Last night, as bedtime was approaching, I asked Allison what she did at recess. She looks at me and without missing a beat tells me “Bobby said the “F” word today – three times”. I stand there with my mouth hanging open and a bit of bewilderment in my eyes and I said “what word?” She says that it is the word that is the worst word of all – you know Mom - THAT word. I continue to stare at her and I ask her if it rhymes with “duck”, at the same time hoping she says no, but yep it rhymes with duck! So, I get into Super Mom mode and tell her to sit down we need to talk. She told me that he said it during the first recess and apparently another little boy said it twice. She continues that her friend Grace told a teacher on them and they had to sit in the hall for the rest of the recess and miss ten minutes of the next recess. I ask her if that is all that happened to them and she replies, “well yeah”, as if that was punishment enough. I told her that if I ever hear her saying that word or if I ever find out she had said that word that missing recess would SEEM like recess when I got done with her! And then her father would have his two cents and ……oh……my…YIKES!! I told her that when I get very short tempered I have said bad words but I always feel bad about it afterwards and sometimes I ask God to forgive me or to give me better insight on how to handle the situation better. She seemed to accept this clarification and wished to go to bed. After I tucked her in, I had time to clarify my thought process on this little matter.
Should I be more upset that a child in my daughters classroom is spouting this obscenity as easily as saying his own name OR should I be upset that my daughter knows to refer to it as the “F word”? Should I be more upset that this boys only punishment was missing recess OR that he felt comfortable enough actually saying the word, repeatedly? Should I be mad at the teacher for doling out such a lame punishment OR should I be mad at the parents for allowing their child to have knowledge and obviously free use of this word? Ok – well, in a nutshell, I am upset with the parents, the teacher and the boy. If you want to fill your house with this type of language – fine – but at least have the decency to explain to your 8 YEAR OLD child that HE should NOT repeat it, ESPECIALLY AT SCHOOL(DUH)!! I think that denying recess is not a strong enough punishment. Our school has a peace school. It is designed as a softer way of handing out detentions for elementary students. Bobby should have been told to come to peace school the next morning and maybe his parents should have been told to come to. Sounds like the whole family needs a time-out. Ooh, you must be thinking, how judgmental I am being. So what. If I ever said a word like that in school at that age, I probably would still not be able to sit down! and not able to eat because of all the soap bubbles left in my mouth. Actually, as far as having my mouth washed out with soap, I personally never had that happen, but my sister did(heehee). But, seriously, when I was in the 4th grade, we were playing kickball at recess. I got mad and said “dangit”. One of my friends went home and told their mom and she in turned called my mom and well, I didn’t say that word again – at least not around that friend! No, I’m kidding. I was trying to seek some independence and I thought that talking “rougher” would give that to me but, really all it gave me was an extremely stern lecture accompanied with the “evil eye” and a “wait until your father gets home”. Yikes, don’t tell Dad!!
So, if I parlay Bobby’s situation into mine, he is probably seeking attention. That still does not excuse the language though. I have heard from Allison other things about Bobby and I think I might have to keep up on this situation. As I have been writing, things have been coming back to me and I’m pretty sure that I have not heard the last of Bobby. But, I hope Allison and the rest of her class have heard the last of the”F word”!
