abundant fountain of. It would explain Santa Claus, and the universal understanding that nothing may pierce, stab, or crush the delicate exoskeleton of that dream.
Letâs assume itâs innocence that weâre preserving when we swap in âfudgeâ and âsherbetâ; hearing swear words doesnât tear the child out of childhood and set them on the path towards a hard knock life. Kids arenât born with an innate understanding of what those words mean, so uttering a few choice syllables isnât going to open a veritable Pandoraâs box of hardship, and it likely wonât give them a bad case of Tourette Syndrome. Itâs difficult to see how the utterance of a few words would mar a childâs innocence, so Iâm hesitant to give that explanation full credibility.
Instead, perhaps the concern is in ensuring that the childâs vocabulary is suitably broad. It wouldnât be good if the child were to use swear words to describe everything, or peppered every sentence with curses. But when a child learns a new word, do they apply it to every single situation and sentence? Iâm sure some kids do, but itâs not guaranteed that an obscenity will become their new favourite wordâespecially if parents calm down and stop worrying about their kids getting overly attached to a swear word. Kids frequently only become fascinated by things that carry mystique, or are taboo. If one doesnât assign impropriety and illicitness to the words, the child will likely forget that they even heard it. Theyâre gems like that.
And if the concern is with expanding the childâs vocabulary, the easy solution to that is to expand your own vocabulary, and not swear in every sentence. That doesnât mean never swearingâsometimes âfudgeâ or âsherbetâ donât quite address the enormity of a situationâbut choosing to be strategic and effective.
There are certain things kids should be protected from. Polio, murderers, drugs/alcohol/cigarettes: life- and quality of life-threatening forces that go under the parenting guidelines as âto avoid.â Language is not one of the things kids should be protected from. Language is powerful, and rather than ignoring the existence of words, maybe itâs better to teach kids to understand their significance. There will be a few rogue rascals walking around the grocery store shouting their favourite new curses, but generally speaking, the kids wonât care about their new-found knowledge. Parents should be teaching their kids to have an arsenal of words at their disposal, even if that means emphasizing the sparse use of some words.
