I’d Rather My Child Say Ass Than Be An Asshole

Recently, in an angry moment, my daughter called me an ass. I wasn’t even surprised or shocked. After all, the day before, she’d heard me call another driver who’d cut me off an asshole. I did have to leave the room to laugh, though, due to the 7-year-old seriousness with which the insult was delivered.

While my husband and I don’t sprinkle curse words liberally through our conversation, they do pop out occasionally. As a lover of words, I acknowledge that we have a wealth of adjectives to utilize in most situations — but sometimes someone is just being an ass, or something is just fucking ridiculous. And honestly, these occasions have only seemed to increase over the past year.

Growing up, using “bad language” was inappropriate behavior worthy of reprimand, if not punishment… and not just words of the four-letter variety. I was raised in a household where *fart* was a bad word. My husband’s mom wouldn’t buy Heluva dip because it referenced the bad place.

It often struck me as a rule focused more on outward perception than one that in any way reflected a person’s true character. I saw some really bad behavior from people who never let a curse word cross their lips.

While there are settings where it wouldn’t be ideal for my daughter to use certain language, like at school or at her grandparents’ house, I don’t plan to punish her for it if she eventually does. Because up to this point, even though she has heard “bad language” at home, we haven’t gotten any reports from school about her teaching her classmates curse words. (I may have just jinxed myself there.)

There are other words I wish my daughter would hear less often. Words like dumb and stupid, ugly or fat. Really, any negative, bigoted, or prejudiced language. These are the types of words I discourage her from using: ones that can hurt others and ones that we can also turn on ourselves, harming our confidence and self-esteem.

Outside our home, she hears stupid with a much greater frequency than she does ass. These kinds of words pop up in the books she reads, the shows she watches, and in conversations she hears at school. And unlike the words we consider “bad language,” these ones aren’t generally considered taboo. They don’t result in outrage or book bannings, even though they cause more damage than the four-letter variety.

Now that I’m a parent myself, I care more about raising a child who isn’t an asshole than her saying ass. The reports from school that I will be upset about are those that involve her failing to treat others with respect and kindness.

Unfortunately, she’s already experienced the pain of being teased and bullied by her peers. Of having her interests made fun of, being called names and insults like stupid, and being excluded. While this has been awful to experience as a parent, it has provided opportunities for us to discuss how she should be treated and should treat others.

The reality is, you can sanitize your language by avoiding “bad” words, but that doesn’t mean you aren’t still using words that harm other people. How we speak to and treat other people matters more than whether we occasionally drop an f-bomb.

I want my daughter to be a good human who cares about the impact her words and actions have on others. Not a bully. Not someone who thinks that just not saying bad words makes them a good person, or that their personal beliefs give them the license to treat other people like shit.

In other words, not an asshole.

Sara Rowe Mount writes about motherhood, mental health, neurodivergence, and other things parenting for publications like Scary Mommy, Business Insider, and HuffPost. In addition to writing, Sara has worked in a variety of educational settings, including facilitating literacy workshops. She is mom to an amazingly imaginative, neurodivergent daughter.