Ya know how sometimes ya just have to let out at good @#*! once-in-a-while when @#*! happens…
Like when someone in another car cuts you off. Or your drive-thru coffee is light with cream and sugar when you asked for black, no sugar. When you have this much gas in your tank and you’re late for work already. Or you thought your appointment was at 10:00 am and it was at 9:00. How about when you need brown sugar (that’s not killer hard) for a recipe and you don’t have any. Your electricity went off and your alarm didn’t ring. The MapQuest directions sent you around the universe. Your little black dress is a tad too tight. Your phone rings just as the baby is settling down for a nap…
You get the picture.
So. Little kids. They don’t get to say @#*! (or even “poop”) or anything like it when poop happens to them. And poop happens a lot to kids.
What do you allow your kids to say to express a bit of frustration?
My grandfather has got my boys saying, “Son of a Seahorse!”. Which can give you some interesting looks when you’re in Walmart!
I can’t remember anything specific that we required our boys to substitute for *#$%, but I do remember taking them to the Castle Cinema to see “Harry and the Hendersons” when they were around 8 and 6 years old. At one point, the movie son yelled out “*#$%.” We were in the balcony, and the boys literally fell to the floor in hysterics. Not so much because he said the word, but because the parents had no reaction whatsoever. NOT what would have happened at home.
They remember, and we still laugh about it.
I must admit, now that they are 28 and 26, that I’ve heard them say “#$*%,” or even “!@+^” a time or two.
So funny, I use to say “pooparoni” a lot when the kids were growing up cause believe it or not, they never heard cursing in our house cause we just didn’t curse. I grew up in a household that I never heard it, so that’s what I was use to. If my parents heard us say “fart” we got scolded. I can remember one time when I was about 11 or 12 years old and wanting to know what it was like to cuss, so I rode my pink bike out in an open field behind our house and stood by myself and just starting yelling out every cuss word I could think of. After I got it all out of my system, I prayed to God to forgive me and went home….
That’s so funny, Mimi. I grew up in a home where there was no cursing either (except when my Pop-Pop would curse at the Phillies…we just let him, cause he was old, ya know 😉
Today, I say things like, “shoot a stinkin’ monkey!” or just “Stink.” My kids have tried to say dang, which gets them in trouble. Mostly they say “stink” too.
I grew up in a house where both parents had mouths that would make sailors blush so as a teenager, I had adopted that same mouth. Of course, not in front of them because we weren’t allowed 🙂 By the time I reached adulthood, I had worked to reign in that mouth a little and now I really try hard since I have two parrots! I do say “Crap!” a lot though and the other day my son couldn’t get a door open and he very non-chalantly said, “Ah, cwap!” and everyone around just giggled. 🙂
I take sort of an unconventional approach here: I let my kids say what they want, with a few conditions. One, it has to be at home, in private. Two, if I happen to hear them, the usage must be appropriate. One lecture on the correct verb tenses of a certain word killed its appeal for my daughter, and I’ve never heard her say it since.
The princess (4.5) says butt or fudge
the boys (11 & 8) says Crudface
I say Fudge or crud otherwise the princess tells me it’s a potty word.