Since it is 100* here today, naturally my mind drifted towards thoughts of snow...which led to thoughts of Christmas...which led to thoughts of one of my favorite movies ever, "A Christmas Story." There is a scene in the movie where Ralphie's father (aka "The Old Man") was fixing the furnace. In the movie, Ralphie narrates it as, "my father wove a tapestry of obscenities that as far as we know is still hanging in space over Lake Michigan." In yet another of my favorite scenes, Ralphie gets to help the Old Man change a flat tire. Ralphie is holding the hubcap filled with the lug nuts, and he drops them. In the snow. At night. He reacts by saying, "Oh, fuuuuuuuuuuuuuudge," only, well, he says the real word. He gets his mouth washed out with soap, and there is another great moment where he compares the tastes of all the soaps he has "tasted."
I grew up in a house where "shut up" was a bad word. I was the oldest of three kids. Like Ralphie, I tasted my share of soap. Of course, as a child I vowed I would never do anything as barbaric as wash my children's mouth out with soap. Jason grew up surrounded by lots of "colorful" language. Once free from the threat of blindness from soap poisoning, my vocabulary became peppered with expletives, too.
Now, no one wants their precious angel to have a vocabulary that would make a sailor blush. So, I found myself, in the bathroom, with a bar of soap in my hand saying, "if I EVER hear you say that again, I am washing your mouth out with soap." All four of my children have had their mouths washed out at various points in their lives.
Four years ago, when Cameron was in 5th grade, "crap" was suddenly the cool word to say. Evidently, it was taken off the "bad word" list, and no one had the decency to tell me. Kids in school were saying it, some teachers were saying it, and no-one was batting an eye. Then it was "pissed off" (and all the variations) that became en vogue. I told my kids that just because everyone else was saying it, that didn't mean I wanted to hear it. A gaggle of 12 year boys saying, "oh, crap" every other word truly grated on my nerves (and lordy, that "Oh, snap!" phase just about sent me to the loony bin. They are lucky I didn't wash their mouths out for that, or else they would all have been stricken with soap poisoning blindness).
I know my boys swear. I know they listen to music with swear words. They know I swear...that is no secret. But still, it's a bit disconcerting to actually hear the words coming from my boys' mouths. When JP would plug his iPod in to the car speakers, he used to skip certain songs. Or if he "forgot," he'd at least give a quick,"oops, sorry," while changing the song.
The day of his graduation from DeMatha, on the way home, JP played a string of hand-selected songs that were hilarious...and borderline obscene. Jason almost wrecked the car he was laughing so hard. I was torn between laughing at JP's audacity and being appalled that he was comfortable enough testing his newly found freedoms. So, it's no surprise that I lectured him while laughing so hard I had tears in my eyes. Proud mommy moment, for sure.
In another 20-40 years when my children make me a grandmother, I fully expect to get a phone call saying, "Mom, I don't know WHERE they heard such a word, but I had to wash their mouths out with soap." Let's just hope they didn't hear it from me.
**Side note** as I was typing this, my three year old daycare buddy said to the other kids,"What the Hell?!?". Seriously. I'm telling you I can't make this stuff up.
No comments:
Post a Comment