Watch Your Mouth Around Children

Before I was married, I thought nothing about calling other drivers idiots, jerks, morons, etc. Wendy told me that I would have to change what I say before we had children. I asked why? Nothing was wrong with these words. They are not cuss or swear words. She explained that we would not want our children calling other people that in public and than saying they learned it from their father. Good point.

Now we have two boys, ages 9 & 11. They have become used to my driving and sometimes help me by saying things like, "That guy shouldn't have a license," "I don't know where some people learned to drive," or "Some people drive too slow." But that is not something that they would transfer to other situations. I doubt that they would get mad at a friend and shout, "I don't know ho you ever got a license, Buddy!"

Yesterday we were running late getting to the bank. We pulled up to discover that they had just closed and I muttered, "Crud!" Ashton said something like, "You need to watch what you say, Dad." Wendy explained that "crud" was not a bad word. Zachary then said something which reminded me just how much our children do listen to what we say. He defended me by saying, "Dad is the last person I would ever expect to say a bad word."

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