But why?

Madi: 'Why do some people swear?'
Me: 'Maybe it makes them feel grown up. Or maybe they're mad and they lose all their other words.'

Madi: 'How come it's always sad when someone dies?'
Me: 'Because you miss having them around and the love has nowhere to go.'

Madi: How come it's always disgusting to pick your nose?'
Me: 'I don't know babe. Some things just always are.'

This was an incredibly lazy response, but I don't actually know this one and the internet caused caused me to stumble upon a disturbing forum for mucus eaters - so I'm not researching further.

Some things just are - and trying to analyse it or explain why leaves you fumbling for words. Or confidently stating words that you later retract. Then maybe reinstate again. (Is Pluto a planet again or what??)

Luckily there was no theory test for parenthood.

And if you can avoid all the alt right, porn, mucus eating and general waffle, the web is full of wonderment like this:

Mind your language

I've never quite got to grasps with swearing. Social situations and generational differences dictate social norms in ways that fluctuate quite a lot which can be confusing for anyone, let alone a pre-teen whose peer group has recently exploded to 6 times the size it was before the Summer. And which now includes much less supervised adult time and far more exposure to people just like him who are all trying to decide who they are by loudly and confidently pushing the boundaries of risqué language now that there are no parents around.

Bedtime, October-ish, year 7
Him: Why is the world so confusing??! Some people say all kinds of stuff that doesn't make any sense.
Me: (Naively thinking this is about homework) Give me an example.
Him: I'll need to spell it out to you cause they aren't very nice words.
Me: Oh, OK. That's fine. Go for it.
Him: Well, I think I know this one, but D.I.C.K.
Me: That's a penis.
Him: (Congratulating himself) Yesssssss! OK - B.I.C.H.
Me: Bitch? (Nods at me) You can use that word properly to describe a female dog, but when people use that badly it's to insult a girl and be really mean to her. Usually for no good reason.
Him: Why compare a person to a dog?!? It's all a bit strange.
Me: I agree.
Him: I have a few more: Doing-it-in-a-girl's-bits-off.
Me: Fuck? (He nods). That's having sex.
Him: Yes, but 'Having sex off??!' That makes NO sense. It's not even proper English. I know that and I'm still learning to spell.
Me: I know babe. It's weird to me too.

Him: People should use their words properly! I'm going to have to tell Coby tomorrow because I'm pretty sure he doesn't know either.
Me: You're probably right there. The thing is - no one wants to be the first to ask the question in front of their mates as they think everyone else knows. It was like that when I was at school too.
Him: OK - Then there's G.A.Y.
Me: Gay? Tricky one. Who says that?
Him: Lots of people. They shout it to people to annoy them, like 'You're so G.A.Y!'
Me: Gay isn't a swear word, it's a feeing. It's when a boy doesn't fancy a girl but fancies another boy instead. Or a girl not wanting a boyfriend, but a girlfriend.
Him: That's so weird!
Me: I think so too - but not everyone feels that way. And it's hard because I think God doesn't want that for anyone but some people DO feel that way, maybe for their whole lives, maybe for just a little while and no one should be bullied for how they feel, should they?
Him: People say that a LOT in school.
Me: But just say someone - maybe even one of your friends - is all stressed out about it and is like 'Oh no - I think I fancy a boy!! And I have no one to talk to about it because if anyone finds out the whole class will know and I'll get called gay and be teased Every. Single. Day.
Him: That would be horrible.
Me: Which is why you never use gay to be mean to anyone. Or any word for that matter.

And then it hits me. Isn't the intention behind the use of language, or the purpose of using certain words or ideas - isn't that more important than the actual individual words we use? Or avoid using?

I mean - you can lie to someone to hurt them, which is not OK.
You can lie to someone to protect yourself out of cowardice - also not OK.
But you can lie to someone to protect their feelings and that's kind of noble.
Then you can lie to someone when you have a surprise birthday or holiday planned and that's completely OK, even though you lied.

And then there's the truth, which should be straightforward, but it's really not always that neutral.

You can tell the truth in order to hurt someone's feelings.
You can tell the truth to gossip.
You can tell the truth to manipulate a situation and gain favour with someone.
You can tell the truth and give far too much information than is useful or helpful or loving.
You can choose to tell the truth for completely the wrong reasons and be wrong in doing it even though what you said was technically correct.

Which brings us back to swearing, because I still don't have the consistent approach to the whole thing that my preteen seems to require.

Me: Do you end up thinking the words in your head just because you're hearing them a lot?
Him: (Sadly) Yes.
Me: Why.... Do you think you don't say those words too?
Him: I just don't think it's a good way to talk. And it's not 'me' - if you know what I mean.
Me: I know exactly what you mean.
Him: It's like I drift.. slowly... away... from God at school (demonstrates with his hands) and then at the weekend when I'm at church I sail right back to him (clasps hands together again).
Me: That's pretty cool actually. Because you can't ever drift away completely. He won't let you.

We talk and talk about this stuff for ages. So much so that ManChild comes upstairs to collect his shower things and hangs around in silence for a while (and maybe learns a thing or two, who knows?) when eventually we are all theorised out and I have to go downstairs because bedtime tonight has taken more than an hour and a half.

Him: Thanks for this. I'm going to write all these words down in case I forget them.
Me: Uh... OK. But where will you keep the notebook?? It has to be someplace safe where no one else can accidentally find it.

He decides on a safe place, which is so safe I'm sworn to secrecy and can't type it because that would be too much of the truth (see above). I continue my theorising downstairs in a more appropriate way with my husband, who can cope with most words in the English language - unless 'tidy up', 'unit' and 'skip' are used in the same sentence.

So.... There has to be a careful balancing of censorship vs freedom in any society that values democracy. It's essential to be able to challenge the status quo or campaign to change stuff that the powers that be are a bit too comfortable with. But isn't it miserable when that freedom is played out in an 11 year old's world with people not bothering to find creative alternatives to 'Fuck off' when they are only moderately (or not at all) irritated by something/someone? Surely the most extreme, emotive and potentially insulting vocabulary that exists in any language should be reserved for things that carry more weight and consequence? Things that mean something.

• the fluidity of the term 'terrorist'
• NHS funding cuts
• climate change
• corruption
• cancer
• injustice
• trident
• tax avoidance
• the arms trade
• FGM
• Walmart stocking guns but not Kinder eggs
• murder of 2 women/week by a partner (UK)
• preventable death of a child every 3 seconds
• carpet bombing civilians who didn't drown on their way to Calais
I don't like the way you just looked at me right now.

• I am full of adolescent bravado right now and you are annoying me
Fuck off

See the weirdness in all of this?

I am all over the place with this post because I'm actually typing my way towards a realisation that started in my head a long time ago that I need to now act on: Blogging / Facebooking / tweeting is a massive waste of time and I need to rein it in. Instead I need to fill my mind with stuff like this and constructive information about the issues listed above and start bugging the hell out of my MP again. Because I used to do this a lot and he's probably missing our correspondence.

BTW, the following bedtime was less intense, quicker and included a sentence I didn't anticipate ever saying to my kid: 'Babe, you forgot the 't' in 'bitch'...'

The S word

We're in the car listening to Blow me one last kiss by Pink, an annoyingly catchy track that sounds completely the opposite to the subject matter that is being covered (there's a name for this. Onomatepia? Nonomatepia?) Anyway, two people have broken up. They loved each other once but really hate each other now and it's all emotional and messy and heart breakingly sad, but the melody is inappropriately upbeat and joyful so the kids love singing along. They're just not sure what to do with the recurring line involving all the sh*t that the break up has caused. The CD has blanked it out, so we are trying to think of another word that will work.

We use poo dog in our house, but that doesn't fit.

In my buggy pushing days the streets surrounding our house had a fair amount of canine excrement. Jackson got mixed up when learning to say dog poo and transposed the 2 syllables and it's confused me ever since. In moments of impending squelchiness when a childs foot was about to make contact with a pile of dog faeces, adrenaline often caused me to forget the correct English term and our made up one so we developed the poo dog alarm instead, which was simpler and quicker. But only after a few incidents like this: 

We are walking home. The buggy wheels, buggy board wheels and up to four pairs of shoes are all making intermittent contact with the ground. We are travelling pack style in roughly the same direction, with slight varience in tragectory and large fluctuation in speed. At least one child is in full conversational flow about how puddles are made / who's been on the sad list today / what good and bad reasons there are for disturbing a sleeping parent, when I become aware that in about 2 second's time we have to negotiate 3 sets of wheels and four pairs of shoes through a path recently trodden by an incontinent dog watchyourfeet! I can't get the words out fast enough poodogthere! That's not right nodogpoo! Imeantdogpoo! No that's not right either poodog! poodog! Iwasrightfirsttime! Why are so many bits of us in contact with the ground?? slowdowntherespoodog! Decelerate, I repeat decelerate! Whoowhoowhoowhoo! Nicely avoided people! Thank you so much. I'm sooooo glad you're on my team.
And so we avoided the S word. In all senses of the S word. Repeatedly. However, at some point along the line the boys became aware of the S word, the F word and a few others I don't know about. I am naive, a bit like Madi who recently alluded to the L word.

Me: I don't know that one babe. What is it exactly?
Madi: I CAN'T tell you because then I'll have said it!
Me: Maybe it's not a bad word though. We can't think what it is.
Madi: It's... It's lost.
Me: Lost? (She nods vigorously, looking shocked) As in L.O.S.T? (More wide-eyed nodding) Why is that bad?
Madi: You know, like when people say 'Get lost'...
Me: That's not swearing babe. It's not very kind to say, but it's not swearing.
J: Yeah, it's not like the F word or the B word or anything. You know Coby sometimes says the F word and then he has to go and see Mrs Wakely. And once Harry said the S word by mistake. He was trying to say 'SHIRT' (Collapses into giggles)
Madi: (Looking confused) But I don't know ANY of those words!
J: (Touselling her hair) Ah Madi, that's a good thing! You don't want to know any of those words!

Which begs the question: Why are some words swearing when others are not?
• I don't know is the answer. They just are so we don't say them.

But why?
• Well I suppose people who don't know you make all sorts of assumptions about you and what kind of kid you are by what you say. And they might think you're horrible and rude without even getting to know you.

Which is pathetic really. But it's the first answer I thought of and is probably kind of true.

It has always confused me though. I don't know all the rules and have never bothered to investigate them. Which is why I use inappropriate language myself sometimes. (I have only recently found out what knackered denotes in this part of the country, but after it meaning very tired or malfunctioning for the last 40 years, I find it hard to accept it may mean something else). 

And language changes too, so what was shocking a generation ago is acceptable now. When I was a kid I wasn't allowed to say pee. Wee was OK (or better still wee-wee) but not pee. What's that about? One tiny little consonant and grandma gets really offended.

I'm a bit intrigued by hand gestures as well. Take the peace sign. That's cool. That's reaaallly great and if more people wanted it and made active moves towards it then maybe there would be less greed and hate and pointless warfare.

But keep your 2 fingers extended and rotate your wrist round 180 degrees and all of a sudden you've communicated to someone that not only do you NOT want peace, but you are zealously inviting disagreement and conflict.

I just find that plain weird. How can the one gesture mean 2 completely different things? That's an international diplomatic disaster just waiting to happen that is.

We had a rather unfortunate incident involving a misunderstood hand gesture and a childless ex-neighbour once. I can write this now as we've moved house so often you won't know who it is.

Childless ex-neighbour lived 2 doors away from us at the time. Childless ex-neighbour was also wife-less and pet-less but did have a car that he loved and polished for hours every Saturday, and a slope in front of his house down which our kids liked to whizz on skateboards and bikes. Childless ex-neighbour did not like children playing so close to his house and his shiny clean car, especially when children in question had a double driveway and space to play outside their own front door. However, childless ex-neighbour never communicated this to anyone, and as our driveway was flat and wheeled toys + slope = more speed, the kids played there LOTS. This was a problem but we didn't know it.

Eventually childless ex-neighbour got annoyed with children whizzing and riding and bickering among themselves in the vicinity of the shiny clean car and asked them to play somewhere else. Jackson responded in the way he normally does to a direct order with a verbal 'Right you are' accompanied by a Sid-Salute, a-la Ice Age 3.

It turns out that childless ex-neighbour had never seen Ice Age 3 and thought he was being insulted on his own front doorstep by a delinquent 7 year old.

The first I knew about it was the hoover dying on me and an ashen-faced Ethan telling me that Jackson was crying and childless ex-neighbour (who was at that point a current neighbour) wanted to talk to me.

We'd been in the house for four months by then and we'd never spoken. Oh dear. I passed a sobbing Jackson on the stairs and managed a hug and his snotty version of events before opening the door.

Childless ex-neighbour was very cross. Yes I know who you are. Your child did this. And then he did this. Ice Age? Sid the sloth? Well that means nothing to me. Rah rah rah and he walked off.

I chased after him. I made the following points in a calm manner. When he interrupted I let him spout off then chased after him some more to continue making them.
1: I'm sorry this is our FIRST conversation and it's gone like this (i.e. you never came over to welcome us to the street)
2: This has clearly been bothering you for a while. I wish you'd approached me sooner and we could have discussed this without shouting (although I'm not shouting- you are)
3: Our children shall avoid playing on the slope or anywhere near your car which is obviously very precious to you (Saddo... but each to their own)
4: I will speak to Jackson and tell him to keep his Sid Salute to members of his immediate family and friends only (i.e. You are neither)

We followed this up 2 days later with a home made card confirming our conversation on the doorstep and the request that he immediately broach any future issues should they arise. We all signed it- Madi even put kisses.

We then invited childless ex-neighbour to our house warming.

He never came, but he started to wave and say Hi in the street.

Then we moved house 5 months later and he officially became known as The man who doesn't know who Sid is. (And we NEVER mention the salu*e)...