We all do things that we shouldn’t do. You don’t? I bet you dream about it once in a while. Is that better? Just to fantasize?
When you grow up you are confronted with limits, rules, morals, and consequences. That sounds very drastic, but most of the time you don’t realize it.
That’s just the way it is. When you live with your parents, in your country, go to the school or church you are sent to, there are values that are there and that you don’t even view as changeable.
What has always interested me is why people cross lines that they grew up with. That’s revolution, isn’t it? Revolution has that positive connotation, but in my opinion it can go either way. What’s better kept the way it is, what is better changed. We only know in retrospective, sometimes not even then.
Did you cross moral lines that your parents would have never crossed? Why? I bet you thought of yourself first. Thinking that you have to go that way just to survive.
What has always fascinated me is how people react in life-or-death situations. Do you duck and hide, give up, try to play hero, or do you have the sense to do the right thing. It’s instinctive and most of us, luckily, will never experience it.
I am fascinated with my grandpa. I don’t think he was a “good” person. He only married my pregnant grandma after three of her brothers “told” him what’s the right thing to do. My dad equals childhood with holding his head low to avoid slaps from his dad. However, when my grandpa received his draft notice from Hitler Germany he reclined and went into hiding. I ask you what’s the moral of that piece of history?
Human beings are imperfect. One side of me would like to be tested if I really knew to do the “right” thing, the other side of me thinks that the test is already on, it will just never be in history books.
As a mummy I should loathe them, reprimand my nine year old son the second they come out of his mouth and put a stern face on. I mean swear words of course.
But I am a lazy mummy, and if you ask me if it’s a shitty day, there is no better adjective to describe it.
Of course you have to teach your kid that swear words are to be used like most spices… sparingly. They should never be used during job interviews, oral university examinations, or other situations where you have to appear properer than you really are. And if you ask me to call someone an asshole, especially to his face, says more about you than him.
I admit that little man learned to say shit in two languages (Scheiße in German, if you must know) at the tender age of two and probably from listening to me. German swear words tend to be “anal orientated” as one Anglo-saxon author of German habits put it. If a German calls you an “Arschloch” chances are he or she doesn’t like you.
From my own observation Anglo-saxon swear words tend to be sexually orientated. “F..beep” is a prime example. To a Teutonic like me fucking is very enjoyable, shit on the other hand smells badly, but listening to beeps on TV while you mouth-read every word of it is probably strangely satisfying to all of us.
A while ago little man came home and told me that is school mate J. is “gay”. Gosh I thought, J. is only eight years old the chances that he is gay before puberty are pretty slim, so I asked little man if he actually knew what gay means. He told me that gay means acting like a girl.
Well, that’s close but not really what it means, and not wanting to play tag on a boiling hot day is rather smart not gay if you ask me. Sometimes being a parent is quite complicated, because you have to decide in a snap what to say to steer your offspring to the right direction.
I told him that J. was right to go inside.
When he is a little older I will tell him that being gay is ok, and chances are that he will know that by himself by then, because in the end parents are the most crucial influences kids have.
Beeps on TV are useless if you ask me, and not letting your kids watch youtube videos is useless as well. They will hear it on the school bus anyway. On the other hand talking about it is very useful. Youtube videos in which people say fuck in every sentence are not bandwidth-friendly. My son knows this. They could be much shorter and to the point.
Teaching your kids what is appropriate by example and what will diminish their own worth is probably the most fucking awesome sweet thing you can do for them, not gay at all, nor sick.