That's a Bad Word!

True confession time: if you hear my four year old use a curse word sometime in the next few weeks, it's my fault. It was a hectic morning, the baby was fussy, something dropped all over the kitchen floor and...it just slipped out.

And it was definitely noticed. "Why did you just say s---, Mama?" my daughter asked, charmingly mispronouncing the word. "That was a bad word I said," I responded. "I shouldn't have used it and I'm sorry I did. It was a bad word."

The topic dropped easily enough, and I haven't heard it again (and I'm hopeful that the mispronunciation will make it indistinguishable!). But the whole thing has me thinking about the concept of "bad" words...the way what's bad changes generation to generation, how bad words are arresting when we hear them but sometimes so satisfying to say, and what the heck it means to have a word be bad, anyway.

Of course, one reason is cultural mores, and those are strong: check out Carolyn Hax on this topic today and the campaign to pull Modern Family from ABC because of an episode featuring a swearing toddler (which was hysterical, by the way).

I am someone who tends to be relatively bound by societal expectations for behavior--unless, and this is a big unless, I think a justice issue is at play. I don't swear a lot, and I don't want to see my four year old swearing. But I'm intrigued by the idea of what makes a word bad one decade and okay the next, and by the idea that our "bad" words are almost always connected to our bodies or to hell. There's something there about religion and embodiment that's worth exploring!

Just not by my preschooler.