Quote:
Originally Posted by dtb
Oh, I did mention it to the kid! Just a mild sentence about how that sort of language isn't allowed in our house. He looked a little embarrassed, but seemed to get over it quickly.
Thanks for all the responses. It's an awkward conversation to have, but it's better that I mention it. Thanks for confirming my (seldom perfect) instinct.
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We have faced the issue a lot in another context. We live in a grammatically pristine neighborhood - we are surrounded by academics, many of whom come from abroad and so learned English formally and without the swears. But, our kids have a couple of activities that bring them into the inner city - one is involved in a singing group with a lot of kids from all over Boston, and two are part of a community sailing program in a predominantly Hispanic neighborhood. Well, there is a sizable crew of their peers who know every word on the street, and have a casual and often quite colorful and versitile ability to utilize language from which our children have been sheilded. Their dexterity and skill extends to Spanish and often Creole variations. Their linguistic flexibility is not only accepted but revelled in, and parental supervision often occurs with the same color.
In this environment, we've accepted a lack of control over some of the language, but encouraged our kids to maintain their high-fallutin language. In the sailing program, they've been nicknamed "the Europeans" because their speech is viewed as so, well, unAmerican (and, one of the friends participating in it is a German import, so, well, they must all be from somewhere else).
Around the neighbhorhood, we'd stick to your perfect instinct. In this other context, though, we've compromised. Are we bad parents?
