When did we decide as a whole that only adults should be able to swear/say certain words and that kids shouldn’t? Also, i’m not talking slurs that are offensive or things like that, but words like “shit” or “fuck”.
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It reflects on the parents. Kids will repeat what they hear, sometimes inappropriately. I didn’t cuss around my kids when they were little and they didn’t cuss around other parents. By the time they were teenagers they knew who might be offended and who wouldn’t.
Also, if we reserve that taboo status of swears, they retain their power. If we were all allowed to say them all the time they’re no longer powerful. Like poop and frick don’t quite land as hard.
“i’m not talking slurs that are offensive” – and that’s where you are missing the point. Swear words are offensive to people, just like slurs are offensive to people. It’s just different demographics and the number of people who are offended by each.
As adults we know that while there is nothing inherently “bad” about swear words we also know that there are contexts where they are just not appropriate. If I’m meeting with a client or at a job interview I know to keep it clean, because obvious reasons.
But kids often can’t make those distinctions, if they think it’s ok to use swear words sometimes then they are going to think it’s ok to use them all of the time. No one wants to hear their kid dropping f bombs while in polite company
I have a 2.5 year old who’s like a sponge absorbing everything we say and do lately. The other day he heard me yelling at the dog for something in the other room, and later on he ran up to the dog and started yelling at him in a shockingly good imitation of me, lol.
Basically that’s why we try not to swear around him and try to model “good” behaviors because his little brain is absorbing everything but he hasn’t developed any impulse control or reasoning yet so we have to be careful what he is able to pick up right now. He doesn’t understand that daddy only yelled because the dog was doing something bad and also yelling isn’t the way to discipline an animal but daddy’s just running on 5 hours of sleep and is very stressed out. He just sees something and wants to parrot it.
Also I don’t wanna pick him up from daycare and get an earful from the staff that he’s been saying the F word all day
The best answer I’ve heard is that it’s because kids don’t understand social context yet. Maybe it’s fine to say fuck when you’re around your friends, but you might not want to say it in front of your teacher or your grandmother. As they get older, they start to figure out which contexts are appropriate for what language. This kind of extends beyond curse words, but that kind of language is considered really rude in a lot of contexts, so it gets called out more aggressively.
tl;dr until a kid can understand that Daddy only says SHIT when he stubs his toe at home but not when he’s in front of his boss, parents discourage their kids from cursing at all.
(also while it might be fine to curse at home when you’re older, when you’re young, your parents are the main authority figures in your life. Parents kind of have to model how they want their kids to talk to authority figures in general.)
It seems like most of the answers are missing your actual question which is why the social construct of swearing exists at all and why do we have to protect kids from arbitrary words. But if you think about it all swear words are just slang that was created to like, talk about sex or insult people. So situations where doing that would be bad, like around kids, is where it’s considered inappropriate. Even if you use them in a way that’s not actually about sex or insults, the origins of the word are still offensive so they keep the shock factor because they remind you of that on some level, and those aren’t topics we want kids thinking or talking about.
Basically up until like 5 years old the children will mimic everything the parents do bc u guys are a reflection so that’s why parents needs to take a step back and think about how they act and what they do since the kids will absorb it and use it.
I try to teach kids from time to time different words to use and how to act in a gentle way bc most kids i meet here are chaotic or always stressed bc the parents are stressed all the time 💀
Try to remain calm and it’s okay if swear words comes out we are all human but pls teach ur kids how to have respect towards teachers/older people.
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