My Daughter Said the F-Word?!

?!?!?!?!?!?!

Reader Beware: In case it wasn’t clear from the title, there are some bad words in here. Don’t read if that’s not cool with you!

My kids are still young enough to not know bad words. Stupid and dumb are out of bounds for them.

So imagine my surprise — and my mortification — when one of my girls dropped an f-bomb in a crowded Manhattan coffee shop this week.

Here’s how it happened. We have this tradition of going to our favorite spot for hot chocolate every Tuesday while her sister attends an afterschool class. I was at the register, ordering her drink, while she looked at the local art on the walls. She announced, loud enough for everyone to heard, “Dada, what the fuck?!”

I had no idea what was happening and decided to shut out my discomfort to talk her through it. We huddled, and I asked what the deal was. She pointed to a painting, and underneath it was a sign with the title: “What the Fuck?!”

Note: This isn’t the sign we saw, but it has the same language as the sign and therefore could be described as a sign of the sign?

I laughed, mostly out of relief, and I told the people around us what happened. They cracked up, too. Once we sat down, I explained to my girl that it was a bad word, and moreover, that there were gradations of bad words, and this was one of the worst among them in English. She covered her mouth in embarrassment, but we agreed that it was a mistake and no big deal, and she’d be careful going forward.

This morning, it came up again as we walked to school. I had both daughters with me, one holding each hand She said she saw a word on a poster. I had a sense of what she meant, but I wanted to confirm. I asked why it was significant that a word was on the poster, and she leaned over and whispered, “The word was fuck.”

I wasn’t caught by surprise this time. In fact, I expected it. But it still sounded so wrong coming out of her innocent mouth. I thanked her for telling me and told her, “You might see and hear that word from time to time. That doesn’t mean it’s appropriate for you to use it.” She nodded and accepted.

My younger daughter overheard and asked what the bad word was. I told her she didn’t need to know yet and that she might learn when she was older. She responded by saying, “Okay, that’s fine, but I do know the bad word that starts with H.”

Again, I wasn’t shocked, but I didn’t love it. Where has a girl her age heard curse words before? I told her out loud that I understood but that she didn’t need to repeat it, especially since her older sister didn’t seem to know yet. “What in the world is happening,” I thought to myself. “I didn’t know these words until much later in my life.”

Then, the younger one asked me to lean down so she could whisper the H-word in my ear. I obliged, and she said the word she was thinking: “Hate.”

Oh man, the relief I felt. To have their innocence, not knowing the gradations of obscene language, or in the case of my younger daughter, to still hold onto the idea that hate is unacceptable. I loved it so much.

I’m not one to worry too much about the words we use. I heard Nikki Giovanni say that to ban words from our vocabulary—or to ban books from our libraries—is to give them a power over us. We are the ones who should have power over our language. I love that.

I also recognize that it’s my responsibility as their parent to help my girls understand what’s socially appropriate and what’s age-appropriate, and that they are at an age where these words are off-limits.

Ultimately, I’m left thinking about their innocence and how much I want to preserve that, while also recognizing that they are going to learn and grow, even though I’d rather that they didn’t. I’m thinking about transitions and letting go, and about learning and growing with them. I’m hoping that I’m up for the task, that I can be there to serve them—and that we can continue to laugh at the mistakes the we each make along the way.