Caution: This Post Contains Language Which May Be Unsuitable for Younger Readers

Occasionally, the topic of profanity comes up with the kids. Zach recently asked whether the word "ass" is a "bad word". My response to this is that there are no such things as "bad words", but there are words and phrases that you can say that might upset others, and make people think you are rude or lazy or unimaginative, so it's best to avoid saying such things.

Linda was prompted to expand on this conversation yesterday when Phoebe asked Linda "What's the F-word?"

Apparently, one of the neighborhood kids told Phoebe that "if you say the F-word, your teeth will turn black and fall out." After disabusing her of this notion, the profanity discussion resumed.

Now, before going any further, I feel like I should lay down some ground rules for the rest of the post. Although I don't often use the word in question, I don't have strong objections to it, either. I understand that some readers of the Houserspawn(tm) blog do have these objections, however, and so for that reason, I'm going to take my own advice, exercise some self-censorship, and not actually put those four letters next to each other here on the blog. After all, this is a fine, family-oriented operation we're running here. And who knows what kinds of hits we'd get from regrettable Google searches.

Given the subject matter, I am going to need to employ some kind of linguistic device to show when I do, in fact, mean that word.

So what are my options? I think it looks kinda silly when the word "BEEP" is used in print to indicate an objectionable word being censored. It also diminishes the impact of the censored word down to pretty much nothing. Same goes for the cartoonish method of replacing the offending word with various symbols, as in "@&$#*!" I also don't care for the method of starring out all but the first and last letter of a word (e.g. "f**K"), or the clumsy substitution of letters with look-alike characters (e.g. "a$$"). So I'm going to take a page from the Battlestar Galactica playbook here and use the work "frak" as a substitute for the dreaded "F-Word".

Back to our story: After giving Phoebe the requisite warnings about using language that people might find distasteful, Linda gave her what she was asking for. She told her what the "F-word" is, gave her an age-appropriate definition, and told her how people commonly use it.

The example Linda provided was "I hate my frakking homework", or alternately, "Frak my homework!" Phoebe tried saying these examples a few times… and seemed to enjoy doing so maybe a little more than Linda expected.

The conversation was wrapped up with one more reminder that "frak" is a word that we expect her to refrain from using in everyday conversation, making it clear that we don't want to hear it at home, and it will get her into trouble if she uses it at school or around her friends.

Phoebe suggested that instead, maybe she could use the opposite of "frak", which, she deduced, would have to be "un-frak". Linda assured her that no, "un-frak" would not be an acceptable alternative.

I'm sure this discussion will come up again, and while it's not always the most comfortable thing to talk about with young kids, I think we've set the right tone. Put another way, when it comes to teaching our kids about appropriate behavior – including what profanity is, what it means, and how it's used – well, we’re doing the best frakking job we can.