My Kids Cuss and Take the Lord’s Name in Vain
Filthy Mouths; Pure Hearts; Can’t Lose.
If your kids didn’t learn an exhaustive list of cusswords during their two years at home in a pandemic, you’re a better mom than I am.
Yesterday our puppy discovered my daughter’s stash of fidget toys. Not long after, he was outside straining to pass chunks of rainbow-colored plastic as my six-year-old hollered at the top of his lungs, “THIS FUCKIN’ DOG IS SHITTIN’ FIDGETS!”
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But if I’m being totally honest, my kids started cussing way before the pandemic.
We moved to the Netherlands when they were only two and four. Dutch kids love American cusswords, which they learn from American TV and which lose all cultural baggage somewhere in translation.
In the Netherlands, a child will be swiftly reprimanded for saying, “krijg de kanker,” (“get cancer”) –– the worst of profanities. But even the youngest use “fuck” with impunity. My own children were quick to adopt this practice.
Now, at six and eight, my kids easily grasp that ‘bad words’ are basically arbitrary and often, culture-specific. It’s a realization that I came to embarrassingly late in life.
I was raised an evangelical Christian with a light smattering of fundamentalism and a heavy dose of puritanical moralizing: “Thou shalt not cuss” may as well have been the eleventh commandment.
Pretty sure the F-bomb, specifically, grieved the (obviously English-speaking) heart of Jesus –– because it has something to do with sex, and sex is maybe even worse than murder.
But I’ve tried to impress on my kids that words themselves are morally neutral; it’s knowing one’s audience that really matters. You can’t say “fuck” around Grandma; it will make her sad and a little worried about the character of the daughter she raised. You can’t say it at school or around your friends if you want their parents to let you come over for playdates. You can’t say it around folks who will take offense, because as a general rule it is kinder to avoid giving offense when you can.
You can pretty much always say it around mom, especially if she’s grumpy and you want to get a laugh out of her.
This approach has worked for us, for the most part. But last night when one of my kids was joking around and randomly strung together a phrase about ‘fucking buttholes,’ I admit I questioned my approach.
Where’s the line? In this case, I felt like they definitely stumbled across it. I wasn’t sure how to proceed. I resorted to: “Don’t say that; Because I said so.” –– just the sort of thing I was trying to avoid in the first place.
Hiccups in my dubious parenting methods aside, the kids understand there are non-cussing things a person can say that do actual harm; that some utterances may present as kind but cut deeply; that certain words have always been used to deny the dignity of entire groups of people and there is never a good reason to use them.
And they know not to use their own words to belittle, dehumanize, humiliate, alienate, or hurt others. Because I’ve fucking taught them better.
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“You shall not take the name of the LORD your God in vain, for the LORD will not hold him guiltless who takes his name in vain.”
Growing up, we memorized the ten commandments: in Sunday school, at vacation Bible school, at church camp.
“Thou shalt not take the Lord’s name in vain” was a particular favorite of mine, because it was easy enough to obey and I liked getting eternal extra credit where I could.
I went through a good stretch of life congratulating myself for adhering to this rule, and was overcome with righteous sorrow when others would casually drop “Jesus Christ!” or “Oh my God!” into everyday conversation.
The hard-hearted sinners.
But of course, “Geez” passed moral muster, as did “Jeebus McDweebus.” I wasn’t what you would call a spirit-of-the-law kind of kid.
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Then I got a little older and realized my reading of this commandment was horseshit.
When I saw my Baptist university ostracize gay student groups in the name of right Christian doctrine, I began to understand what it actually means to take the Lord’s name in vain. I began to understand that American Christians have made a long practice of doing evil under the banner of God: we have even justified slavery, genocide, the oppression of women, and the cruel treatment of immigrants.
Later, I watched with sorrow as American Christians uncritically pretended that a hateful, violent, rapacious, boastful, unrepentant fool of a bully was somehow favored by God to lead our country.
Today, when Americans invoke faith as an excuse not to wear a mask, get vaccinated, or otherwise care for their neighbors, I have no doubt what it means to take the Lord’s name in vain.
Now that we are back in the United States, I don’t identify as a Christian anymore. I’ve had enough of all the pious bullshit. My kids holler “Jesus Christ!” when they stub a toe, or knock over a glass at dinner, or get exasperated with one another.
But they also care deeply about loving their neighbors –– we talk about it all the time. I imagine if Jeebus McDweebus is really up there paying attention, he’s probably satisfied with that.