'What did you say?' Mum blogger explains why her son's swearing isn't a big deal

For many parents hearing their little one drop an S, or worse an F-bomb would fill them with horror. But one mum blogger has revealed she really isn’t bothered that one of her children has started swearing.

Mum-of-four, Constance Hall, took to Facebook to admit that she often swears in front of her children, though would never condone swearing at someone.

“I justify it to myself by saying I only ever swear for emphasis, I never swear at anyone,” she wrote. “You’ll never catch me calling someone a name or screaming ‘f*** off.’ It’s the ‘for f*** sakes’ when you’ve gotten everyone in the car and are pulling out of the driveway when you smell a baby decided now was the perfect time to drop a s***.”

Despite her own use of swear words, Constance says that her children haven’t picked up the habit, knowing that naughty words were something only she could use.

“I barely even needed to teach them that – it was instinctual,” she said. “[They’re] adult words and they rarely repeated them despite the odd hilarious moment in the supermarket.”

Recently though, to the mum’s surprise, her five-year-old son, Arlo, has started dipping his toes in the bad language waters. And she suspects it’s partly down to his new friends thinking they’re pretty cool bandying about the f-word.

But that doesn’t mean she’s getting worked up about it.

“Does it bother me? Not much, meanness would bother me more,” she wrote. “I certainly don’t encourage it, have pulled him up on it and he appears to have stopped.”

And instead of getting upset about her son saying “f*ck” and other “adult words” Constance realised something important about her little one.

“Arlo is reaching an age where his friends have a greater influence on him then [sic] I do, he copies them, loves them dearly, and gets empowered by them,” she wrote. “I read about that once, about how you will come to a time where your children get their power from their mates and there isn’t much you can do about it, you need to let them discover who they are in a group of peers.”

To the blogger, this development in her son’s language is socialising and that’s not necessarily bad thing.

So her advice to parents? Simply telling your child not to swear isn’t going to be enough, it’s also about showing them how to recognise good qualities that we are going to respect.

“So while it’s important to say ‘don’t swear it’s not cool’ it’s equally important to teach your kids to strive to find friends with similar moral codes to your family,” Hall said. “That way when they do ignore you and run off with their mates, they are in good hands, maybe cheeky ones, maybe sweary ones, but good ones nonetheless.”

And the post certainly seems to have struck a chord with parents as since sharing it has been liked more than 28K times and received thousands of comments from other parents with many sharing their own rules about kids swearing.

“I swear like a trouper in my house but my kids don’t, I don’t allow it,” one mum wrote. “I think it’s a respect thing when talking to adults, I still don’t swear in front of my parents. I’m all for bonding with your peers n stuff but also “you will respect my house”

“I’m exactly the same! Never would I be rude to anyone or swear with others kids around, but F*** man sometimes you just need to let the steam go,” another user shared.

“I swear and yes sometimes my kids hear me swear BUT they don’t swear.. not in front of me,” another added. “I’m sure they do around their mates and I’ve talked to them about this. I also said that it’s ok *gasp*. I also told them it’s a matter or where and how and they are never to swear or disrespect their elders (teachers, parents and so forth). They are 15, 14, 10, 6 & 4 … and so far this has worked.”

“I gave my son his ‘swearing licence’,” another parent commented. “It is to be revoked should any of the terms of agreement be broken… a) you don’t swear AT people b) you never swear in the vicinity of teachers, elders, general public. But mate if you stub your toe at home on the corner of the couch and want to drop an f-bomb go for gold. I f**king do.”

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