Children: Masters of Humiliation

I very rarely swear in front of my children, but if I ever accidentally slip up it always seems to be when we’re out shopping. Presumably this is because the conditions are just right - we’re in public, so the children think (who am I kidding, they know) they can get away with whatever they like.

Take this recent scenario, for example. We’re walking through a homewares shop in town, looking at bed covers, and one of my children (I still don’t know which one) ‘accidentally’ throws a golf ball at my knee cap. Where did they get a golf ball from in a homewares store? I don’t know. They’re children, they’re resourceful. The point is I was hit, it hurt, and I let out a relatively non-offensive expletive under my breath.

So I’m quickly taking stock of who’s around me, who might have heard, and there she is - a sweet old lady, also in to browse through the fine selection of bed covers, just about to tell me how adorable my children are. She looks like she’s gearing up to give them a lolly, one of those old hard boiled ones that she bought whole boxes full of back in 1963 and has just this morning opened the very last packet. But, of course, I’ve just sworn and the boys have heard it, and there goes the neighborhood. Because, you see, children are perceptive beyond belief.

They’ll ask me what it means first, quietly, politely. But they’re sensing something about daddy, something…vulnerable. Those little brains are ticking into gear, they’re thinking “Daddy didn’t mean to say that word…daddy slipped up…daddy definitely doesn’t want me to say that word…daddy is sweating…I’M GONNA SAY THAT WORD!”, and if you don’t think that’s exactly what’s going through a child’s mind at that moment think again. Young children are put on this earth to humiliate us in front of old ladies, I’m totally convinced of it.

So they start repeating the word, asking me what it means, louder this time and while looking directly at the old lady. I start trying to maneuver them away to another aisle, throwing apologetic ‘oh my goodness, where did my children pick THAT word up from?’ looks to everyone, hurriedly trying to push them along, but no, NO, the old lady is moving with us, she’s trying to reach the children with the hard boiled sweets, and now it’s rude if we walk away! I have to make a snap decision - snub the obvious kindness from the lovely old lady and get the hell out of there, or allow my little humiliation machines to put the nail in my coffin.

I opt for the latter, knowing I’ll regret it. We stop, I smile at the lady, mumble apologies for the language coming from the mouths of my sweet little boys, and allow them to accept a 50 year old lolly each.

“Oh, thank you so much,” they say, and then with pure, angelic voices (and a flashing glance at each other) they politely ask her ‘What does ‘shit’ mean?”