01 May How I Swore My Way Into Parenting Trouble – And Out Again
Emma Viskic swears off swearing when her daughter starts using some colourful language.
I have a confession to make: I was a bad mother. Or, at least, a foul-mouthed mother. I tried, I really did, and most of the time my language would have delighted the ears of Great Aunt Rose. But at the end of a long, hot day when the dog had decided to eat Ratsak, the toilet was blocked and I had suddenly remembered that I had promised to bake five cakes for the fete the next day, well…
I didn’t realise I had a problem for a long time. I mean, nobody could blame me for muttering something under my breath while I mopped baby poo from my freshly laundered top as I rushed to work, could they? Or for giving vent to a quiet expletive as I dislodged a vital organ tripping over the toys that I’d told the kids to pick up before someone tripped over them. And swearing doesn’t count while you’re driving, right?
When Mum’s Language Learns to Bite Back
But my life of denial ended four years ago when my eldest daughter, who was three at the time, looked out of the window at a sudden downpour and said in a world-weary voice, “Oh #$*%, you left the washing on the line”. Those lisping words brought with them the full realisation of my problem. Lilly is a child who loves to play with words and their effect. Well, those particular words had quite an effect.
After I started breathing again, I was filled with the fear that parents wouldn’t let their children play with her. I was anxious that she would grow up crass and rude. And, worst of all, I was worried that she’d say something in front of Grandma.
Swear Jars, Soap, and Schoolyard Slip-Ups
My husband and I decided to take a zero-tolerance approach to swearing. We instituted a ‘swear jar’, the proceeds of which would go to charity. If there had been any doubt in our minds that we needed to clean up our act, there certainly wasn’t after we watched that steadily growing pile of coins in the jar. The Salvation Army, the Red Cross and Amnesty International all did very well out of us in the first week. The swear jar soon had the desired effect: Lilly seemed to have forgotten her fun new words, and our house, if not the car, was expletive-free.
Then Lilly started school. Whether she would have taken to the new and more exciting schoolyard profanities anyway, or whether her early exposure to the bluer side of the English language was to blame, I don’t know, but she showed a talent for swearing that would have shocked a stevedore.
I spent hours boring my friends with the details. Well, maybe not all of the details – I might have glossed over Lilly’s precise use of the phrase, “It just won’t *&%^$ work”. Everyone assured us that if we were vigilant about our own language, but ignored Lilly’s, she would soon stop swearing. My husband and I began to sound like extras on Little House on the Prairie. Even minor swear words were out; instead, the quaint sounds of ‘gosh’ and ‘bother’ were heard when the milk was sour or the car ran out of petrol. And there was no swearing in the car, not even if a total nitwit cut me off and then slowed to a 30km/h crawl. We sat back and waited for Lilly’s new-found words to disappear. They didn’t.
We decided that perhaps we hadn’t made it clear to Lilly which words were okay and which ones weren’t. A list of unacceptable words was taped to the fridge… and quickly removed when discovered by one of the children’s friends.
Back came the swear jar. Yet again, it helped the charities, but it didn’t have much effect on Lilly. Money was just too abstract, and at this rate she’d be in debt to us until her retirement. So we experimented. We tried stickers on a chart for swear-free days, denial of privileges for swearing and bribes for not swearing, plus the old favourite – washing the mouth out with soap.
Finding Peace in a (Mostly) Expletive-Free
They all worked with varying degrees of success. Our youngest child, who never swore very much anyway, stopped immediately, but it seemed like a never-ending battle with Lilly. And then, one day, I suddenly realised that she hadn’t sworn for weeks. Not even when presented with a plate full of steamed vegetables. We had done it – our family was expletive-free. I slept peacefully with the knowledge that I hadn’t ruined my children for life and that maybe I wasn’t such a bad parent after all.
Two years later, our house isn’t squeaky clean, but it is a swearing-free zone for the most part. The girls are growing up into wonderful, loving and only occasionally foul-mouthed children. They’re careful not to swear at each other, their parents, or in public.
And never in front of Grandma.
