Born 'n Bred Country Girl

Mother's day was celebrated early around here. My husband worked this weekend so we decided to celebrate on Thursday night by going out to a local fancy restaurant with the kids. My husband had also scored us a gift certificate there so it was an easy pick.

While we were waiting for our food to arrive my son decided that this night would be the night to try out some new colorful language he apparently, but not surprisingly, had picked up from some boys that play out front of our condo. Lo and behold, "stupid butt" was what he had picked up. Surprised, shocked and almost abhorred at what had just come out of his mouth, both my husband and I were like "WHAT did you JUST say??". Sure enough our ears had not failed us.

We found ourselves going from mystified to partially angry at the corruption that had just occurred to clueless as to how to handle this situation. I wasn't expecting to encounter this kind of thing until he had started school. So we attempted the whole explaining thing. That we don't use those words. That those words are rude and not good manners (manners is a big thing in our house that my son understands). That those words are dirty talk.

Having felt like we handled it pretty well we went on and enjoyed our evening only to be equally surprised when my son decided that he was going to push the issue further and try whispering his choice words to see if we were listening.

Again not entirely sure how to handle the situation. Torn between the possibility of ignoring it and hoping it will go away OR dealing with it now and setting the precedent for any other choice words he may pick up in the years to come. So we re-explained.

Friday was another day of testing for him. I decided that I was going to start threatening the bar of soap. Adding to our explanation that if he was going to talk like that, that I would have no choice but to wash his mouth of his dirty talk. That night while I was folding laundry, my son, who I might add has also REALLY been testing limits lately, decided to look me straight in the eye and test my soap threat!

With a smug little smile on his face he seemed quite pleased to accept his consequence of having his mouth washed out. So I got out the bar of Ivory and lathered it up real good. I stuck it in his mouth and worked it around. All the while this smug grin remaining. UNTIL he moved his tongue!

Words can not describe the priceless look of disgust on his face and the spitting that followed. I inquired if he would like me to wash it out some more. His head was very quick to indicate no. So I told him to take some water and rinse his mouth. So he took a big gulp and.....swallowed. No joke when I tell you that what followed was near convulsions as he worked to spit out the residue in his mouth.

Finally, he got that he shouldn't swallow the water. We did a little debriefing that seems to have driven home the point that we won't tolerate that kind of talk in our house. About 20 minutes later he came to me and told me he needed more water. I sent him to the bathroom to use the cup there and when I went to check up on him I found him gulping big mouthfuls of water and spitting them out.

Since then, I've heard him a couple of times saying "no stupid butt". It didn't seem to be directed to anyone. But i've been interjecting with "what happens if you say that?" He remembers.

Tonight though, we went to the park for a little bit and I heard him say it to some kids that were there. As much as I wanted to fly home and wash his mouth out again, I waited. Every one of the kids there were shocked that he said that and told him that what he said wasn't nice (they were older kids). I'm hoping that it might help that older peers have indicated to him that his words weren't nice.

So mother's day has been interesting to say the least. Just keeping me on my toes. Kids do say the darn'dest things I suppose. I remember my mom washing our mouths out with dish soap when we were younger. It seemed to have worked for me. Maybe not so much for my siblings but 1 out of 3's not so bad right? I'll have to adjust my tactics for the next ones.