Nina In New York: Curing My Sub-Potty Mouth

A lighthearted look at news, events, culture and everyday life in New York. The opinions expressed are solely those of the writer.
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By Nina Pajak

Recently, we went over to our friends' house for dinner with our children. While the kids were playing, the adults chatted about this and that, and I launched into a story about something silly I'd seen on television. As I prattled on, my friend's five-year-old daughter nervously approached her mother and whispered something in her ear. My friend laughed a little.

"She says you said a bad word," she revealed.

I was shocked. When not in mixed company, I've been known to fling the F-, B-, S-, A-, and MF-bombs with alarming abandon. But since my own kid became verbal, I've been exceedingly mindful about watching my potty mouth around the little ones.

"I did?" I asked, horrified and confused.

"You said the word stupid," she elaborates. "We've been talking about how that's not a nice word to use about a person."

Aaaaha. I suppose I had used that word to describe a comment someone had made. I tried to explain that I'd only used it in reference to a silly joke, but I was busted. Stupid is not a nice word, I agreed and apologized and promised not to use it again.

Not an hour later, this kid busted me again. It was at that point I had to admit that I must have a problem. I'd been spitting S-words left and right and hadn't even realized.

Of course, as adults we realize that "stupid" isn't exactly a four-letter word. But this did make me think about all the other negative phrases of varying lengths which I should start thinking about avoiding. Do I really want my child calling herself or someone else the F-word? By that, I obviously mean "fat." Or what about ugly? Hate? Idiot? Jerk? They're benign enough when a kid is old enough to understand kindness and the appropriate application of potentially hurtful words, but everything is potential profanity when your daughter is in the phase of freely parroting everything she hears without any sort of social filters.

For example, I often affectionately refer to our dog as dumb-dumb. That is, I did until my two-year-old turned around and happily called me a dumb-dumb one day. Ooh, tactical error. I see it now. Or how about the fact that when my sweet girl hears a car honking, she reflexively, aggressively yells out "GO! GO ALREADY!" Ah. Er. My bad? I suppose given what I'm capable of screaming behind the wheel, I'm lucky that's all she's taken away from our rides. I'm not prudish, but I don't want my child innocently picking up a habit of calling her friends rude names or accidentally saying things that may be perceived as mean. Everyone looks askance at the parents whose kid deftly weaves actual swear words into her sentences, but no one appreciates the parents whose kid introduces their kid to the art of the insult.

This has become an exercise in completely overhauling the way I express myself. Try for one day—or even for an hour—to keep as much negative words and phrases out of your mouth as you possibly can. Maybe I'm just a a-hole, but I find this to be shockingly and depressingly difficult. Or what I mean to say is, maybe I'm just a silly goose, but this is surprisingly hard yet super educational! Blech, no. That's not right either. I'll find it eventually. I'm just being a goofy moose with a poo-poo mouth. Barf. Or I mean . . . uh . . . yeah, barf.

Nina Pajak is a writer living with her husband, daughter and dog in Queens. Connect with Nina on Twitter!