Baby’s first word is usually mama or dada, but, horror of horrors, sometimes that wee tot starts swearing!
It’s no wonder that babies learn to swear because the swear words are spoken with great force and emphasis. The child’s young brain says “this must be an important word.” The swearword is implanted on the baby’s memory quickly and easily.
Babies also pick up nasty and rude tones of voice from the conversations they hear around them. Most babies are excellent at mimicking, or parroting what they hear and see.
Some families will inadvertently further embed the objectionable words by laughing when the baby swears. The baby gets attention when it cusses the cat and the family doubles over in laughter. Small wonder the baby repeats the words that get such a big response.
When the toddler tells you to F off, resist the urge to chuckle because she’ll take it as wonderful reinforcement for swearing.
Children pick up swear words from many sources outside and inside the home. Not all children learn swear words from their parents. Exposure to swear words in the media can lead to an increase in swearing in children.
To avoid swearing in front of the children, many families adopt swearing alternatives.
My mother said fiddlesticks. I have also heard fudge, snickerdoodle, and sugar used as expletives. When you bump your sore toe against the chair, it sometimes helps to exclaim a strong word, even if it is an inoffensive substitute for swearing. (One researcher suggested that swearing helps us to cope with the pain.)
Words that we substitute for swearing are called minced oaths. A minced oath is defined as a euphemistic expression formed by deliberately misspelling, mispronouncing, or replacing a part of a profane, blasphemous, or taboo word or phrase to reduce the original term’s objectionable characteristics. For example, “gosh” substitutes for “god,” and “fudge” stands in for another F word.
The next time you have coffee with your friends, you could have fun making a list of all of the euphemistic swear words that you can come up with. Just don’t say them around the baby!
