My 5yo son came home from school this week dropping the N bomb.
Saying “hey m’n*er” to his 3yo brother and dad.
Clearly he has no idea what it means and he has never heard that word from anyone in our family and he has never watched any TV with that kind of language in.
I asked where he heard it and he said X and Y (boys in his class) say it “all the time”...
I was devastated to hear it from his mouth! But I really felt he was too young to explain exactly why it’s such a hateful word (and I thought if I gave too much detail it might just fascinate him more and make it a “thing”).
I told him it was one of the worst swear words and much worse than anything mummy would ever say (he has heard the odd shit and fuckssake from me in tbe last and he knows they’re bad words that even grownups should not use).
I told him it was a crime to say that word (he is currently really interested in the police and crimes and clues etc) and if he said it out loud in the street someone could call the police.
I didn’t say anything about race or racism - and I am now really worried that I should have done. when it came to it I just couldn’t bear to tell my little boy that some people hate some other people because of the colour of their skin. He is so “colour blind” and innocent about so much shit in the world, I didn’t want today to be the day he learned what shitheads so many humans are.
What would you have done?
He is in year one.
Oh and I had a word with his teacher after school.told her she urgently needs to think about how to address using bad words with the class...told her the word that was used, hoping she’ll have some clever way of raising it with the whole class...