The Actual "B Word"

Yesterday morning, while I was making the kids' lunches for school, Ryan came up to me and asked, "Mommy, why can't I say the 'B word'?"

Stupidly, I asked, "What 'B word'?"  I was thinking that maybe he was talking about "butt", which is considered a bad word at school.  Never in a million years did I think he would say the word that came out of his mouth in the following moment.

Yes, he said it!  That "B word".  I was so shocked, I sucked in a breath and asked him where he heard that word.  He never did say where he heard it, but I explained to him what it meant and how derogatory it was.  I further explained that it was a word meant to tear people down, especially girls, and make them feel unloved. 

Ryan was listening rather intently and I further explained that, because we are loved by God and we want other people to know that God loves them, too, we ought to only say words to people that would encourage and uplift them.  After all, we may be the only way people see God's love in this world.  He seemed to absorb that for a moment and I thought that would be the end of the conversation.

How could you expect anything but love from this face?

In the car, on the way to school, he brought the subject up again.  This time, he was contemplating getting in trouble by saying the word.  He asked what would happen if Aurora said the word, if he said the word, how much trouble each of them would be in and what would happen as punishment.  I explained that Mommy and Daddy would be more disappointed than angry because we know our children are smarter than that and are more loving than that.  Besides, have you ever heard either of us say bad words?  He admitted that he hadn't.  (Thank God! I have let a few quietly slip in near-misses while the kids were in the car.)

I haven't heard anything about this subject since yesterday morning, but I sure hope he took to heart what I said.  When Aurora was younger and asking about these words, I explained to her that curse words were used by people with limited vocabulary; I told her that smart people were able to come up with more intelligent descriptions than curse words.  Basically, I said curse words were used by people not smart enough to use words that would end up on a college entrance exam.  That spoke to her.  Aurora is more interested in being smarter than everyone else than she is interested in being like everyone else.  Ryan, however, is a different story; he just wants to fit in and have people like him.  I have to appeal to his social side, in contrast to appealing to Aurora's intelligence.

Whew!  We'll see how long this holds out.  I can't believe that my Kindergartner is coming home with these words.  Guess it means I'm old if I can say things like, "When I was in Kindergarten, the worst words we knew were 'fart' and 'stupid'."  Yup, I'm old.  I know this because of my next line:  What is happening to the youth of our nation?