George Washington said of swearing, “Every person of sense and character detests and despises it.” Some would say he didn’t know @#&%. Profanity is so prevalent in our culture that I often find myself trying to shield my kids from it. Okay, a four-letter word has been known to fly out of my mouth on occasion. The time I dropped my cell phone in the lake, for instance. And childbirth. I do try to censor myself around the kids by using benign phrases like “Rats” and “For crying out loud.” But I can’t censor them from the world. My kids are going to hear profanity. So when they do, I say, “We …
Today my son will experience that school-day rite of passage: The Puberty Movie. Wasn’t it just yesterday I was changing his diapers? I feel like the fiddler on the roof singing Sunrise, Sunset: ”I don’t remember growing older … when did they?” I suppose I should’ve seen it coming. Puberty, that is. The signs were there. A couple years ago, he stopped holding my hand in public. He cringed when I shouted “Way to go, Pumpkin!” at his baseball game last summer. He corrects me if I suggest inviting a friend for a “play date.” It’s called “hanging out.” He prefers to bike to …
