My daughter attends a very small Catholic school in a fairly small Midwestern town. As a parent volunteer I am often called upon to help out with recess duty. Most days are pretty uneventful, but the other day I was treated to an earful when a fourth grade boy got sideswiped by an overzealous fifth grader and unleashed a health dose of spicy language.
The school has strict rules about cursing, swearing and using the Lord’s name in vain. However, this kid’s ire got the best of him and he let loose a few zingers that would make some sailors blush.
Given that I witnessed the entire incident it was my responsibility to call the kid over and confront him about his use of profanity on the playground. Typically, major disciplinary problems are dealt with by the principal, but I didn’t want to rat out the kid without getting his side of the story first, so I walked him over to the sidewalk and asked him if everything was okay.
Clearly it wasn’t, but I wanted to give the boy a chance to collect his thoughts, cool down and perhaps apologize to the other kid, in an effort to avoid being sent straight to the principal’s office.
No dice. In fact, not only was the boy unwillingly to issue the other kid an apology, he had the nerve to explain why the cuss words he used were no big deal.
“Crap and stupid are not bad words,” the potty-mouthed kid insisted.
“Well, they are in my book,” I responded.
Regardless, “crap” and “stupid” were far from the only curse words the kid spat out at his perceived offender. I suppose if you are a George Carlin fan, then profanity is part of your lexicon, but when you are a 9-year-old boy cussing out a classmate during recess, then it’s a problem.
I could have spent the rest of recess explaining to the kid that shouting “crap” and a load of other expletives in a public setting is unacceptable behavior and provided him with alternatives ways to deal with his frustration, but I decided to leave that job to the principal… and hopefully the kid’s parents.
Still, the incident got me thinking about the evolution of cursing. Are words such as “crap,” “stupid,” and “piss” no longer included in the cursing category? Has the culture of profanity bumped them into a different realm, so that they are now an acceptable part of our every day vocabulary?
Where do you draw the line when it comes to cursing and swearing?