The Appropriate Lexicon

My daughter Rachael now has a vocabulary of about 60 words. She picks up new ones on a daily basis, which has made me keenly aware of my need to curb my tendency to swear. This is going to be a real bitch, because frankly, there are some words that just aren’t replaceable.

I remember the Mormon kids in high school who used to substitute appropriate words for their evil, inappropriate counterparts, and it just sounded really lame. They would say, “fudge” instead of “fuck” or “darn” instead of “damn”. I took a wicked amount of joy in correcting their failure to use the accurate swear word, which would often get me in trouble, but it was worth it. Now those goody-goodies can take a turn laughing at me as I hold my breath in the car to refrain from releasing a slew of verbal abuse that my toddler might latch onto. My face turns red as a pair of little assholes in a crappy car playing bad rap music at ten pulls out in front of me, and I can’t say anything. I look into my rearview mirror and watch my daughter in her carseat happy as a clam as she “reads” her Baby Einstein book about frogs.

Ever since my daughter has began adding to her lexicon, my husband has been on high alert. During the beginning of one of Rachael’s Dora the Explorer DVDs two frogs come on the screen ribbiting, and Rachael correctly identifies them as “frog.” However, Jeff swears he heard the word “fuck” and starts giving me dirty looks. He is correct in accusing me of teaching our child foul words, because if she does end up repeating them it will be, because she heard them from me. I managed to correct my husband that night by showing Rachael pictures of other animals, including frogs, and asking her to identify them, which she did. I still think Jeff didn’t really believe me until he witnessed Rachael screaming “frog” for the next two weeks every time she saw the friendly amphibian.

I do feel somewhat guilty about the amount I swear, but also have no interest in curbing it. I will own up to my responsibility as a parent and keep my mouth in check, only because I don’t want Rachael letting a “shit” or “fuck” fly at an in-law family gathering. I also want her to recognize what is appropriate and inappropriate, because we have a particular family member who doesn’t, and everyone can’t stand that person.

I wish that appropriateness, along with potty training, were one of the things that were hard-wired into kids when they were born. It would be great if Rachael could automatically know that when Mommy calls someone a “dumb bastard” while she’s driving that doesn’t mean she can repeat the phrase when it comes to a fellow toddler in daycare.

I thought about doing the whole swear jar thing, you know, deposit a quarter per swear. However, I only have a few hundred dollars tucked away in a personal savings account ear-marked for a breast lift once I quit having kids, and all I need is one good dose of Seattle traffic, and the money would be history.

Inevitably the day will come when my smiley, blue-eyed munchkin will blurt road crew language, and I’ll have to summon an iron will in order to discipline her when I really want to laugh until I pee. Let’s face it, there’s nothing cuter than a little kid swearing. I only hope that she does it early in the day, so I can have that word gone from her vocabulary by the time Jeff gets home. I can just see him walking in the door as Rachael is running through the house singing “shit, shit, shit, shit,” while I’m sitting on the couch busting a gut. He would end up lecturing me, and I would feel like the worst mom in the world, then we’d end up writing the whole experience down in the baby book, because no matter how proper the family is, every parent remembers their kid’s first swear word.

For now I can only hope that I can curb my swearing habit before Rachael picks it up, because we are sending her to an Orthodox Jewish pre-school at the end of the month, and the last call I want to get is from the teacher informing me that Rachael just called her classmate an “asshole.” I can picture the look in the teacher’s eyes as she stares at me like I’m the world’s worst mother, and all I’ll be thinking is: Darn it, I should have kicked my fudging swearing habit earlier.