When Kids Swear

A comedian friend once told me that there's not a man alive who doesn't think it's hilarious when someone, could be anyone, steps in poop. Dick Cheney doubles over. James Lipton slaps a knee. Bono snickers and Stephen Hawings curls his lips into an almost imperceptible nanosmile. But they all love it. Deep down they're in near hysterics.

That's how I feel about little kids swearing.

Is it all Moms or is it just me, but I think it's hilarious when little kids swear. Give me a three year old who says, "Dammit," when they can't get their zipper and I'm happy for a week. Not that I condone it. No, sirree, there will be no swearing in my house. But secretly I love it.

My son, Johnny, went through his shit phase when he was three and it was excellent. We'd be driving along and he would drop his banana down by his feet and say, "Shhhit." His timing, cadence, the delivery was spot on. It was a perfect read. If he'd been shooting a commercial for Chrystler the director would have yelled,"Cut! Print!" into a bullhorn.

Then came the conversations that went like this:

Mommy gets all the way to the highway on ramp before remembering that she forgot the gift she was bringing for her niece's birthday party 2 hours away. "Shit," she says with equal parts, I'm-a-nitwit and now-I'll-have-to-mail-it-which-means-it-will-sit-around-my-house-for three-months-then-in-the-way-back-of-my-car-for-another-two. Great.
Johnny says, "Mommy, you said shit and you're not supposed to say shit."
Me, "Yes, dear, you're right. I shouldn't have said that word."
Johnny reinforces, "Because shit is a swear word."
"It certainly is," say I.
Johnny continues, "And so we shouldn't say shit."
"That's correct," I say, "and we should stop saying it, shouldn't we."
"Ok," he says, savoring his last morsel, "I'll stop saying shit now."

If I could pull the car over and rest my head on the steering wheel to laugh I would, but I have to summon all of the cells in my body to unite as a team to keep my mouth from smiling. It's not easy but I do it.

Some months later:

Mommy nearly misses being taken out by a Toyota because she's stopped on a hill and the jerk on the corner has invited all her fennel-eatin' SUV-lovin' friends over to park all along the street and right up to the corner thereby obscuring who's coming and nearly totaling her car, killing herself and her child and says, "FUCK!"

Johnny pipes in from the back seat as my heart performs Riverdance in my chest cavity, "Mommy, you're not supposed--"
I snap, "I know, I know, but don't say it, just don't say the word, OK? Mommy knows not to say the word, but in extreme circumstances it is the favored standby, but only by adults, OK? So never say that word in school or on the playground or to any of your friends. Never. You can say, darn it, fudge or fiddlesticks, but not that word, got it?"
"Ok, Mom," he intones. One day he'll roll his eyes at such a cliched speech but today it's accepted with quiet resignation.

It's only weeks later when I hear him saying it at Angela's house with her daughter, Chloe. I call him in to ask what he just said and he assures me he said "funker."
"What's funker?" I ask.
"It's our word," he says, very blase about the whole thing. Chloe nods.
"Really," I say through my eyebrows.
"Yeth," he says and I let it go at that because his worsening lisp has once again caught my attention and has managed to trump the "funker" issue. I'm reminded of Fwankie Giwson, the red-headed, freckled, immensely popular captain of my high school football team who not only lisped until graduation day, but still sported it at our 10th high school reunion. 'Note to self, don't let your child's adorable lisp go untreated for too long,' I remember thinking as he ordered a Tham Adamth.

Johnny is four and change now. Not long ago we were at the Central Park Zoo together, just Johnny and me out for a big adventure on one of this winter's more infamous, globally-warmed days. We had just wandered through FAO Schwartz where I really broke the bank by buying him a three dollar Playmobile pirate action figure. Now we were sitting in front of the seal tank, me preening in the sun, enjoying the gentle splashing of the circling seals, Johnny happy with his new acquisition when a perfectly harmless little girl wandered over to check it out. Sure, she got a little close to the new pirate toy, but she didn't touch it or even say much before Johnny looked up and said crisply and clear as a bell, "Funker!"

She ran away.

I thought about it. Running away that is. That's not my kid, the one who just said fucker. And then it hit me. He didn't say, fucker, he said funker. He said his word, but he said it so fast that it sounded to me and the nine or so other families around me, complete with silver-haired grandma's just in from the Midwest, that he indeed said, fucker.

Now that I'd realized what really happened it actually crossed my mind to try to take everyone aside, one at a time, starting with the little girls' mom, and explain. Wont they think it's adorable? Like lisps! But I didn't. Instead I channeled that scarce late afternoon energy to summon the will of Sisyphus to keep myself from rolling down the cement steps in a fit of laughter.

After a moment I quietly asked Johnny, "What did you just say?"
"Funker," was his unabashed answer.
"Right," I said.

I take a moment to form the next sentence making sure to look straight at Johnny, resisting the urge to sweep the audience for a headcount of who got what.

"Sweetheart," I say, "you're going to have to make up a new word. You can't use funker because when you say it fast it sounds much too much like a really bad swear word, probably one of the top five worst swear words that grownups sometimes use, even though they're not supposed to. Can you make up another word, please?"
"Ok," he says, clicking a little pirate sword into the open fist of the little pirate toy. I consult my database of past gibberish faves which include, Pucci, for no apparent reason.
"How about you say 'manko-man' or 'pucci' instead?"
"Or how about poopie?" he says, looking me dead in the eye.
I do not think before answering, "Sure, honey, poopie's fine."

And so the day goes. A detente has been reached although deep down we both know that I've lost this one. But what he won't know until he's much older, nor will any of the offended families who've moved on to the polar bear tank, is that he just made me happy for a week.