Irish Spring or Dial?

This falls under things learned on the playground...

It has come.  The day that I've dreaded has come.  Well, one of the days I've dreaded, since you are probably thinking they learned about sex.  No, that's yet to come.

They learned the word.

THE word.

The F word.

And I'm not happy about it.  At all.

What I wanted to do: cut out their tongues and their friends tongues.  Okay, that's a little exaggeration.  I couldn't ever do that.  But...  I really wanted to cry.  It broke my heart into a million pieces.  (yes, adolescence is going to kill me)  I also wanted to ban them from seeing these friends ever again.  But, they are just kids and practicing naughty words.  Innocent - sort of -  as long as it stops at this point.

What I did: pulled out the mom lecture.  And the added bonus of scriptures about unwholesome talk and a little demo involving toilet water and milk.  I got the demo and scriptures from the Creative Corrections book by Lisa Welchel.  (yes, the Facts of Life girl)  She's married to a minister and has some really good stuff in that book.  I'll explain the demo, since I'm sure not many have this book:

You take two cups.  While the child is watching, you fill one with tap water and the other with toilet water.  Then you dump the waters out.  Then you pour milk into both cups and ask them which do they want to drink from?  Of course, they are repulsed by the toilet cup and choose the tap cup.  You explain to them how the toilet water has contaminated the pure wholesome milk.  And then you explain how people remember your unwholesome words (like you remember the toilet water) and all the good wholesome things you may say about  Jesus are spoiled by the bad language just like the wholesome milk is spoiled by the toilet water.  Yadda, yadda, yadda. (of course, you have to put out of your mind that the tap water is not filtered and the milk has bovine growth hormones - that just ruins a perfectly good picture story)

Of course, this demonstration only works if your kids care about Jesus - I guess you could change it to mean whatever you want.

I know a lot of people fall into the "words are just words" camp, but me, not so much.  One of the other moms falls into this camp, so she told her child how he shouldn't say certain words since they offend some people, and that is a particularly offensive word.  Then she went on to regail us (moms only) with tales of inappropriate uses of that word, actually saying it multiple times over, in the context of the story.  *sigh*  She's a good egg in general, but her New Yorkness really highlights the differences in the cultures we were raised in.

Back to my kids.   It just saddens me because I never heard this word until I was an adult.   I wish I had never heard it at all , but I'm glad I was much older when I did hear it.  I mourn for the loss of innocence for my children.  I've never even said it or typed it out, yet they've said it.  My babies.  :*-(

My dreams of a utopian childhood for them is rattled.  Again, this parenting thing is tough.  I've got a big learning curve ahead of me.