Toby's First F-Bomb

Sometimes being a parent require spontaneous –on-your-feet-reactions to situations you have absolutely no forewarning or preparation for.  Case in point was our drive to school today in which Toby dropped his first F-bomb.

I know now WHY they call it an F-bomb: the sound of that ONE WORD erupting from the innocent mouth of my 5 year old created waves of bomb-like explosions that ricocheted off various parts of my brain I knew not even existed.

Here’s how the unexpected conversation went:

T: “Mommy, want to hear something funny?”

Me: “Sure!”  I say with genuine innocent enthusiasm as I got into the car

T: “Holden, my friend at school is SOO funny.  Instead of saying ‘suck your thumb’ he says ‘FUCK your thumb!”

Bah dum bum CHING!

Me: “WHAT!?!?!?!"  I said as I fell off the seat and out of the car.

A now somewhat meek Toby repeated,  “FUCK your thumb – that’s what Holden says.”

The second repetition of the word hit me just as harshly as the first.  I felt like a superhero character being pummeled to death with invisible speech-inflicted laser beams of indiscretion.

OK – I recognize now in HINDSIGHT that there is probably somewhere some literature (perhaps from Huffington post?) that educates parents on the PROPER way to react to your child’s first use of a swear word.  And I SUSPECT it says something about remaining calm, keeping it cool, minimizing the impact of the word and feigning indifference so as not embellish or permanently emblazon the word into their vocabulary.

I confess to you now that I did nothing of the sort.

“TOBY!!!” I shrieked as I regained my footing and got back into the car for the second time, “That’s a BAD WORD!!! A VERY bad word and I NEVER want to hear you say it AGAIN!!!”

Toby was shocked.

“What word is so bad, Mommy?  Is it the word FUCK?”

Once again zapped by the proverbial thunderbolt, he hit me again in quick succession,

“What does FUCK even MEAN?’

I explained to him again that it was a VERY bad word; SUCH a bad word, in fact, that a definition was IRRELEVANT and I went on to lecture him on the importance of NOT using words he doesn’t know the meaning of.

Finally FINALLY Toby got he message and was silent for a few minutes before boldly announcing that he was SORRY that he used such a bad word and that the FIRST thing he was going to do when he arrived at kindergarten that morning would be to confront Holden and TELL him that the expression, “FUCK YOUR THUMB” was NOT a good expression because the word “FUCK” was a bad one.

I threw my hands up in the air at this point and waved my white flag.  My mommy brain had been defeated by the relentless thunderbolts of crass terminology from its superior super hero.

One can only hope I have scared him enough with my seemingly nonsensical reaction to delay any further swearing behaviour for at LEAST another few moths…or at least to buy me enough time to do some proper research, husband collaboration and practice on the subject before the next outburst!!!