Swearing In Suburbia
Hey. I’m back and I didn’t really go anywhere. Just had so much going on, I kept meaning to blog and then I would put it off a day and then another and now here we are. Maybe if I could get past the idea that every blog needs to be 5000 words, it would be easier. Sorry for the absence. Thanks for the patience and especially your prayers and comments from the last blog. It made a difference to me and I know it did to others as well. Thank you.
I’m single parenting this week. My lovely and mactastic wife and youngest son Griffin are in CO visiting her sister who just had a baby. Gibson, now of school age, had to stay at home with dear old Dad. That meant I had Halloween duty. Fortunately, my wife keeps us well stocked in costumage and so even with the last minute costume waffling that seems to be necessary as breathing for a 6 year old, I was able to get through Halloween with only a couple semi-panicked “where is the ____” calls to my wife.
Here are some things that are mostly well known and fully confirmed when my wife leaves town.
1. I am messy. Not a little. A lot. I can destroy a clean house in less time than it takes you to wipe off the counter without ever getting up from my chair.
2. I am intensely lonely without my wife even when I’m at work and wouldn’t be seeing her even if she was in town. Just the knowing she is gone funks me out.
3. My wife has done an excellent job preparing our children to live with incomptetent parenting for just such occasisions. The house is well organized (at first) and the kids are so well trained that I mostly only get in the way of their care and feeding as they can do it quite well on their own. When I take over the full time parenting duties of our kids for a day or a week when my wife is gone, it is something like someone handing you a well made watch with a new battery and telling you could you just make sure this keeps time while I’m gone?
4. I should not cook anything under any circumstances, even if all that is involved is removing a plastic wrap and placing something in the microwave. Nothing good can come of this.
5. I should be more sympathetic and supportive of anyone out there who works full time outside the home and comes home to be a single parent at home. 2 days with one great kid who goes to school and with the knowledge that it is temporary and I still don’t know whether I’m coming or going. Sheesh.
A couple more things on my mind….
Why is suburbia and all its trappings so uncool? If you don’t think it is, chances are you live there and cool people think there’s something wrong with you. Apparently, to be cool, you must live in a loft in the middle of trendy urban area or you must “have property” out in the country. If you live in the suburbs in a planned neighborhood with good schools and convenient shopping and wide streets and safe sidewalks with nice parks and good places to go on walks or for the kids to ride their bikes, you are not cool.
Don’t believe me? Watch someone portrayed as “cool” on TV sometime or talk to someone downtown wearing all black and frowning at you as you struggle to remember whether Grande or Venti is “large” when ordering your coffee. They will tell you. When I proposed to my wife, I got down on one knee in the middle of Pioneer Square, which is a large public square in the middle of downtown Portland. After 45 minutes of begging and pleading, she finally said yes and we bounced around downtown quite giddy. Some very “cool” people, who I’m sure were on their way to some cool club that only cool people know about, walked by and said, “Go back to suburbia.” To which I replied, in the coolest way possible, “tee hee hee hee.”
As I said, I was giddy. If you have met my wife, you should understand why.
Anyway, I’m here to say, there’s a new cool in town. I’m suburban and I’m proud of it. If you live in some soulless subdivision with no character, you do what you can to add character of your own and then embrace it. I really have no choice. I was made fully aware of this yesterday when I took my son Gibson dressed as Superman and picked up his friend Samantha dressed as a cheerleader and carpooled them to private school in my oversized SUV and then commuted to work while talking on my blackberry/cellphone. It doesn’t get any more suburban than that. I say, embrace your inner suburban. Join me in not wearing any black today.
***
When talking to your kid about swearing do you swear? I mean, how do kids come to learn the list of bad words and what is that list these days? Is there a website somewhere that lists them? We can’t use the “if they can say it on network TV” standard, that’s for sure. Gibson reportedly said one of the words generally accepted as one not to say yesterday while waiting for me to pick him up after school. I think he most likely actually said “shoot,” but regardless it raised some questions I’ve had for some time. I’m interested in your opinions on the following topics if you happen to read this blog. I have rather strong opinions (mine don’t usually come in another variety) about these things and will share some of them after I get some other people’s take. If you don’t mind.
When teaching your children:
a. How do you decide what is inappropriate to say? Do you have some list of words, standard or formula? Are you the one to introduce your child to the “bad” words or do you wait for him to hear it and say it around you and then correct him or her?
b. Do you hold yourself to the same standard and if not, why not?
c. In your mind is this a moral or spiritual issue or is it just a matter of good manners? (i.e., other than taking God’s name in vain or insulting someone, do you believe that God cares what words we use?)
d. How do you reinforce in your child the need to use appropriate language?
e. Why do you think that people seem to get so much more upset about swearing in music than in movies or on TV? (i.e., why do Church groups hate Eminem and not Matt Damon?)
I’m single parenting this week. My lovely and mactastic wife and youngest son Griffin are in CO visiting her sister who just had a baby. Gibson, now of school age, had to stay at home with dear old Dad. That meant I had Halloween duty. Fortunately, my wife keeps us well stocked in costumage and so even with the last minute costume waffling that seems to be necessary as breathing for a 6 year old, I was able to get through Halloween with only a couple semi-panicked “where is the ____” calls to my wife.
Here are some things that are mostly well known and fully confirmed when my wife leaves town.
1. I am messy. Not a little. A lot. I can destroy a clean house in less time than it takes you to wipe off the counter without ever getting up from my chair.
2. I am intensely lonely without my wife even when I’m at work and wouldn’t be seeing her even if she was in town. Just the knowing she is gone funks me out.
3. My wife has done an excellent job preparing our children to live with incomptetent parenting for just such occasisions. The house is well organized (at first) and the kids are so well trained that I mostly only get in the way of their care and feeding as they can do it quite well on their own. When I take over the full time parenting duties of our kids for a day or a week when my wife is gone, it is something like someone handing you a well made watch with a new battery and telling you could you just make sure this keeps time while I’m gone?
4. I should not cook anything under any circumstances, even if all that is involved is removing a plastic wrap and placing something in the microwave. Nothing good can come of this.
5. I should be more sympathetic and supportive of anyone out there who works full time outside the home and comes home to be a single parent at home. 2 days with one great kid who goes to school and with the knowledge that it is temporary and I still don’t know whether I’m coming or going. Sheesh.
A couple more things on my mind….
Why is suburbia and all its trappings so uncool? If you don’t think it is, chances are you live there and cool people think there’s something wrong with you. Apparently, to be cool, you must live in a loft in the middle of trendy urban area or you must “have property” out in the country. If you live in the suburbs in a planned neighborhood with good schools and convenient shopping and wide streets and safe sidewalks with nice parks and good places to go on walks or for the kids to ride their bikes, you are not cool.
Don’t believe me? Watch someone portrayed as “cool” on TV sometime or talk to someone downtown wearing all black and frowning at you as you struggle to remember whether Grande or Venti is “large” when ordering your coffee. They will tell you. When I proposed to my wife, I got down on one knee in the middle of Pioneer Square, which is a large public square in the middle of downtown Portland. After 45 minutes of begging and pleading, she finally said yes and we bounced around downtown quite giddy. Some very “cool” people, who I’m sure were on their way to some cool club that only cool people know about, walked by and said, “Go back to suburbia.” To which I replied, in the coolest way possible, “tee hee hee hee.”
As I said, I was giddy. If you have met my wife, you should understand why.
Anyway, I’m here to say, there’s a new cool in town. I’m suburban and I’m proud of it. If you live in some soulless subdivision with no character, you do what you can to add character of your own and then embrace it. I really have no choice. I was made fully aware of this yesterday when I took my son Gibson dressed as Superman and picked up his friend Samantha dressed as a cheerleader and carpooled them to private school in my oversized SUV and then commuted to work while talking on my blackberry/cellphone. It doesn’t get any more suburban than that. I say, embrace your inner suburban. Join me in not wearing any black today.
***
When talking to your kid about swearing do you swear? I mean, how do kids come to learn the list of bad words and what is that list these days? Is there a website somewhere that lists them? We can’t use the “if they can say it on network TV” standard, that’s for sure. Gibson reportedly said one of the words generally accepted as one not to say yesterday while waiting for me to pick him up after school. I think he most likely actually said “shoot,” but regardless it raised some questions I’ve had for some time. I’m interested in your opinions on the following topics if you happen to read this blog. I have rather strong opinions (mine don’t usually come in another variety) about these things and will share some of them after I get some other people’s take. If you don’t mind.
When teaching your children:
a. How do you decide what is inappropriate to say? Do you have some list of words, standard or formula? Are you the one to introduce your child to the “bad” words or do you wait for him to hear it and say it around you and then correct him or her?
b. Do you hold yourself to the same standard and if not, why not?
c. In your mind is this a moral or spiritual issue or is it just a matter of good manners? (i.e., other than taking God’s name in vain or insulting someone, do you believe that God cares what words we use?)
d. How do you reinforce in your child the need to use appropriate language?
e. Why do you think that people seem to get so much more upset about swearing in music than in movies or on TV? (i.e., why do Church groups hate Eminem and not Matt Damon?)
Comments
B. I think for the most part we’ve always used the phrase “our family” as the standard along with our sometime flawed attempt to be Christ-like. This usually follows a comment from son along the lines of, “But Mr. and Mrs. “so and so” let their son/daughter say blah-blah.”
C. I don’t believe if I’m driving on the interstate (I know- it’s suppose to be “freeway.”) and I see a semi coming right for me and I say “s-h-*-t” that God will give me a one way ticket to “Hades.” However, I think your language gives one a window into your true heart.
D. Yes.
E. This is just a guess but perhaps with our technology one can hear that bad word in a song over and over again. A bad word (not that it makes it better or worse) in a movie doesn’t “occur” the hearer as often.
Greg - I remember those times.
The sentences "We wasn't doin nuthin," "He not my baby daddy," and, "I tole you that aint my crack pipe" are all just as wrong as phrases filled with obscenity. Your word choice and speech tell people a great deal about who you are, and poor grammar is just as bad as profanity. This strategy worked well with our kids, whom you know speak very well. Becky once quit dating a young man because he said,"We was fixin to..." Becky said, "I can't live like that."
As far as do we ever swear, I will be honest and say that when a rogue drunken Law Student was trying to break down our door, Tim told him that his offer to come in and spend time with our family was declined, but Tim phrased it VERY STRONGLY. Any Dad would do the same.
Of COURSE I'm going to order a pizza when she's gone. Sheesh.
We are still at the language stage where "stupid" and "hate" are considered bad words. Our 5-year-old hasn't dropped a really bad one on us yet. So we overlook the occasional bad one he hears, knowing that if we point it out, he'll share it with his friends. In time, we'll deal with those.
I'm forced to admit here that the lightweight swearwords (your "crap", your "piss") are part of my vernacular, though not on a regular basis. I abstain from almost all others because I know myself and I have a very slippery swearword slope. Assuming my son shares at least some of my genes, I'll treat him as though he has the same problem.
Sad to know that I can cuss like a sailor. Sorry blogfriends.
I'll share here one of the few times I swore in public. I was playing softball and one of the guys on our team hurt himself bad, really tore up his leg. After he was carted off the field, the rest of my team charged out to take their positions, anxious to finish the game and seemingly oblivious to the poor soul who was in considerable pain. I called them all a selfish bunch of sons of, well, you know.
Remember that one, Randy? Not the cussing of course. You were screaming too loud to hear it.