State of Linus
Linus seemed to get into Halloween with more gusto this year. Which only makes sense, because he's six. What about Halloween doesn't rock when you are six? He was a knight, of the faux chain mail variety. Also, his sword was more of the ninja style than anything King Arther would recognize, but when you're six it doesn't matter. He spent his night running from door to door with two cute girls dressed as princesses, all while boasting to each other about who is most brave and prepared to face the infamous Scary House the next street over. By the time the night was over he could barely carry his candy bag.
He's losing his front two teeth, which sounds bad after a paragraph about heavy bags of candy. He'll have a giant gap in the middle of his lower teeth soon, and soon he will also learn about the myth called the Tooth Fairy.
He saw his first football game last weekend, the Ohio State's 45-31 drubbing of Minnesota, which saw over 1,000 yards of total offense. It was a lot of fun to watch, but now he might be ruined, thinking every game will feature all those huge plays. Though, considering the two teams he sees most right now, he's pretty used to seeing a lot of big plays.
Just last night, he came downstairs and expressed the belief that the Miles Davis CD was causing him to sleep too deeply, which in turn was causing him to not wake up in the middle of the night when he needs to go to the bathroom. He suggested They Might Be Giants might be better for his continence.
The other night he looked at a new chicken and rice dish Jane made and asked, "What the hell is that?" We told him that wasn't polite language. The real benchmark of his age isn't that he said it so much as that he knows we are being disingenuous when we tell him he shouldn't say it.
Tonight, we had the conversation about "bad words" again. We explained the concept between public and private language, what other people think when they hear people use bad words. We talked about what it meant to be "offended". We also explained that really, we didn't think there were any bad words at all. They're just words, after all. But, what we think isn't always what other people think, and since we care to some degree what other people think, we should try not to offend them unless it's necessary, or at least extremely rewarding or entertaining. But then I wondered if he knew what specific words we were talking about, and if he didn't know what they were, how he was supposed to know what the bad words were if we didn't tell him? We asked him if he knew any bad words, and we called a politeness time out and told him he could say any bad words he knew without being punished. The look he got on his face told me he had a pretty good idea what some bad words were, but he was in no way comfortable sharing that knowledge with us.
So, we told him the bad words, and in some cases offered constructive alternatives. "Hell" should be "heck". "Damn", "Dammit" and "Goddammit" should become "Dang", or preferably, "Dagnabbit". We explained that "Shit" was a good all-purpose swearword that referred most often to poop, and a good substitution was "Shiatsu". And, of course, we introduced the granddaddy of swearwords, "Fuck" and told him there was no alternative for that word because it was too powerful. When Jane and I both said the word, his eyes got wide. He knew.
We also explained that sometimes when kids hear other kids use bad words, they get all high and mighty and want to tell everybody around that so-and-so said a bad word. We asked him not to be like that, to instead just ignore the language altogether. He sat there and took it in for a few moments, then said, "Where should I put my dishes from dinner?" And I said, "In the fucking sink!", and Jane and I laughed and laughed.
Being a parent of a six year old is a lot of fun. They're old enough to understand and ask things in ways that make you see the world anew, but young enough to hang on your every word and not talk back. The way you tell it is the way it's probably going to be for them, so you better tell it good.
9:33:56 PM 
|
|
