Fucking Foot

Michael and I went out on Friday night to dinner and a movie in celebration of his birthday. We saw Iron Man which I was dreading but which turned out to be pretty good, even for a stupid action movie with too much violence and things blowing up.

The kids went to a co-op at a family that is on Parker's baseball team but who go to a different school. I like the mom and the kid, a third grader, seems pretty nice.

The next day, Elizabeth was telling me about the co-op and told me this:

"Parker was playing jump rope at the school and I asked for a turn. He ignored me so I asked again. He kept ignoring me so I stuck my foot on the jump rope so he couldn't jump and then Parker said, "Move your fucking foot.'"

"Wow," I said.  "What did the mom say?"

"She told Parker it wasn't ok to say that."

Michael and I discussed it and found it really hard to punish him for this since it seems like a completely appropriate use of the word fucking.    He didn't say it to anyone like Fuck You!  And he didn't tell anyone to Fuck Off.  He didn't even say something was "fucked."  He used it as an adjective to describe his frustation at his annoying sister. He could have hit her or whipped the jump rope at her, but he didn't.

So I talked to him about it reminding him that were words that some grown ups didn't like to hear from kids and fucking was one of them. If he said it at school, he would get in big trouble.  He said it just blurted out and he understood the problem.  I came *this* close to congratulating him on his word choice, but left it at, Be careful what you say.