Em Rusciano opinion: why I let my kids swear

EM RUSCIANO lets her kids use colourful language, and she’s proud of it. Because there are topics she just gives more of a f**k about.

OPINION by Em Rusciano

It could be said that parents are required to do three things for their kids: feed them, house them and stop them from swearing like truckers.

It could therefore be said that I am avoiding one of the key tenets of parenthood: I let my kids swear at home.

Truth be told I find it hilarious, especially when they say it at exactly the right time in exactly the right way.

Swearing? Em Rusciano has bigger things to worry about.

For a lot of our parents, the monitoring of our language basically WAS parenting. In my house in the 80s, “wash your mouth out with soap” was LITERAL. If I dropped anything harder than a “damn” I would be looking at a gob full of foaming Dove. Even “shut-up” was considered a little too edgy - so I had to find creative ways to work the fruity language in.

“Shut up … the door!” I would shout at my little sister.

Brilliant Em!

“Shhhhh … … it’s a lovely day.”

Yes! Someone alert Mensa, a genius has escaped!

I suspect my penchant for profanity is a direct result of my Mother’s disdain for it. The woman never blasphemes, she is some kind of good language etiquette wizard. I enjoy swearing, I do. I have a savoury tooth and the salty language is to my liking.

When I had my first child I didn’t set out to swear like a filthy pirate wench. In fact I curbed my habit around my perfect newborn. I feared that my foul words would seep into her soft skull and settle in, lying in wait for her grandparents to hear when she got around to speaking her first words.

Em Rusciano doesn’t mind the odd F-bomb.

I had images of my mother peering into the pusher and asking, “Who’s a pretty girl?” and my kid responding with “I f*%#ing am Nana!”

The whole not cursing around the newborn rule lasted a week. I mean, have you ever met an infant human? Between the projectile vomiting, the lethal teeny tiny fingernails and the explosive poo, it’s hard to keep it neat and tidy in the language department.

My kids are now eight and 13, and they know the difference between using a swear word as an adverb and using it as an insult. The first rule in swear club is that we don’t direct it at another family member.

My eldest daughter did have an unfortunate slip up last week. During a typically heated game of Monopoly, she called her father (who was fulfilling the roll of banker at the time) a “corrupt dickhead”. To be fair, we did discover he’d embezzled a stash of $500 bills and hidden them under his right arse cheek.

Em Rusciano with her daughters Marchella and Odette. Picture: Julie Kiriacoudis

I don’t swear in front of other people’s children, nor do my kids swear in front of other adults, however I do reserve the right to allow my kids to swear in the privacy of our own home. What I mean by that is, if the occasional F or S bomb gets dropped, we move on. It’s just not that big of a deal.

Yes, I acknowledge that I am officially breaking from about 2000 years of parenting guidelines and that my kids are essentially guinea pigs of the swear-easy era. Will there be unforeseen side-effects? Perhaps.

I realise there is every chance my children will end up overcorrecting like I did. They may choose to defy me by being aggressively polite, leaving me to be the only sweary weirdo in the family. A foul-mouthed nana in her rocking chair telling super-sweet Von Trapp-like grandchildren to go screw ‘em selves!

I just feel there are so many other things to worry about as a parent.

I want to teach my small ladies all the magical mysteries of the world. I want to spend my time showing them how to be excellent people, humans and women, which are all topics I give more of a f*#k about than swearing.

Em Rusciano is a comedian, writer, singer and regular News.com.au columnist. She is currently touring her new stand-up show “The Motherload”. You can follow her on Twitter, Facebook and Instagram.

Originally published as Em Rusciano opinion: why I let my kids swear