1y ago

As a child, when did you start cursing or saying things to your friends that you couldn’t say in front of your parents?

I remember freely cursing with friends probably starting at 3rd grade or so. Just curious about everyone else’s experiences or if that was even a thing for some of y’all.

30 comments

No idea when I started it, but I have a little anecdote about a friend. Quiet, calm girl, a bit shy, always nice to everyone, tried to avoid conflict whenever possible. She loved to watch her boyfriend play videogames but had zero interest in trying it out herself - she always just wanted to watch and said it felt like an interactive movie to her.
Me and her boyfriend were taking turns playing FF12 and you can kinda pre-program the behaviour of the characters with "gambits" - if done right, you can just waltz up to an enemy and watch your party go ham on it without the need to manually attack. Total no-brainer. He eventually gave her the controller and said it was her turn now, and that she doens't need to worry about memorizing button inputs and the like, just walk around and have fun, it's totally easy ...
It took all of five minutes until she was cussing like a drunken sailor, totally immersed in the game, cheering on her party, insulting the monsters. One sentence in particular almost made me choke: "Ich schlag dir den Arsch voll bis du Schätze scheisst!" (we're all German BTW) which roughly translates to something like "I'll whoop your booty until you poop loot!" (assonance included).
They're married now. ;)
- That’s super cute. Thanks for sharing!

I didn't until I was an adult.
I made very sure not to raise my own child that way, as if some words are inherently bad. It's the context that matters, not the word itself, and I made sure my kiddo learnt that instead of "swearing bad"
- I like this idea, can you give an example so I can understand it better?
  
  So, I told my kiddo I don't care if they swear at home, or swear with their friends, because words are only words. What matters when they're speaking to me or around me is the meaning of their words, and whether they're intended to hurt.
  However, I told them that not everyone thinks that, and to some people, swearing is inherently upsetting, and they will need to be aware of that. If they swear at school or somewhere else and get in trouble, "I am allowed to swear at home" won't be an excuse.

I would sometimes swear when I was 7. My mom cursed a lot so I picked it up young. She's one of these people that forcibly inserts fuck into a sentence as many times as humanely possible when upset. Example "clean your fucking room right fucking now or I am fucking taking the fucking Xbox.

I still don't curse, really. I started talking about 'inappropriate' topics probably in around year 9 though.
- Same here, never got around to cursing, just not in my vocabulary.
- No need for swearing when there are so many other instersting and underutilized words in our language to use.
  
  Necessity isn't (shouldn't be) what drives profanity. Overuse of any word, swearing or otherwise, becomes dull to read or hear; but eloquence occurs when we utilize the full potential of our verbal toolbox - which occasionally means reaching for the fucking hammer!

+/- 12 I think.

For me I was about 13-14, raised really religiously so the first time I said fuck I was sure I was gonna be struck down in the next 48 hrs.

Kindergarten. But my parents never really cared. I was told "know your audience" not "don't say that".

Not sure. Definitely by 11, and probably a bit younger

Around the same time, 3rd or 4th grade.
- Most I heard was around that + all students basically having no filter.
  Kids are a bunch of vocal savages :D

My mother's stance was always something like "if you're going to swear, swear competently." Also a bit of "recognize the appropriate time and place for swearing. Home with family? Fine. Grandparent's church? Be nice"
- If my dad had it his way I'd be saying fuck after every other word. But he did teach me some really cool ways to swear. My mother managed to put a lot of it into context for me and told me when it wasn't right. I have always appreciated her for that

I know i cursed as a kid and did not very like it so i trained te be cursing free. That broke after like 10 to 12 jears after i got a friend that cursed a lot.
My mair reason why i did not like it was that if a mind reader exists i hope that at least i am not annoying. With the same motivation i structured how i think too, like less sentences that break halfway through.

5th grade, in a 3-day camp with friends

Near the end of elementary school and the beginning of middle school. It also didn't help that my parents would swear often as well. I'm glad my little brother is calling out the hypocrisy.

13, you can see the transition in the journal I kept at the time

8 or 9yo I think

I started at about 5th grade
- Same, i was like 4 feet tall damn i remember i had to walk a mile to my school center when it was like 100º Fahrenheit outside.