The Mirror

I hope Sean rises above me

I had a friend at an old work place many years ago who told me a great story about swearing.  I'll give you a bit of a set up.  I use colorful language a good deal.  Now I don't use it in front of my kids, or my wife really, and in many situations at work I would never use it, but around my co-workers or buddies I let more than my fair share of four letter words fly.  I worked with a guy (I wish I remembered his name) who noticed this about me and said something like...

"You know Andy, you are an intelligent and quite articulate person, but for whatever reason you seem to use a lot of vulgar language, why?"  I stood sorta quiet and responded "Well, I guess I don't want to limit the vocabulary I use to express myself and don't feel that all words capture the same meaning as some of my more colorful language"

This of course is only half true, there are far more colorful language than your typical swear words, and when used with the right panache are vastly superior than the pedestrian language I claim to have impact.  Now this guy, we will call him Peter, was in his mid to late 50s and at the time would have been my Dad's age, he had been married for about 30 years and was really a great guy as I recall.  All that said he continued with a great story.

"Well, when I was young I went to Vietnam and it changed how I spoke.  I would insert "Fuck" into every other word, and it became the only way I seemed to express myself, I was very angry.  Well I finally got to come home after being shot and that is when I met my wife.  We started dating and it was great, but my limited vocabulary I employed started to catch up to me, and the ugly language I used seemed to bother her.  So my now wife, then girlfriend, began to start using the same language.  She was cursing as much if not more than me, and it sounded terrible.  I could finally hear what I sounded like, and I didn't like it at all.  It wasn't long before I stopped using that language."

This story was told to me about 10 years to early.  At the time I was 20 or 21, didn't have kids, and my girlfriend at the time was the same age, and I can't recall if I cursed as much, but I most likely did.  It took being married before I decided to attempt to curb my language.  That notion of a "mirror" showing you your actions though was rather profound to me.

As I have began "raising" my kids things I do become now far more apparent.  Phrases my wife and I use can come back to haunt us.  It is funny that having kids would make me more self-aware, but it really has.  Whether it is Legos, comic books, or the kids love of back scratches like their mom.  Our kids have begun mirroring many things that my wife and I are.  All of the sudden me being inconsiderate, or a smart ass has taken on a new meaning to me.  Those are not traits I want my children to have, and that means I can't have them either.

It's curious how raising a child to be the person you hope they can be, requires you to be the person you should be.