My 8 year old wrote FUCK in our house dust

[sobercuriouskind]

AIBU to worry about my 8 year old's language or how dusty and neglected our house is (we are week 13 into renovations and building work and I work full-time). No money left for a cleaner. Please send sympathy and how to address the FUCK issue

Not many 8yrs olds I know can write in block capitals 😂

Reminds me of this:

Mine scratched 'my life is shit' into the skirting board with a compass.

Hmmm I'd be more concerned that he is writing in capitals.

not sure about that, I would have used capitals too here.

My 8 yr old wrote F%*k on his book. It's normal. That dust though. Get him to write shit and bollocks and that surface will be clean.

If you don't use the word around the house (my parents never did, and I mean never) then tell them you don't and if they're bothered about the dust then clean it up. If you do use it in her hearing, then accept that you have reaped what you sowed.

That doesn’t look like a child has written that.
Builder?

I would just ignore it, if you want to make a point make him do all the dusting.

Write "what the" above and look for a reaction?

I shouldn't worry. Just tell your DC it's a naughty word.

Change it to BUICK, like the bar owner in Road House did.

My youngest wrote "Mum, you suck" on the wallpaper beside my bed. I was quite proud of his grammar.

No money left for a cleaner?! Just wipe it!

I reckon the builder did it.

At about that age our DS scratched into our kitchen table "Poo, piss, bum". Obviously all the rudest words he knew at the time! I wasn't best pleased and how he thought he wouldn't be found out, I don't know! However, we still laugh about it and remind him from time to time. He's 26 now!

Most of the time it's just a word they've heard somewhere and it sounds 'good'.

DS is now 12 and at secondary school - so he's often coming home and using an expletive that he's heard in the playground, assumed is just another word to express himself and off he goes! It's soon stopped with a gentle 'that's actually not a word you want to be saying to people DS - it's rude/nasty/racist or whatever' and he's usually horrified and stops using it.

As far as the dust is concerned don't worry about it. As long as you don't lose the cat in it you're fine! ;)

This reminds me of that thread about a stepdaughter writing obscenities on her window sill.

Sympathies on the dust. With building work, you could have it sparkling on Sunday and it would look like that again by Monday evening. Other than making it habitable each weekend, I'm not sure it's worth giving too much attention to, until after they've finished.

The word, well it's going to happen.

Add an ING on the end followed by DUST

That's not a child's writing. Either it's your builders or another adult in the house. You must know that.

This reminds me of the time I took my (now adult) DDs to the beach as young kids. They wanted to make sandcastles, so I left them to it on a wide expanse of sand, and settled in the shelter of a dune with my book.
A few chapters later I heard much giggling, and the DDs invited me to view their artistic efforts.
They hadn’t been building castles at all.
They had carefully carved the words “Fuck off” into the beach in letters ten feet long that were probably visible from passing aircraft...

I have a rule with my kids that I only have very serious words if swear words are used against somebody or something. If it's an isolated word then there is a disappointed look as there is no real malice there, it's just 'ooh bad word' when they are in a silly mood.

FWIW: They are being brought up in Spain/are Spanish so swearing is much more common here (e.g. used in every day conversation in front of kids - not as discreet as often is the case in the UK).

I scratched my name on our walls once. My mum went mad and I blamed the boy next door. She said if I was clever I would have written his name. I said he was clever and wrote my name.

@Babdoc your children sound awesome 😁

She said if I was clever I would have written his name.

DS2 once write his initials on the sofa in biro. Then he scribbled his brother's initial over the top in an attempt to deflect blame 🙄