My Kids Have Potty Mouths

“SONOFABITCH.”

I looked at my 12-year old.

She was staring into our snack cabinet and holding the doors open, only a few feet away from me. I was in the middle of grabbing a beer out of the fridge when, from behind the open door of my Maytag, I heard the exclamation.

“SONOFABITCH.”

“Um,” I said as I closed the fridge door, bending my neck in her direction. “What?”

“We’re out of Oreos,” she said, looking at me with a full-on deadpan expression.

“Sonofabitch,” I said.

I love Oreos.

My kids swear.

I suppose I shouldn’t be surprised. I live in New England where pretty much every other word here is “frick” or “friggin,” which are water-down versions of the other “F” word. The first words a baby hears upon exiting its mother’s womb in a New England hospital are usually “HOLY **** IT’S A F***ING [insert gender here],” and that’s usually from the doctor.

I remember when I was around 10 years old and would hang out with my cousins, who were just in their early teens. They would blatantly burst out F-bombs during gatherings while we were playing or talking or whatever. My entire family — both sides — is extremely religious, so having a child squeak in an occasional “Hell” or “damn” was cause for his grounding and gargling of soap, so hearing my cousins use this language was, well, INSPIRING.

But when my cousins swore in front of their parents? Well, that was damn near heroic.

My father was a construction worker and liked his beer so, needless to say, his language was pretty colorful. I say “colorful” as in “every color was a swear.” My evenings were a veritable kaleidoscope of vulgarity so it should be no surprise to anyone that I inherited the skill of using swears in any type of context.

Here are some examples.

Swears as nouns: “Would you look at that ****,” or “You dumb ****.”

Swears as verbs: “Go **** yourself,” or “Go **** a ****.” This latter phrase actually combines two swears as both a verb and subject of the phrase and is slightly advanced.

Swears as adjectives: “That thing was ****ing huge.”

Swears as adverbs: “Are you ****ing kidding me?”

Growing up, you start to learn where these little tidbits of foul prose can fit into really any conversation. As a compliment, you could easily say “This is good sh**,” but then simply remove one word and turn it into a burn, like, “This is sh**.”

Swears really are pretty flexible and can be used in any situation, really. I sometimes wonder why there wasn’t a Schoolhouse Rock episode of them. Like maybe have Samuel L. Jackson do his own version and call it “Conjunction Motherf***ing Junction.” I don’t know, I’m just spitballing here.

Back to my kids.

I have four children, ranging in age from 21 to 12. The girls are the oldest and youngest and I have two boys rounding out the middle. They’ve grown up around me, which probably explains a lot in regards to their behavior, language, and need for therapy.

I feel like, as my father did for me, and probably his father for him, that I’ve passed down the horrible art of mastering bad language to my children. It makes me feel like sh**.

My oldest is at the age where it’s not uncommon to hear her spurt out a swear during a conversation, especially when we show her or tell her something outrageous. A situation like that results in the obligatory, “What the f***?!” which is pretty much a standard response for anything these days.

Them: Did you see the news?

Me: Yeah, what the f***?!

Them: Have you heard that new Aerosmith song?

Me: I know, what the f***?!

Them: I cut my arm off by accident.

Me: WHAT THE F***?!

That phrase is so flexible and all-purpose it should have a spot at the top of the All-Time Greatest Swears List. If that doesn’t exist, it should.

My oldest swears, but she has yet to master the context of swears. So we could be talking about crescent rolls at Thanksgiving and she’ll say, “Where the **** did you get these?” This will, of course, prompt the adults to say something like, “Was that f***ing necessary?” at which point we all look at each other like, “okay, that explains it.”

My boys play video games online. If you have teenage boys then you know that 98% of their time while playing online video games is spent screaming at the top of their lungs. Unfortunately, they have no filter during these matches because apparently, headphones shield you from the rest of the world where no one else can hear you screaming “GRAB THE GOD**** RIFLE YOU DUMB SH** IT’S RIGHT F***ING THERE YOU ****.”

Wife [looking at me]: “What the f***?”

Me [getting up]: “I know. I’m putting a stop to this bullsh**.”

Both of us, together: “We really need to stop swearing.”

I suppose it’s a rite of passage, seeing if you can sneak that first swear or two by your parent without them grounding you for a month. I can only assume that is what my youngest was thinking when she spouted out “SONOFABITCH” after discovering the Oreo situation.

Test the waters. See if you get grounded. If not, try your swearing out at a higher difficulty setting, like maybe in the car when the parent swears at someone who just cut him off and the child can join in with, “Yeah, what the **** were you thinking?”

At least it would fit the situation. Kind of like when my youngest when she found out we were out of cookies.

That reminds me, I need to head to the ****ing store.

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Previously Published on medium

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