I have a friend who won’t let her kids swear, and she is deeply disturbed that in my house, I allow my teenaged kids to say pretty much what comes to mind. Stipulation: the words mustn’t be said in order to be mean or hurtful, they can’t be aimed at anyone, and they need to use a filter when they aren’t at home. But, in our home, pretty much anything goes. And I have to say, the novelty of swearing has worn off. We all know no one wants to hear it. It sounds trashy and uneducated, but when you drop a frozen turkey on your toe, really, nothing else will do but $^&#*!
Now, this friend, the one who is disturbed by my language lenience, is fine with her boys beating each other up, kicking, hitting, you name it. “Boys will be boys,” she says as they pound on each other. I think this is just wrong.

And then there’s the friend who won’t let her kids eat meat. I mean, hello, we have CANINE teeth! And then there’s my deluded friend who won’t allow her daughter to date until she’s 18. I mean, we all know what her daughter is doing at school. I think that’s why they invented bleachers, and the space under them, for kids who have delusional parents.

And, oh, the friend who insists on home schooling her children? Well, to be honest, we aren’t friends anymore. When you only teach your kids what you know and you don’t know that much, you end up with very sheltered, narrow minded, somewhat — scratch that — EXTREMELY annoying kids. And that brings me to my point.

Isn’t the point, the real point of being parents, to help our children find happiness? To “find their bliss,” in the words of the brilliant Joseph Campbell. Isn’t the shared goal that parents have for their children the desire for them to have more, learn more, see more and ultimately be better people than those they were raised by?

If so, I wonder if it matters if we let them cuss. Actually, I wonder if a whole assortment of rules matter.

Share on Facebook