Penis and Vagina!

. . . Now that I have your attention lets talk about "bad" words. As a mommy of a little boy who is on the verge of becoming a little talker I am aware that my husband and I are going to have to establish in our family what words are "bad" and which words are appropriate for little mouths. I am firm believer in using the proper words for human anatomy. I see nothing wrong with using the words penis and vagina at an early age because, well that is what they are! Some of the words that many parents don't allow include "butt", "gosh", "sucks", "crap" and "stupid" to name a few. I am inclined to think that there are certain contexts in which the "controversial" words are okay to use, but it is a slippery slope if you allow words to be used sometimes because young children aren't going to understand why it is okay to use the words here but not there. I think the best thing I can do for my family is to decide which words are "bad" and not allow them to be used at all.

I think the hardest part about the "bad word list" is that we as parents need to drop the bad words from our vocabulary. One of the most important thing we do as parents is to lead by example, but man this is going to be hard. Children learn from everything we do and repeat everything they hear and see. I don't know how I am going to keep myself from screaming profanities into the TV next fall during the presidential debates but I am going to have to learn!

The next level of this problem is deciding which phrases are not allowed to be used in your family. This will be hard for my family because I know that if my son is anything like his smart arse father he will be saying "Shut. Up." as two separate sentences to try to get away with that mean phrase.

By the way, it doesn't count if you swear in a different language.

Scheisse