Regional
(2009-05-11)
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FT. COLLINS, CO
(KUNC) -
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As the end of the school year approaches, KUNC commentator Laura Bridgwater is wondering if her oldest daughter has the skills she needs to go on to middle school.
In a few weeks, our fifth grade daughter Elizabeth will graduate from elementary school and move on to middle school.
As I look back over her elementary years, the most memorable part for me wasn't saying goodbye to her on her first day of kindergarten, helping her learn to read, or packing 900 lunches over five years.
It was the profanity.
And not fifth grade level profanity, either.
First grade will always be remembered in our house as the Year of The Swear Words. It began in September with a bomb when Elizabeth came home from school and asked, "What's the F word?"
Our parenting philosophy has always been that honesty is the best policy, but I couldn't bring myself to say Al Pacino's favorite word from Scarface to a six year old. "It rhymes with duck," I told her while thinking, "And if you can't make that initial letter substitution, you don't really need to know."
In October she asked, "What's the B word?" followed quickly by the A word, the S word, and the rest of the Letter Words. By the end of that year, she could recite a bad word for most of the alphabet. Today, she's an excellent reader and I attribute it to her personalized, uncensored version of Hooked on Phonics.
I understood her fascination even if I didn't support it. Knowledge is power.
Take learning to spell, for instance. It's the number one reason most first graders give for going to school. They want to know what their parents have been spelling in front of them for all those years.
So it's only natural that children move quickly from spelling three letter words to knowing four letter words.
I'm not opposed to the occasional use of foul language, especially if the situation warrants it, like when you need 14 Christmas gifts for your nieces and nephews because you found out you were related to Octomom.
But as a parent, I am opposed to how easily our children can access obscenity.
I remember learning swear words the hard way. Tricia Bushofsky and I snuck down to the rec room in her basement and looked them up in the dictionary. At least we had to know how to alphabetize.
Today's kids have it so easy. They learn to swear before they learn to read.
I mostly blame technology for this early maturation. The Federal Communications Commission doesn't regulate the Internet. The World Wide Web makes George Carlin's Seven Words You Can Never Say on Television look like a gateway drug.
We found this out the hard way a few years ago when YouTube was a novelty and we unwittingly viewed a dubbed Wile E. Coyote and Roadrunner cartoon. The explicitness of the Roadrunner's dubbed "meep-meep zip-bangs" needed multiple "bleep-bleep zip-bangs."
Texting isn't any better, either. What does it mean when someone texts OMG? Are they taking the Lord's name in vain or abbreviating, "Oh, my Golly"? It's passive-aggressive cursing in code.
These days press conferences can be like an open mic night at a comedy club. Think George W. at the G8 Summit or Jesse Jackson during Barack Obama's campaign. Both were caught unawares by a hot microphone while making disparaging comments.
So why should we bother to wash our kids' mouths out with soap when world leaders are doing it?
Besides, soap wouldn't help. With today's level of potty mouth, some kids would need toilet bowl cleaner.
But not all children are going down the drain. There's that 15-year-old boy in South Pasadena, California, who started a No Cussing Club last year. Then this year, following the boy's lead, the Los Angeles County Board of Supervisors declared the first week of March to be No Cussing Week in LA County. There's no teeth behind enforcing it just a desire for less lip.
The Other Mothers I hang out with have warned me that middle school is not like elementary school. They are impressed with the principal and the teachers and the opportunities that our children have, from algebra to orchestra.
But it's the hallways they complain about. "The language!" they exclaim.
And I think to myself, "We've got that bleepin' covered."
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