From the Mouths of Babes

Parenting, as those of you raising children can attest, is alternately soul-lifting beyond description and incomparably frustrating. Once in a while (okay, frequently, in my case) it's also amusingly humbling in the way it incontravertably illustrates the flaws and foibles of the parental personality - these little people speak a deep truth, even when they don't know it.

As my friends may be aware, I occasionally work blue. Every now and again, I may use colorful language. Often, sporting events involving the Boston Red Sox are the proximate cause, but equally often, I just don't filter myself very well. It is possible that my children have heard me during one of these infrequent episodes.

Case in point, we had the whole team loaded into the truckster last week, heading home from a Memorial Day visit to my folks. The iPod was on shuffle, and I didn't think much of it when the first notes of Rancid's 'Disorder and Disarray' came on the air. As my wife and I were engaged in a conversation, the topic of which is lost to posterity, my 6 year-old daughter interrupted in an urgent tone:

"Daddy, we shouldn't be listening to this song", she said.

"Why not, honey?"

Her matter-of-fact response: "The man just said 'What the fuck'".

At which point I casually skipped to the next song and stared straight ahead, in full knowledge of the fact that even a glimpse of my wife as she struggled to keep her composure would send us both into paroxysms of laughter, and completely eliminate any chance we had of imposing this particular discipline on our child.

I laughed even harder when I went online to find the actual lyric to the song in question and realized that there's not an f-bomb to be found. And then cried a little bit.

Be it resolved then, gentle reader, that I shall endeavor mightily to refrain from reenacting George Carlin's famous routine, that I'll work diligently on perfecting my use of 'darn', 'crap', and 'crud', that I'll learn the lesson my young daughter unwittingly taught me.

Though I must admit, even as this incident exposed me, once again, as a hypocrite, it was really fucking funny.