For 9 years, Nina and I have done a really good job of keeping bad words out of Niko’s vocabulary. Niko is aware of the bad words (probably from classmates at his old school), but he kept them pretty far back in his brain. He never used them and whenever something appeared audible to him that contained bad words, Nina and I put a stop to whatever it was. He was always asking us what they were, but again, he knew, he just wanted to hear us say them.
Well, a few months ago, a bad word was said by either Nina or I (it doesn’t matter who), but it got a laugh from Niko as that was the first time he heard us say a bad word.
Now, a bad word will flow out his mouth. Nina and I are trying not make a big deal about it; we tell him it’s just not nice words and never never never say to anybody else or at school. When he does use them, he gets the bad words absolutely correct in the right situation.
I told him that growing up, bad words were used in my family, without any repercussions. Even in a lot of my old blogs, bad words were involved. However, I did attempt to edit them all out when I started covering the St. Anthony Yellow Jackets football team. All of these blogs, though, are now in a draft status for now as I moved everything from thestatmanspeaks.com to thedadspeaks.com. For now, I am planning to keep as drafts, but I may change my mind.
When I was a high school football statistician and a freelance sports writer, bad words were normal and part of the everyday vocabulary for most head and assistant coaches. And, most of them had no cares in the world of who could hear them.
I remember when George Carlin had an HBO special where he mentioned “seven dirty words you can’t say on television”. As soon as it ended, my brother and I were running through the house screaming them! I got to see him live in the 2000s, and my parents saw him live in 1969! From that live show I saw, I purchased a t-shirt with a lot of filthy phrases on it, and I showed it to Niko. He laughed, but I know deep down, he didn’t really understand any of them. I then, showed him a few more t-shirts with some bad words on them, and again, he laughed. I even told Niko that my favorite bad word is Mother FXXCKER!
The only time I said a bad word at school was in elementary school. And, I said it in front of the vice principal! That day, my mother picked me up and she was chatting with the vice principal (she was heavily involved with the PTA), and I kept looking at Mrs. Z hoping she wouldn’t tell my mother, and she never did!
