My Baby Swears

By Michelle Slatalla

The other day my two-year-old daughter looked up from her Cheerios, pointed at her elder sister and announced, "You are an asko." I spluttered, "Clementine! That is a bad word, and you should not say it!" She said sweetly, "O.K." Then she muttered under her breath, "Mommy is an even more asko."

My baby swears. Even as I type this I realize that only a generation ago, it would have sounded ludicrous. I, for one, did not know any cusswords, as we called them, until I entered school. And to this day, I know better than to say them in front of my mother.

But in a world in which profanity has become such a ubiquitous cultural prop--where children are routinely exposed to casual swearing in PG movies, in online chat rooms and on prime-time TV--perhaps I should not have been so surprised. Last year an ABC News survey found that 42% of Americans had cursed in public in recent months. And while Clementine does not watch The Sopranos (regularly), she lives with two elder sisters who can recite the racier lines from the latest Austin Powers film.

Once I got over the initial shock of living with a toddler tough, I realized that she was probably too young even to know what she was saying. So I decided to call an expert for advice. "How old did you say this baby is?" asked James O'Connor, author of a new book called Cuss Control: The Complete Book on How to Curb Your Cursing (Three Rivers; $12.95), which went on sale last week. Parents who came of age in the '60s and '70s, he said, "decided to do what we wanted and say what we wanted. So today our children are swearing more and swearing younger."

So how, I asked, do I keep my baby from getting expelled from nursery school? "Next time," he said, "offer an alternative. Teach a silly word instead, like baloney or hogwash. If a two-year-old says dagnabbit, people are bound to laugh." But when I tried this at the supermarket the next day, Clementine began to sing, "Dad's rabbit is an asko, asko, asko." No one in Condiments laughed. While we were not exactly asked to leave, I felt it wise to limit my purchases to 15 items to qualify for express checkout.

I know I'm not the first to face this quandary. Laurie Segal, a mother of five (ages 6, 7, 8, 9 and 10) who lives near me on Long Island, New York, remembers the time one daughter, then 18 months old, spilled something on her new shoe: "She said in a little, tiny, low voice, 'Oh sh__,' and my husband and I blamed each other."

Segal, a social worker who happens to specialize in child development, said, "We became much more careful about what we say in front of the children." And if you slip up? "Tell them you made a mistake."

Oh, so all you have to do is behave in a mature way and not lose control in front of your children? That might work for a family like Segal's, where all the children had gone to bed nicely by 8:30 p.m. the other night, when I phoned her. But considering the circumstances in my household--I overheard my husband telling Clementine that "words are like colors and swear words are fluorescent, so save them for when you want to make a big impression"--I cling to another bit of insight from Segal: "By the time children are six, they know what a curse means. She will be able to curb herself." In the meantime, I just may change supermarkets.

See our website, time.com/personal for more on swearing. You can e-mail Michelle, a new TIME columnist, at mslat@well.com