Training up a child: potty mouth and all

One of the things we have had to contend with is our daughter shooting questions as we watch TV. At times the answers to the questions are straightforward. Other times the questions have more twists and turns than a politician's words. 'Bleep. Bleep'. The sound, often put on dialogue to replace offensive words from a broadcast, once got Pudd'ng's attention. "Dah-dee? Why do they put that bleeping sound?" "Because ..." I explained to her that whatever was being said was deemed unpalatable, and so those words were being 'bleeped'. "What are the words that are being 'bleeped'?" It's at such times that Nya'Manoah would have hissed in a fit, "Child, stop trying me". "Because," I replied. "Because."

Mama Milka versus Nya'Manoah. While growing up, there were words, lewd lyrics songs and phrases that would make my mama, Nya'Manoah, see red if she even thought that I was thinking of spewing them. One time, when Nya'Manoah overheard me parroting a lewd song titled Mama Milka, she almost took me to Oloo K'Auma, the cobbler, to sew my loose lips. Thereafter, if and when I heard my friends hollering Mama Milka, I dashed off that 'obscene scene' as fast as my little legs could carry me.

Bloody money by any other name. It's Easter. We are watching a random program on TV, when one actor swears to another: "Pay him the bloody money." That heated exchange gets our cutie curious: "Dah-dee? What does 'bloody money' mean?" I want to reply, "It's the 30 pieces of silver Judas Iscariot got for betraying Jesus Christ." But before I can answer, she figures it out in a way only a 10-year-old kid can ... "It's money that has blood on it." I leave it at that.

Training up starts with my mouth. Interactions with other children are always times when kids expand their vocabulary. Whenever I hear Pudd'ng saying a new or word or phrase immediately after she comes from playing or school, I know that, most probably, it has something to do with the kids she was hanging out with. And that is not to say that our daughter's vocabulary is squeaky clean. Who knows, she may be speaking like an angel while in our presence, but cursing like a sailor while out with her friends. Part of my job is to train her up in the way she should go, and when she is older, she will not depart from it. And a huge part of 'training up' is watching my mouth.

Middle fingers Surprise, surprise. Or not. Pudd'ng knows what giving someone the middle finger means. And here I was, thinking she was clueless. Pudd'ng told me about a recent incident in her school bus when one Standard Two pupil flashed their teacher, who had just disembarked, the middle finger. "Pupils surrounded him and started berating him and asking why he did that, and he just sat there and did nothing." Did nothing? I would not be surprised if he was humming Mama Milka. 'Signs' of the times 'Signs' are always evolving. And I mean 'sign language' with foul meanings. Which means that parents have to stay in the loop. Or else. Pudd'ng put me in the know about the new sign that some pupils use in school to disparage oblivious pupils ... and teachers. "I was told by my friend that when one does their fingers like this," she demonstrates, bringing the tips of all her fingers on both hands together – fingertips-to-fingertips – and then twisting and turning the touching fingertips, back-and-forth. "It means that the person they are talking about is," (ahem, her exact words), a useless arse." Talk about signs of the times.