The 'H-Word'

 "Mum, Jai said the ‘hih’ word,” narked Master Eight one day.

Hih-word? I wracked my brains to think of a swear word beginning with H.

“What hih-word?”

“You know – the hih-hih-hih - word!”

This was getting frustrating.

“I can’t think what it is, you’ll have to tell me,” I finally said.

“No, you said it’s a swear word,” he said sheepishly.

“Well just whisper it in my ear,” I bravely prompted, bracing myself for an expletive to come out my child’s mouth.

“Hate,” he whispered.

Oh.

I do loathe the word ‘hate’ and, because I think it’s a waste of negative energy, neither hate anyone nor anything.

Clearly I’d given this lecture to the kids on a previous occasion and clearly, for once, they’d had their listening ears tuned in that day.

Interestingly, kids’ selective hearing has a finely-tuned radar for such words as ‘chocolate’, ‘lollies’ and ‘park’. It will also hone in on a parent uttering an expletive.

As a result, a friend of mine will pretend she’s said the word ‘ship’ when questioned on her language.

“When I’ve used the ‘ship story’ (Miss Three) then questions me why I’m talking about a ship at soccer - “Where’s the ship?” Then more lies are told.” 

The measures we take to prevent a swear word coming out our babies’ mouths is understandable after you’ve heard it for the first time.

One day, we’d returned home from town where Master then-Two had thrown the mother of all wobblies. As I recall, it was after dragging him away from the trains in his favourite shop. He was irate and, unfortunately I’d parked a long way from the train shop - carrying a tantrum-throwing toddler for miles in public will always draw unwanted attention. Strapping a thrashing, writhing, disobedient child into their car seat is another challenge and this particular outburst lasted all the way home.

He leapt out of the car and raced down the drive looking for an escape from me. I managed to drag him, kicking and screaming, back onto the property and shut the gate, which he proceeded to try and climb.

After a while, he resorted to booting it with all his little might while shouting out obscenities in a not-so-little voice.

“You’re a horrible mum and I don’t like you!” he fumed for all and sundry to hear.

I let this go on for a while as I unpacked the shopping inside, knowing he was completely safe within the boundaries of our property and hopefully getting it out of his system.

“Dumb mummy!” he went on. “F***!” 

Did I hear him right?

“F***!” 

I dropped what I was doing and shot downstairs at lightening speed, scooping up my errant child, whilst casting a furtive look around the otherwise silent neighbourhood and hauled him into the safe-from-earshot confines of the naughty corner with a lecture.
After that, I must’ve installed the fear of god into my kids, should they ever dare swear because, apart from that one mishap, they’ve never dropped the F-bomb, uttered the “sh-word”, nor the “hih-hih-hih-word” in my company again.