The "F" Word

In our family there have been words that we have deemed "bad" words. They have consisted of stupid, hate, shut-up, and butt mainly off the top of my head. While Maddy and Josey have ALWAYS complied with this rule, Lilly of course has struggled with not saying a few of these choice words, much to the HORROR of Maddy and Josey. Lilly's words of choice are stupid and hate. And let me tell you it has frustrated me to no end trying get her to stop saying these words.



Now cute to a few days ago. Maddy was up helping me fold some clothes and I had the news on in the background. There was a blurb about how a teacher had taught her second grade class to spell the F-word (I didn't see the story so I don't know the whole story). Maddy looked at me and asked what the F-word is. I tried to get away with just saying it is a really bad swear word. And she said, "OH! Like S-H-U-T-U-P?" And at that point I decided to explain the difference between a "swear" word and just a not nice word to say. She didn't know what swear words are and I tried to explain to her that the F-word was a swear word, and swear words are words that we DO NOT use. Luckily I wasn't forced to go into detail about what all the swear words are. HOWEVER I didn't seem to be able to get away with not telling her exactly what the F-word was. She just kept asking me what the word was. I tried to tell her it was just a really bad swear word and that it really was like the worst of the swear words but that didn't cut it. So finally I asked her if she had any idea what the word was. She tentatively asked if it was f***(to hear that come out of my 9 year olds mouth was VERY disturbing by the way). And I told her that was the word. She told me it was written on the back of a seat on the bus and that her and another friend had changed the F to an E but that she didn't know what the word was. I am assuming the friend must have! So then she wanted me to explain what the word meant! Like this couldn't get any worse. So again I tried to just say that people use it in a lot of different ways to be really crude and it is just a really bad word. But that didn't cut it! So I had to tactfully explain what the word meant. And then she told me she wished she didn't know. GREAT! I try to be honest and educational with my daughter and that was what I got!



Cut to tonight. We are sitting around the table and Lilly is now naming off the words that we don't say because they aren't nice. She is telling us that we don't say stupid and hate.....and then asked me if there were anymore words that we don't say and I told her she pretty much had it covered. But then Maddy pipes in with, "And we don't say the F-word." I flipped around and said, "Maddy! we don't need to bring that up!" And then Maddy's little friend who happened to be sitting there asked her what the F-word was to which Maddy started replying that it was a really really bad word. And I cut her off asking her to please not bring it up. So sorry to our friends family if your daughter comes home asking about the F-word. I am just hoping that she doesn't tell her mom that we were talking about it at the dinner table! What makes me laugh though is that there are A LOT of words in between stupid and the F-word to not say, but Maddy wanted to make sure I guess that it was not being said as well.