Parenting | Humor
My 5-Year-Old’s New Favorite Word
Spoiler Alert: it’s Fuck
It started as most things do for a 5-year-old boy in the fall: watching his dad who was watching 22 men in spandex toss around a ball and hug a little bit. Taylor Swift’s boyfriend caught a ball or didn’t, and caused my husband’s pretend football team to lose points. He expressed his disapproval with a resounding, “FUCK!”
A split second later, my sweet darling baby boy, in a voice barely audible to the naked ear, whispered “fuck” in reply. I could see him roll the word around in his mouth like the marble he accidentally swallowed two Christmases ago. It was clear that the word felt equally as naughty — yet tasted much more delicious — than that little silver ball that ended up costing us a fortune in x-ray bills and forced me to collect and dissect every movement of his bowels for the next seven days.
I stifled a laugh* and hoped that this would be the last time I heard my precious angel, the fruit of my loins, utter such profanity for at least another eight years. Thankfully, he didn’t say it again — until he did. And when he did, boy did he.
About a month later, he and I were walking the dog and pointing out birds traveling to warmer climes. We saw one dingdong flying in the opposite direction of all the others. We named him Carl, and shouted (presumably in his bird voice), “Sorry, guys! I forgot my swimmers. I’ll just grab them and catch up with you!”
We laughed, and then my adorable snugglebug said, “Mama, it’s fuckin’ cold outside.”
Perfectly. He used it perfectly.
Since then, he has said it 587 times and used it perfectly 96% of the time.** It is uncanny. Of course, one time he told me I was “being a fuck,” but he’s also said, “Keep it to your fuckin’ self.” That’s tmesis, y’all. He split a word and put a “fuck” right in the dadgum middle. I guess I should have expected an advanced-level curser based on my lineage, but it’s different when the words are actually passing my child’s lips.
My husband and I have gone back and forth on how to address this new development. We’re not really bothered by it, but does it make us look like bad parents? Should we let him continue to use the word in our presence to get it out of his system, or will that just train his brain to use it at other times? Why are some words even bad at all? Is there a similarly effective replacement word that we could teach him to use?***
In the end, though, I think the solution we’ve settled on is that we have very little control over what he is going to do in this world. We can teach him why some people may or may not like to hear him say “fuck,” but ultimately it will be his decision.
So, you know. Whatever. Fuck it, I guess.
*very poorly
**not official scientific data
***no
