Sunday, August 28, 2011

Bad Words

A few months before school got out my sister called me to tell me of an experience she had with her 7 year old daughter.

As my sister was typing her daughter pointed out she wrote a bad word. Mindy looked at the computer and saw where her daughter was pointing and sure enough she had pushed the S key down too long for the word "as."

She was shocked. When did her daughter learn that word? She called to warn me that most likely our daughters were already learning bad words. (They were in the same class at school.)

Not all of 2 days later Alexis comes home from school.

"Mom, Jonathan said the "S" word at school today."

"What? Are you kidding me? That's horrible."

I was kinda freaked out because I had just been warned by Mindy...but amongst my freakout I thought...I better ask her what the "S" word is, right?

"Alexis, what is the "S" word?"

"Mom, you know..."stupid."

Stupid. Phew. Oh no. She saw me freak out. I don't want her to know there is another "S" word. So I told her how sad that was that he used that word and that she needed to always remember when kids aren't talking appropriately to go play with someone else who is.

I thought it was over.

Over a month has passed. School is almost out. Alexis comes home.

"Hey, Mom. You know how I told you Jonathan said the "S" word at school."

"Yes."

"Well, I found out today why he said it."

"Why?"

"Because he's Jewish."

"WHAT? Why does that matter?"

"You know. Jewish."

I shake my head not understanding where she is going.

"Mom...Jewish people don't have to keep the commandments."

And then we had bigger problems to sort out like the following:

-Just because something is strictly enforced in our house doesn't mean it's a commandment!
-Jewish people actually do believe in keeping the commandments.