Tuesday, March 31, 2009

Useless words...

Ever since my son began to talk, he has been bombarded with words from all directions. Unfortunately, some of which make me crazy. Really, truly, absolutely crazy when I hear them.

I am a pretty laid back mom. Junior Troll poured a gallon-ish bottle of olive oil in the middle of my living room...what could I do? Baby powder all over the bathroom? Kinda messy, but it smelled good...no use crying over spilled milk, right? I don't get truly upset very often; the major exceptions being - unsafe behavior (running in the street or parking lot, non-food objects in the mouth, running with scissors - duh), disrespect to others and using "bad" words.

Certain words are on the "hell, no!" list at our house (yes, I do realize I used a swear word to illustrate "bad" words...baby steps, people)

Here are my top Five:

stupid
hate
retard
shut up (two words -sue me)
kill

I do realize that I have a potty mouth and that is a little hypocritical. However, I would rather (feel free to yell at me for this one) hear my son use my favorite swear word than call someone or something stupid.

Think about it.

Everyone knows swear words are just swearing. They are bad to be bad, to shock (and awe - only kidding) These other words are only used for hurting and in my mind, at least, there is a huge difference...

There is no reason I can even imagine to use the first four on the list. They are useless words whose only purpose is to hurt and belittle.

I do know there are actual, legitimate reasons to say "kill" - just not while pointing your little finger with your thumb cocked up running through the house shouting "kill the ninjas, save the princess..."

I stumbled across this whole thing - they say it much better than I can...




Sticks and stones, people - sticks and stones...




Tweet Me - 'not too sticky...'

TwitThis

Labels: at 9:00 AM

10 love letters:

  1. Good point! I am trying to stop saying "retarded" and it still creeps out every once and awhile. *grimace*

    My boys favorite that I HATE (yes that is on the verboten list, too) is "Idiot." It was cute in Napoleon Dynamite. It is decidedly LESS SO coming out of a 7 year old's mouth.

    And.... I have an award for you over at my site. Hope you enjoy! ;-)
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  2. ya know it wasn't a big deal a few years ago. My mom is blind and I don't get bent out of shape when people say "blind as a bat." or other blind comments.

    i am so not P.C.

    I think people are too offended and look for more things to be offended with. My poor kids. OH they have a nut job for a mother that is for sure.
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  3. Good video. We have a sitch here at casa de Warner with Mr. Max's mouth. He seems to be channeling a trucker. A trucker swearing a blue streak. He will walk into a room and say "What the hell?" and so on and so forth. Now he knows that I have limits and I'm sure that he knows that I find some of this to be amusing so he isn't stopping anytime soon, but he sticks with the words that are kind of all-purpose swear words. My mother's favorite thing to say is holy shit and he idolizes her. We're a really cooth family. I'm not even sure I spelled cooth correctly!

    Aw well, what 'cha gonna do? It's real life. He knows not to swear at school.
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  4. Amy - I haven't heard idiot yet - I'm sure it will end up on the list...an award? I'm on my way!

    Hey Obnoxious, (I just got a kick out of that!) I totally get what you're saying - it seems like everyday there is something offending someone. The blind as a bat thing made me laugh! I don't think of myself as particularly PC, and for me, it's less about being sensitive and more just not being mean. As strange as it is - 'stupid' is my least favorite word, ever. I just don't think there is a good reason to use the word, it has no value, you know what I mean? Hell, if you're a nut job, so am I!!

    Hi Amy, My son corrects my swearing. If I say the word, he tells me it's a bad word - if I try to cover it and use 'fudge' or 'sonofabeach'- he corrects me with the right word!
    I hope I'm not cooth...is that contagious?
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  5. Our 7-yr-olds just recently learned the word "kill." For the longest time they said "die" instead (as in "the cat died a bug" instead of "the cat killed a bug"). I couldn't bring myself to actually teach them the word "kill" so they just had to figure it out on their own. We can thank video games for finally making that happen :/.
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  6. I cleaned up my language for my kids younger years, but now I've reverted to my bad habits. For some reason I swear much more in my writing than I do when I speak. Not sure why that is? But I have 3 teens and there's NOTHING they haven't heard out in the real world at this point....
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  7. My mom had several words that were not ok to say...her list was very much the same as yours. I guess it kind of paid off...I rarely use them. My mom must have known what she was doing after all.
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  8. Yes lady - I'm with you all the way. Shut up kills me too. We NEVER say shut up in our home. It blows my mind when a family says that to each other. Especially our of the mouths of little kids.

    Love that you posted this. Love it!!
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  9. Wonderful post.

    Words are so powerful, they should be used with care and caution -- never to wound.
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  10. Great post. Now that mine is starting to talk (and mimic), I need to be WAY more careful.
    ReplyDelete

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