Phillip Chestnut loves his son and his sitcoms, so why can’t he have both at the same time?
My oldest son turned 5 years old just this past year. Now that he is at the age of repeating everything that is heard and focusing intently on everything that happens on the television, I have been completely swept up in this constant, ongoing battle with what is appropriate, both for what I want my son to watch and what I am okay with him saying.
One of the most common battles is cursing. I must state that I was active duty for 7 years in the United States Navy so I am fluent in two languages: English and cussing. When I am alone or in the company of other like-spoken friends, I can say some things that would make Satan blush. I try, try, try my hardest to watch what I say around my kids and soften my language to the best of my ability but accidents do happen. Luckily, my son knows what words he is not allowed to say and will actually correct me when I have a mishap. A recent example is when our dog got out of the front door and escaped for a two mile run around the neighborhood. I had to chase her in the middle of oncoming traffic and in 20 degree temperatures. It goes without saying that I was pretty irate when I got back to the house with her. I was explaining to my wife how she was jumping fences in people’s backyards when I explained to her and my son that she was like a “f*&king kangaroo.” My son immediately gasped in horror and told me that I had just said the “most horrible word ever.” Kuddos to him. I am definitely very proud that he would correct me and knew that that word was off limits even if he didn’t know what it meant and even if his daddy had just used it.
My concern with teaching him not to say curse words is how far we go to limit even the nearest attempt at those terrible words. He has learned phrases such as “what the heck” and “what the crap” through kids at school and television and we catch ourselves providing the same harsh criticism of his words as if he had said the curse words outright. I am definitely not condoning allowing a child to say offensive curse words, but are we going too far when we punish them for saying these softer versions of curse words? I feel that I have to acknowledge the fact that my child is going to hear some terrible things in his life and is probably going to follow suit and use some of these phrases himself. I don’t want to punish him for using a statement that IS expressive but uses a softer version of words that are clearly insulting. I catch myself doing it though. I guess because I don’t want other adults criticizing my parenting skills because my son is saying words like heck and crap.
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Is teaching our children to soften their expressive language even possible when dealing with modern day network television shows? I remember when HBO and Showtime used to be the networks that were reserved for cuss words and sex. I remember having to stay up past 11:00 at night as a young boy to see something even resembling sex on television and that was probably just two people making out. I remember the radio stations wiping out the word “damn” from Bobby Brown’s song “My Prerogative.”
Prime time sitcoms and police / murder dramas on major networks have become now what HBO late night comedy would have been in my childhood. Each episode contains at least one scene where adults are ripping each others’ clothes off and having crazy sexual conversations. It’s not that I don’t enjoy these programs. I do. I find them absolutely hilarious. The problem I have is having to watch sitcoms after my children go to bed because the content of the show is not meant for their little ears and eyes.
I have very fond memories, as a child, of curling up on the couch and watching sitcoms with my parents. This is something that parents of my generation will probably never get to do with their children unless you turn the television to TV land and watch reruns of Cosby and Mama’s Family. I would really like to keep my television on CBS, NBC, or ABC at night but I guess it’s PBS until they get a little older. I have grown tired of explaining away the words that they use and saying that “he’s trying to steal her clothes” or “they are only wrestling in the back seat.”
Sorry, George Carlin, but your list of seven dirty words is slowly dwindling down to a mere few.
—modified photo John W. Schulze / Flickr Creative Commons
