Sunday, November 4, 2007

It's all in the way you say it.

Colin and I were watching Survivor the other night when one of the contestants, feed up with his camp mate, told the camera she needed to "Get over it, B***h!" Honestly, why must we have this in the "family hour" (HA!) of television?

A couple of years ago we heard this same word uttered during the seven o'clock hour and I said to Colin, "That's not a nice word, okay, Colin?"

"What word, Mom?" he asked.

"The word that man just used. It started with B."

"Ball?" No. "Beans?" No. "Bull----?" Um. No. Although, you're right. That's not nice either.

So I am not naive. I know my child is hearing all sorts of things out on the playground, but we certainly don't need to hear it on television in our home. Do we? So I start again this time.

"That is truly not a nice thing to call someone, Colin," I said.

"What, Mom?"

"That B word that man just used."

"What word?"

Well, now I have learned my lesson. I do not want to hear out of my precious boy's mouth all the bad words he knows that start with B, so I just go ahead and say it. "It was b---h. That is not a nice thing to call someone. Okay?"

"Okay, Mom. If someone calls me a bench, I will say, 'That is not a nice thing to call someone.'"

"Well, yes, honey, but I don't think anyone is going to call you a bench. It's b---h and mostly girls get called that and it's not nice."

I have this vision of my son, age 25 or 26. He is having his first fight with his lovely intelligent girlfriend. A la his father it's sort of hard to tell he is fighting but he's really frustrated and he turns to her and says, "You are just really being a bench." And she just laughs and says, "What?!" And the whole thing is over. Well, good for her.

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