My father is 77 and I’ve never heard him swear.
Not one time have I ever heard an ‘Oh S—t,’ a ‘God—–it,’ or even a ‘Mother f—-er’ in times if anger.
Is he a freak of nature or someone who watches his language?
A recent Time Magazine article would argue for the former.
In it, writer Tiffany Sharples writes:
There is a certain four-letter word that evokes much emotion, is often uttered by mothers giving birth, and whose usage by humans is thought to be evolutionarily adaptive: f___!
It seems swearing is an evolutionary adaptation of our species. Adapting to a better feeling is apparently the conclusion the British researchers came to:
“Swearing increases your pain tolerance,” says Richard Stephens, a psychologist and lead author of the study, which was published this week in the journal NeuroReport.’
Other studies have found similar results: that swearing in the workplace helps workers cope with the stresses of the job. However, there is some evidence to suggest even Wall St. (of all the God forsaken places) is taking notice and urging employers to take a harder look at profanity in the workplace.
It seems the almighty buck doesn’t agree with practice of expletive rich corporate cultures.
What’s a Single Parent To Do?
With all this conflicting research that seems to point toward the inevitability of Junior participating in his evolutionary right, how does a single parent -especially a single dad raising kids alone- deal with it?
Do we teach our kids to watch their language? Do we excuse their growing vocabulary as evolutionary adaptation and urge them to curb their practices depending on the social situation or context?
Swearing and Kids
Swearing around the house (like I sometimes do) is the first exposure a child experiences. LE has certainly heard me utter ‘the F-word and the S-word’ (as he calls them), usually in response to shutting my finger in a drawer or some other careless injury.
My own behavior with swearing would seem to support Dr. Richards’ research above. When I hurt myself, -particular my right thumb which seems to have been voted Most Likely To Be Re-injured by the rest of my body- there’s nothing as instantly soothing and comforting as shouting a loud ‘F— iiiiiiit!’
For some reason, it’s fitting and it helps me cope with the instant flood of pain my thumb often produces. It also makes me feel rather guilty, though I must admit, less so as LE gets older and understands more why we behave like we do.
Kids swear for different reasons. Younger children are like digital recorders with automatic playback. you say it and they’ll repeat it. And often in the most inconvenient time resulting in somewhat embarrassing moments.
Older kids often swear to express anger. But they also swear to imitate their peers.
How often have you heard young teenagers communicating in the grocery store line inserting ’sh#t’ or ‘f@$k’ for every other word thinking they will sound more adult-like?
Dads Should Set the Example
Like my dad, if you want to control your language, you just do it. You don’t advertise to the world that you’re going to stop swearing, you simply stop. You find other words to use instead of the profane ones.
Knowing that our kids are like sponges and soak up everything we do or say, we have a decision to make when it comes to what language we passively reinforce. We can either choose to model restraint or not.
As I wrote in the post on spanking, it’s confusing for a child to be hit for hitting a younger sibling. It’s confusing for your child when you punish her for saying the same words you use.
If language matters, you need to set the example.
Helpful Links:
- Google Search for Swearing Around Children
- Time Magazine Article
- Right Attitudes Blog Post
- Parenting and Child Health
My mother swore like a proverbial sailor – at the worst possible times. It entertained my friends, and embarrassed me. My father swore rarely…
Raising my kids (solo), I made a concerted effort to NOT swear when they were little (I swore in French), but lightened up on that as they were older. Eventually the rule became “It doesn’t offend me, so here in this house it’s fine. But it offends others, so outside of the house – not fine.”
That works until they hit about 14. Then all bets are off. We all swear now – sometimes very creatively – preferably in French.