I have a potty mouth. Admittedly, I use more inappropriate language around my small children than I should. My potty mouth is one of the bad habits that I am trying to improve upon.
For a long time my son (who had hearing problems until getting tubes at 2.5) didn’t pick up on or repeat my naughty expletives, so I made no attempt to tone down my foul mouth.
But a recent conversation with my 4 year old went like this:
- My Son: “He’s a poop a$$”
- Me: “Please don’t say “a$$”, only adults can say that word.”
- My Son: “Why, does it have alcohol in it?”
Okay, this clearly demonstrates that I have more than one bad habit that my child has become aware of. I have attempted to replace swear words with less innocuous words such as “cheese and rice!”, or “God bless it!”, but they just don’t have the same effect. I have also attempted to just use the first letter of the bad word, but having a 4 year old repeating “mother f-er” is also not appropriate.
I know the importance of modeling the types of behavior that I want my children to emulate. I use kind words, I exemplify good manners, and I treat others how I would like to be treated.
But try as I might I just can’t refrain from dropping the F-bomb when no other word fits the bill!
I have even consulted the web for suggestions and there is a plethora of articles on cussing politely. If you share the same affliction some of my favorites were “lint licker”, “monkey flucker” and “fart-knocker”.
So what do you do when you are the one who is the bad influence on your own children? This isn’t a rhetorical question. I am open to advice. At what age can they differentiate on their own between adult behavior and behavior that is appropriate for a child?
I think at the end of the day we all have to do the best we can to make their lives less confusing and try to curb the behaviors that we don’t want them to repeat, but we also need to cut ourselves a little slack and realize that we may be moms, but we are also human.
Oh, and I would just like to make it clear that if anyone ever sees my child streaking through the neighborhood…he didn’t learn that one from me!
