Saturday, November 15, 2008

Some things are better left unsaid.

Little Bun was furious with his dad.
So furious that, despite no name-calling in our family, he said "You're a freak," and when that didn't make him feel better, repeated over and over "freak, freak, freak, freak, freak . . ." His dad, to prove (I suppose) that it wasn't getting to him, said "Say what you have to. Get it all out . . ." Little Bun blurted "Sh*t," which was followed by stunned silence from both.
Dr.Bloom suggested several punishments, but I feel that "Sh*t" was possibly covered by "Say what you have to" and "Get it all out."

4 comments:

Mia said...

I think I'm going to have to agree with you on this one. He sort of left the "ship" porthole wide open there.

Anonymous said...

I read this and immediately thought of the flat tire scene in "The Christmas Story". Love it...

Unknown said...

See, and I guess I am a freak, cuz I actually don't care one tiny bit of my kid swears. What is morally wrong with an arrangement of letters? Poop and sh*t mean the same things, just different letters. Semantics.

We tell her not to say certain words at school because there are other people who don't like those words and b/c she might get in trouble.

Despite having the freedom to use these words at home, she doesn't.

Someone please please please explain to me what the big deal is about an arrangement of letters. Still waiting for some logical explanation for all this.

abebech said...

Yeah, it was totally the context -- the middle of the mall.
We do have a "say what you have to say -- out of the earshot of people who don't want to hear it" agreement. I don't really care about the words myself -- but I care if/that they are used to upset other people.

Did you read the supreme court on offensive comedy? It's hilarious. They wanted to say that anything referring to sex or excrement would be offensive (unless the joke was funny). But that would mean you could never put a three year old on live tv, because they just might say "poop."