Mom outside the Chapel of the Transfiguration, in the Grand Tetons National Park. I'm surprised she didn't lock me in.

When I was a kid, I thought ‘lips’ was a bad word. Until 7th Grade, my hand to God, I thought you had to say ‘mouth.’ By the time I graduated from college though, who cursed more than me? D*** few. Those were the days.

In the years after, I worked in the theatre, I worked in restaurants and I might has well have been a f**king sailor for the language I used. I could curse in Spanish even.

Then when I became a father, I put a lid on it all. Or more specifically, James put a lid on it for me. He pointed out that as hip and cutting edge as it might be, I didn’t want my son’s first word to be ‘*sshole.’

So I stopped the profanity. I did it for Benjamin, sure, but mostly I did it for me. What would happen if my sweet little son, my adorable cherub, were to let loose with an R-rated tirade in front of my parents?

Of course he eventually did.

Where Never is Heard, a Discouraging #@%^ Word

Ben was three and we were meeting my parents at Grand Teton National Park. James, Ben and I flew into Jackson Hole, rented the car and drove to our hotel. As soon as we parked, Mom and Dad rushed out to the parking lot like they’d been watching from their window for hours. They were so excited to see their precious grandson. After hugs, they helped schlep our suitcases up to our second floor room. And nothing would ever be the same.

Indelibly printed on my mind: The door to the room was still open. I stood by the bed, suitcase in hand. James was wheeling something in. Grandma and Grandpa were swooping down on Benjamin, their voices high and playful, trying to get his attention, peppering him with questions.

“Did you have fun on the plane, Benjamin?” my dad asked.

“The guy in front of me was a f**kin’ head.” —Mind you, Ben was three, not even completely potty trained. You will recall my father was a Methodist minister and my mom was a minister’s wife—

I dove into the silence and did what any shocked parent would do. “Ben? Wha—what did you say?”

Which gave Benjamin the chance to repeat himself. “A f**kin’ head. He was a f**kin’ head.”

I sputtered. I gasped for breath, scrambled for something to say and came up short.

My parents suddenly left us alone, so we could ‘freshen up.’

In my most serious voice, I told Benjamin that this was a word we don’t say. Perhaps that’s why for the next two days, he kept telling Grandma and Grandpa, “F**kin’ head is a bad word. You shouldn’t say f**kin’ head.” Mission accomplished.

My sister, the preschool teacher, played it straight in front of Mom and Dad, but privately let me know she thought this was hilarious.

So sweet, so innocent. She never saw it coming.

That’s when I taught Benjamin the F-word. Or more precisely, I taught him to call it the F-word. “The F-word is a bad word,” he told us for the rest of the week. Phew!!

Our preschool in Silverlake was pretty progressive in that way. Kids could say bad words, but only in the bathroom and when there was no one around. It was supposed to take the absolute power of cursing away from the sweet little tykes.

Naturally, James assumed I had been letting the F-bomb loose in front of our child all along, but I promise I never did. I don’t know where the little s**t got it from.

Now ten years have passed. That’s a long time. A h*ll of a long time. And I still don’t curse in front of him. Ben is older, but thanks to TV and movies, it’s not much better.

Besides the King of Swear Words are the other usual suspects (D*mn, H*ll, B**ch, S**t, et al.) used so liberally in the PG-13 movies he’s begun watching. And he asks about them all, fascinated. We’ve had to have emergency discussions of the N-word (heard in To Kill a Mockingbird of all places), the other F-word (“F*g” was in one of the songs on his 2^nd Grade birthday-mix CD), and now comes the R-word, which has always been hurtful, but is a more recent addition to the forbidden list, as in “don’t be such a r*tard.”

Transformers 3

Last week he asked me, “Dad, what’s a d*ck?”

“Hmmm… Where did you hear that?”

“A guy on Transformers called another guy that.”

“Well, it’s a not very nice way to say ‘penis.’”

“Is d**che-bag a bad word? The other guy called the first guy that.”

“Uh….if you call someone that, I think so.”

“What does ‘d**che’ mean?”

God only knows what I told him. Something about women and freshness and spring rain.

“In Kung Fu Panda, Po says, Ska-d**sh.”

“Yeah. Don’t say that.”