I swear, by the moon and the #@?%!

When I was young, maybe seven or so I got smacked by my mother for swearing. I was watching TV with my brothers and said 'pricks' as she walked into the room and was swiftly scolded, no questions asked. If a question was asked, she would have realised that my brothers and I were watching the Formula One and I was reading the Grand Prix text on screen.

Yeah mum, excuse my French.

Lately, I have talked to a few people about children swearing and I have no problem with it. If my daughter wants to swear, she can go right ahead but, she will have to learn to swear like me. I swear a lot and I can have a very crude mouth. It has something to do with me finding humor in any situation and there is nothing really sacred and beyond talking about.

However, there is a time and a place to swear. Most people have been raised with an aversion to hearing people curse even though they themselves may do it a lot. It tends to bring out the judgmental parent in people, the one that lives on in the programming of the child.

This means that if most people's first meeting with someone is filled with expletives, they are likely to judge the person harshly. So we censor ourselves for social acceptance and opportunity. Most of us do this naturally in the same way most of us change our vocabulary when speaking to children. It is a social awareness and to be unaware of this means one is missing a certain amount of social intelligence.

This means that there are consequences to not understanding social norms of other people even if one doesn't care of the norms for themselves. But once a relationship has formed, the stronger it gets, the more swearing may enter into the field. It could even be seen as a sign of trust between friends.

Going into an interview for a management position with people unknown is likely to not play out positively if the language uses is curse-laden. But, not long after getting the job and getting to know the people personally, swearing may become a commonplace occurrence.

For my daughter, I don't want her swearing for the sake of swearing but that goes for any parts of her language ability. I am hoping that she will be aware enough of her surrounding that she will be able to adapt and use a vocabulary of best fit.

When she is with me however, I want her to feel free to be able to say whatever she thinks is appropriate in the moment. Yes, she is likely to make slips and say the wrong thing at the wrong time like we all have, but blindly punishing her without context is quite ludicrous. I am not going to limit her and expect her to live to my own ideals. What I will do however is help her to understand the ramifications of action.

Words are actions as they create movements in the mind and like any action, there are reactions, consequences. This means that there is a responsibility of action that gets carried with the words we use. People talk about free speech but rarely about the right to free reaction. This doesn't mean violence but it may definitely mean a 'No' in an interview.

In my opinion, there are much worse things than swearing in this world and unlike a lot of negative habits, swearing itself is not some gateway into the dark side of the force because if it was, I would likely be Darth Vader by now. So, I don't mind if she learns to swear as long as she understands the repercussions of her actions.

But that goes for fucking everything and some people are just Prix.

Taraz
[ a Steemit original ]