“Tough t!ts!”

Sophie Rayment - 5 Nov 15

Nice one, son. Wait until you’re sat at Grandma’s kitchen table before declaring at the top of your sweet little voice that it’s “TOUGH TITS!” that your baby brother won’t get pudding if he doesn’t eat his sausages.

What are you supposed to do when your children blurt out sweary stuff they’ve been storing up? And when you’ve got no one to blame but your good (foul-mouthed) self?

Grandma did her best to remain stony-faced and ignore the outburst. In fact she was so good at it, I thought I might be in for a telling off, until the boy said it again, LOUDER, and she ran to the next room unable to stifle laughter any longer.

This wasn’t the first time he’d sworn – for the F-bomb was dropped on holiday earlier this year, following a rather ‘heated’ conversation his dad and I were having. I can’t remember exactly, but we were most likely arguing about how watching Mike the Knight indoors over and over while waiting for rain to pass, wasn’t really a holiday. Anyway, he just came out with it and we said that there’s no such word as f*cking, he must have misheard, “Mummy said ‘ducking’, Alex.” My bad.

I didn’t really know how to react, or how to feel. I felt shocked hearing such a word come from this innocent child, and guilt that I’d sullied his brain with it in the first place. We had a word with ourselves and promised each other we’d reign in the obscenities, especially road-rage induced ones when my husband often forgets himself. Thank goodness the C-word hasn’t made a debut.

To be honest, since Holiday Swear-gate, there has only been a handful of f-word mentions, all still shocking (and funny – am I allowed to say that?), but I’m none the wiser on what to do. a) Ignore? After all, we don’t want to dignify a bad word’s use by acknowledging it, right? b) Ask him to repeat it, in case we’ve misheard him, in the hope that wasn’t what he said? c) Tell him it’s a naughty word and risk him finding it even funnier to say in future? d) Just accept that he’s going to hear these words sooner or later anyway? I’m not sure there is a prescriptive answer.

I forget that while my eldest is only four, his brain is like a sponge, taking in stuff we say, even when we think he’s not listening. He often imparts surprising knowledge about stuff when I least expect it. He’s too young to know that certain words he might hear aren’t acceptable, unless he’s singing his “bum, poo, willy-willy” song, in which case he knows winds me up.

I can still get away with the odd “bloody” in front of my two-year old, who doesn’t listen to a word I have to say anyway, but I am really trying my best to be good now. And I am hoping, really hoping, that there aren’t any sweary surprises to report at our first school parents’ evening soon.

Sophie Rayment

I am a freelance copywriter and mum of two little boys, Alex and Louis. I live in Kent and I like telly, tea and shoes.

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