Tuesday, April 21, 2009

Bad Words, Bad Words, Watcha Gonna Do?

There is a certain element of society who finds it amusing when small children curse. Will Farrell’s video The Landlord works on that idea. The movie Meet the Fockers makes extensive use of a cursing toddler for humour.

The people who don’t find it amusing are the parents. My kids’ school takes the use of bad words very seriously, as in “the kid goes to the principal’s office and the parents are called to pick him up from school early” kind of serious. Although Elly Patterson in today’s reprint of For Better or For Worse blames the grownups for using bad words around the kids, the main place where my kids pick up bad words are from other kids. My wife and I are pretty scrupulous about not using bad words around our children, and yet they still pick them up.

As in the Michael Patterson example, oftentimes my kids don’t know what the words mean and they repeat them as a part of normal language acquisition. In those situations, my wife and I say something like, “You don’t want to say {that word} again, especially not at school.”

However, this is not the point of today’s strip. The audience of today’s strip is clearly intended to feel guilty for having cursed around a child. The problem with putting that idea across is the stilted dialogue between Elly and Michael. Elly’s argument is that Michael shouldn’t use bad words, just because he hears grownups using bad words. Michael then addresses the basic problem, “How can he tell if a bad word is a bad word, if he doesn’t know what the words mean?” With my kids we had to acknowledge which word is the bad word and let them know “This is the word you shouldn’t say.” The easiest way to do that is to immediately react the first time you hear your child say the word. When my kids were younger, they never knew when they were saying a bad word. They just said a word they heard another kid say. It’s a reasonable argument for Michael to put forth, but not one a kid his age would ever come up with.

6 Comments:

Blogger DreadedCandiru2 said...

howard, When my kids were younger, they never knew when they were saying a bad word. They just said a word they heard another kid say. It’s a reasonable argument for Michael to put forth, but not one a kid his age would ever come up with.It is, however, an argument that a woman in her early thirties might have come up with. Even back then Lynn couldn't resist the temptation to put her words in her children's mouths.

2:21 AM  
Anonymous Anonymous said...

I'm confused as to where this strip comes from. Was there a strip before this that didn't get printed?

3:59 AM  
Blogger DreadedCandiru2 said...

Anonymous,I'm not sure but I think this might have been a stand-alone. That's because in the old days, Lynn used to write better and not spell everything out in excruciating detail.

5:17 AM  
Blogger howard said...

DreadedCandiru2,

Even back then Lynn couldn't resist the temptation to put her words in her children's mouths.Yes. All the characters in the strip are Lynn Johnston. That simple mantra explains every confusing moment in this strip.

6:51 AM  
Blogger Ellie said...

When I was young (first/second grade, I think) I went through a period where I amused myself by making my own newspapers. I'd write a couple fake stories and obituaries (people usually died in their 30's, which seemed incredibly old to me), and I'd put in a few comic strips I'd made up myself.

One of the strips I invented had a really wacky character. I tried to make up a funny-sounding word for the title. So I ended up proudly showing my parents a newspaper with a comic strip called "Fuck."

I distinctly remember the "Umm, honey, there are some words we shouldn't use" conversation that followed!

11:30 AM  
Blogger howard said...

ellie,

I am sure your parents were probably excited that you chose to show them the newspaper first, as opposed to your friends, your teacher or your grandparents.

2:53 PM  

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