husband swearing

[bunny85]

Hi all

I have a little problem and would love to hear some opinions and advices. My husband and I have been together for 7 years and have a nearly 2 year old son. He's absolutely fantastic, very hands on dad and works very hard and adores our son and does everything for him. He could be called a perfect dad, if it wasn't for one issue. He often uses swearing words (never at me or our son, just generally), especially the f word. I myself hardly ever cuss and never in front of the child. Our son talks a lot and repeats everything but thankfully by some miracle he hasn't yet repeated any of those words. I truly dread it if he does and would be mortified. I tried talking to my husband, tried reasoning, arguing, everything. He says he tries but he slips accidentally. I can see he really does try but the improvement is tiny and I don't think he's really trying hard enough. He says that he'll deal with it himself if our son starts saying those words. I wonder though how can you deal with a 2 year old who in my opinion would struggle to understand why he cannot say a word his dad can. Anyone has any experience of this? Does any of you have kids who hear swearing but don't repeat and know they shouldn't? TIA

[yawning801]

I don't have any experience of this yet, but my Reception teacher used to tell us that if we said too many naughty words, we'd go on the naughty list! I wouldn't recommend it though as it upset one of my little friends a lot. Bump in the meantime.

[mindutopia]

I think you're husband needs to do his best, but also don't stress about this. To be honest, my husband and I certainly swear; me much more so than him. I mean, I really probably swear a lot. Much like your dh, it's not at anyone or in a demeaning or violent way. I just do it in casual conversation without thinking about it or if I drop something on my foot or something. I work in a profession where we use a lot of colloquial language with the communities we work with, so it's frankly not uncommon that I use those words in a professional context. I've been so used to not censoring myself at work for so long that it's really hard to suddenly do at home.

To be honest, my daughter is only now getting to the age at 4 when she would probably pick up on my language. Before this she was completely oblivious. But even when she has said things, it's been easy to talk about them. She's never picked up anything from me, but she did come home from school recently saying using the word 'stupid.' That is not a word we use in our house and she said she learned it from her friend. We talked about what it meant and why it might be hurtful to someone to say that and also why we shouldn't say it about ourselves either. She totally understood and it's not been an issue again. In fact, the other day I made a remark about 'oh, this stupid thing...' talking about my computer which was acting up, and she was like, 'mummy, we shouldn't say stupid, it's not nice!'

I think your husband should do his best to mind his language, but if it happens and your ds says something he shouldn't just talk about it and why he shouldn't and also why daddy shouldn't either. My dd was right that I shouldn't have said stupid when I could have thought of a nicer word. I think it's actually good for them to see you admit you make mistakes sometimes and it teaches them how to fix things they do that they shouldn't. At 2, he might be too young for these conversations, but by the time he might notice any bad language, he'll probably be old enough for you to talk to him about it.

At any rate, though my language use is not great, my daughter has yet to say anything (except for a few things she clearly picked up from school, not even words we say in our house, and not even especially bad ones) and she's about to turn 5. I suspect it has to be a lot more pervasive than just the occasional slip up for them to pick it up.

[clarabellski]

Oh OP I feel your pain except I'm the husband! My DS is 20 months and entering the parrot stage and I'm really having to make an effort.

My friend with a girl 2 days younger than my DS told me that her girl repeated 'fucksake' the other day. Oops! She countered it with 'you want a fishcake'?

Maybe try a swear jar? Also your husband might try harder if he hears your little one copying the swearing and thinking 'oops'!

[McCheese]

I used to work for a mobile phone company and when in training, we were told not use certain words to customers such as 'obviously' and 'basically. When you're months phones and you're trying to gap fill because you system has frozen or.yoire trying to remember certain features it's really easy for these words to slip out. So the company gave us all wrist bands (like those help for heroes style ones), and when we found ourselves using those words we had to snap the band on the inside our our wrist! It sounds horrendous but we all did it as we wanted more commission and it really did help sales! Sort of self flagulation 😂
Anyway, just an option for him if he wants to try it when he swears. 15 years later and I still never say basically or obviously!

[Sparrowlegs248]

Try to get your husband to say something instead of the f word . I prefer "flipping" it's easier imo to replace the word than to stop altogether .

[Sparrowlegs248]

Also, my step dad swore a bit lot but my mum always told him off (stpdad stop swearing!!!) so we always knew not to.

[RefuseTheLies]

I can't get worked up about this. My two year old was running round the house yesterday shouting 'cat shit' because she heard my DH complaining that our cat had not used her litter tray properly.

[bunny85]

Thank you very much to everyone for your replies. It seems to me now that I am overreacting a little bit I get so angry about it I want to scream at him and even get thoughts of breaking up with him over this (extremely pathetic as I see it now. He's a great person overall and I love him dearly). For some reason that was the sort of replies I thought I'd get. Leave him, what a role model he is, he's rude and inconsiderate and so on. On the other hand I see now most people don't make such a huge deal of it so maybe I should stop stressing myself out stupidly over it. Everything you are saying makes a lot of sense. I'll try and talk to him again but not make a deal breaker of it

[Beamur]

One of my daughters first words was bugger.
Wee bit embarrassing..