I AM A BAD MOM, EPISODE 552

(Alex – if you are reading this, stop now. Of course I find cursing to be unacceptable. And I would never say a bad word in front of the kids. Don’t be ridiculous.)

Is he gone? Ok…

I have a relaxed attitude when it comes to cursing. I am not so naive as to think that I can keep the kids from learning “bad words”. Instead, I have opted to teach them the appropriate way to use them.

I am doing this by modeling the proper behavior…i.e. it is okay to exclaim “shit Giorgie!” when she dumps chocolate milk all over the coffee table at home, but it is not okay to say it when she does it at playgroup.

The kids seem to be following along with my loose guidelines. Addy said “shit Giorgie” when she dumped cereal all over the living room carpet. She didn’t say it to the kids at daycare. She didn’t say it in front of Alex. Mission accomplished.

Well, my brilliant plan of “behavioral modeling” completely overlooked outside influences. Apparently my kids listen to other people. I am shocked.

The other day we had the neighbor’s four year old over to play. The three girls were in opposite corners of the living room (this is how a 2, 3 and 4 year old “play together”). I had my head in the computer. I had tuned out all sounds of fighting and was intensely concentrating on my screen. Then something pierced through my veil of parental indifference.

“Fuck, fuck, fuck, fuck. Fuck Giorgie. Fuck Fuck.” Not spoken. Sung. Off-key. Could only be Addy.

I whipped my head up from the screen and did a Linda Blair-esque head spin to locate the offending mouth. I was sure I was misunderstanding some innocuous Dutch word. That particular word is not part of my standard repertoire. So I said, “Hey, Addy, what did you say?” She responded, “Fuck”. Okay, that cleared things up.

I sat there like a guppy out of water. How was I going to get her to stop saying the word, without making it seem taboo (read: cool)?

And this is where it became obvious that my neighbor’s four year old was more qualified to raise children than I am. She looked up from her corner and said, “Addy, that word is for big people. Little people can’t use it.” Again, more guppy face from me. I didn’t have anything better, so I sat back and let the master parent go to work.

It worked. Addy said “oookkkaaaayyy” (still in her singsong voice) and hasn’t used the word again.

I don’t know whether to be thankful or to go and throw myself into the canal out front. I am now dependent on a four year old for parental advice.

Tune in next week for another episode of “I am a bad mom”…