Out of the mouths of babes…

There comes a point in every person’s first experience of parenthood when one realises, with a shock akin to somebody smacking you in the face with a freshly-caught salmon, that your baby isn’t a baby any more.  Now don’t get me wrong, there have been signs here and there for quite a few months now.  But the defining moment for us came the other day when our sweet, cherubic child said a VERY naughty word.  A word that rhymes with ‘duck’.

And he didn’t just say it in passing, either, oh no dear reader – he used it in context.  To tell us off.  As in “Duck’s a bad word.  Say ‘my goodness’ ’stead.”  Gobsmacked is not the word.  Of course there’s no doubting whose fault it is that such a hideous uttering came out of our not-quite-two-year-old’s innocent mouth – it’s ours.  I don’t think the Hubber would argue with me if I said that his potty mouth is worse than mine and he’s had a harder time curbing his language since we entered the ‘parrot phase’ of toddlerhood, but I’m not entirely blameless.  And I suppose I should be glad that Bubs was pointing out the error of our ways but the nagging voice in the back of my head says that’s not the last time we’ll hear that particular profanity.

My instinct is to adopt a two-pronged approach – firstly to ignore the behaviour because in my heart of hearts I know he doesn’t understand what swearing is and only does it to imitate us, and to gauge our reaction.  Secondly, to stop swearing in front of him.  The hubber suggested substituting the offending word for something more innocuous – although I’m not sure screeching “would you get your banana backside up off the banana sofa and take that banana rubbish out!” will have quite the same impact…wish us luck!