Bad Words. No No to Kids

I don't know about you but swear words is quite normal with my peers and colleagues. Not the colourful chinese version but the usual 4-letter ones like s---, f---, damn, stupid. Quite uncontrollable when someone irritates me on the road. My husband and I work and worked in places where people are quite liberal with their language. A form of expression and punctuation. Even stressing opinions a bit. Normal for grown ups BUT no no for kids.

I didn't realize initially that we have to watch our language when kids are around until one day I noticed that they were attentive and absorbing our language. That was when we were driving and then we heard echo of the words behind. Oops. You see when you say a simple something and followed by the likes of s--- or f--- or what the hell, it comes with a very expressive and somewhat exciting sounding. Of course what! That's when we let loose mah. But kids find it interesting and they absorb. Mine did. My Raymund has to be most foul mouthed 4 year old around :(. He is innovative enough to combine 2 like words and form things like 'stupid shit'. Nothing to be proud about but coming from a little fella, it is actually very amusing but as parents, we are trying not to show. Yep we are bad parents :(

I told Ryan that he cannot say bad words. Why? Mummy and Daddy also say what! Erm... I had a brilliant idea then. I just said children cannot say. You are only 4 years old (then!) and you can say when you turn 21 ... haha! I buy a good 16 years. That got him settled.

But Raymund, he is the younger one and definitely more mischievous one. Raymund was happily saying 'stupid shit' just the other day. I scolded and said no! Sort of did the trick but I realized soon after that I was the one that kena. He was clever enough to use it INNOCENTLY (and that's definitely staged) with a string of questions like 'Why I cannot say stupid shit?' ..'Only Daddy and Mummy can say stupid shit ah?' 'Is stupid shit a bad word' 'Can xxx say stupid shit?'... blah blah. I wanted to scold sternly but that was tough. I saw through his 'strategy'. He figured that by asking these innocently constructed questions, he could con his parents in thinking he wants to know why but in fact, it was his brilliant idea of getting away with repeatedly saying these words again and again. As if he wants to know the answers to these questions. Smart! But ... sigh!

So, we have to watch what we say. They absorb like sponge especially when it sounds fun.

I can't imagine if he says that to his teacher in school. What will they think of him? And his parents, us...kurang ajar!