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Do you swear in front of your kids?

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I never realised I had a problem with profanity until I overheard my five-year-old confiding in her grandmother. “My mummy swears all the time,” she was saying. “I think that she was born swearing.” Oh dear. I was horribly chastened. That really wasn’t the kind of mother I wanted to be. Having said that, I’ve never made a significant effort to curb my language in front of my kids.

As a writer, I don’t believe in ‘good’ words and ‘bad’ words. There are just words, all of which convey different meanings. Of course, there are some words which are more emotionally loaded than others, and certainly there are some words which are inappropriate in front of kids (or colleagues, or one’s parents), but still, words are just sounds with meanings.

Tempting fate
Also, the more we make anything forbidden, the more delicious and tempting it is for kids to try it. I’ve always thought if my kids see me using the odd curse word and know that it’s not a big deal, they’ll be less likely to use similar words as weapons. In this sense, I’ve been right. Not one of my three kids use obscenities. Of course, the five-year-old talks about bottoms a lot, and she knows how to spell ‘bad’ words, but she never uses them in everyday conversation. And this pleases me. Obviously, a word is just a word, but no-one wants to hear a kindergartener throw around inappropriately adult language.

Even more pleasing is the fact that my 14-year-old son and 12-year-old daughter virtually never swear. Ironically, I wouldn’t mind so much if they did, but when I see their friends throw curse words around like punctuation marks (which bothers me more for the laziness than the semantic content) I’m glad.

The sweet rewards
Still, I didn’t realise how much my profanities bothered my kids. It’s one thing to harbour theories about language and quite another to be an embarrassment to your offspring.So I decided to quit swearing, and my kids offered to help. They presented me with an elaborately decorated Swear Jar (okay, it was a jar labelled with a Post-It Note) and placed it in prime position on the lounge-room shelf. Whenever I accidentally utter a bad word, the three of them jump up in unison, all cheering, “That was a swear! Put a dollar in the jar!”

It’s working. It really is. After only four weeks there’s already $37 accumulated in that bl@#dy stupid jar. We plan to take our swear money and go out for ice-cream. And, while I may have been born swearing, I shall eat it like a lady. So if it gives me brain freeze, I shall say, “Oh dear, that is quite unpleasant” and be done.


More from Kerri Sackville:

Kerri Sackville is the author of When My Husband Does the Dishes... and The Little Book of Anxiety.