That’s a Fran Lebowitz quote and it’s awesome… and seemingly spot on. A couple of years ago when my youngest daughter was 4, she hit a milestone that every parent dreads: she said her first swear word. (yep, she was only 4… shut up) Our family was on a road trip and had stopped at a Cracker Barrel for lunch. While waiting to order, she looks at me and said, “Mommy, fox is not a bad word. But F#CK is!” I was mortified, but not half as much as the four blue hairs sitting right behind her at another table. If those old ladies could’ve gotten away with beating me over the head with a big slab of chicken fried steak, they would have. After all, what happened automatically makes me a bad parent, right? Not in my book. (and for the record, what she said was accurate…)
This turned out to be a good learning moment for my daughter, as well as one for the parent who might have been responsible for her learning this word. **cough** Little ears are always around us and they pick up on everything. But would I rather her learn the F bomb from me with a lesson about not repeating it? Or would I prefer she learn it from her peers or Eminem and just hope she asks me about it? As much as I would like to teach her everything, there is a fine line between helping your kids to learn and exposing them to something they are not yet ready to understand. I believe it’s up each parent to make the call about what we want to try and control, what they can handle.. and whether or not we can deal with the fall out of them having this knowledge. (warning: this can be scary shit!)
As for the angry blue hairs that were so ready to revoke my Mother of the Year award, I don’t believe it was any of their business to be so angry about my child (CORRECTLY) dropping the F bomb. Since I am both a mom and a writer, I am constantly amazed by what offends other people. People take things personally that have nothing to do with them and I can’t relate to why they put so much energy into it (not to mention, where they find such energy)! When I was younger, I used to be much more sensitive about things but I’ve totally mellowed since becoming a mom and growing a bit more mature (those of you who know me can stop laughing now, m’kay?). Getting upset doesn’t really help anyone, plus it puts the focus into getting upset rather than finding a solution to the issue. So I put together a helpful – and ok, snarky – chart about how to deal with a situation where you took offense.
Despite my obvious smartassedness here, I do believe there is a time and a place for everything. And as much as I am a firm believer in freedom of speech, there are some situations where it should be a no brainer that you just can’t express yourself freely. There is probably no greater example of this than what I’ve witnessed while watching music awards shows. If you win an award, is it really necessary to tell the world that your agent is one big bad ass motherf#cker? It’s TV, dude, you can’t do that because it’s out there for the masses. Plus they’ll bleep out the bad stuff anyway, so your boy might hear that he is a bad agent, while your mom might think you called her a bad mother with a big ass. The good news is that the peeps at Teleflora would be happy to send flowers with a card that tells your agent that you think he’s a bad ass motherf#cker, so not all is lost. (while you’re at it, you might want to send some to your mom too)
To illustrate my point, please flashback with me to the Grammy Awards show of 2010. When Lil Wayne and some other artists performed his song, “Drop the World”, well over half of the lyrics had to be cut out, which destroyed the entire “performance” (a term I use loosely since the censoring took away the majority of the lyrics and the music right with it). Why did they even bother letting him perform this song? Or maybe other words should have been included in place of the ones that were no no’s? I like Lil Wayne, but this disjointed 3 minutes would have been better served if I had taken a pee break or by just listening to him on my iPod. Like with many situations that I find absurd, it inspired me to rewrite one of my favorite dance songs (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=17lkdqoLt44&ob=av2e). This is dedicated to the F Bombshell in all of us.
No F Bombs on TV (to the tune of “You Dropped a Bomb on Me” by The Gap Band)
Your rap we heard…contained swear words
Far more than can be bleeped
Per censor’s rules, we must refuse
Lyrics that are dir-ty
So we’ll take them out baby
No F bombs on TV….baby
No F bombs on TV
Take half of the song out baby.
No F bombs on TV….baby
No F bombs on TV
Can’t take the thrillz, of crude rap skillz
From of-fen-sive homeys
Didn’t bleep it out. We turned it off
We turned off the juice
We just removed the song….yea…
No F bombs on TV….baby
No F bombs on TV
We just turned it off baby
No F bombs on TV….baby
No F bombs on TV
Lil Wayne and company.
Were setting the lyrics free, mute button did apply
The sound just went bye bye
Can’t take the thrillz, of crude rap skillz
They were so dope baby, but we had to say nope
No F bombs on TV….hey baby
No F bombs on TV….baby
No F bombs on TV
But we turned it off, baby
No F bombs on TV….baby
No F bombs on TV
I…I..I…I.I.I..can’t hear the lyrics
I…I..I…I.I.I..can’t hear the lyrics
Little White Lion 
Wonderful way to put it all into perspective.