Dealing with the ‘what does [insert bad word] mean?’ question

To cut a long story short, my daughter and I were driving along in the car listening to the radio when suddenly a clip that used the phrase ‘kick-ass’ came on.

 

I admit it’s not one of the worst things she can say or ask about and, technically, 'kick' and 'ass' aren’t really bad words (well maybe 'ass' if used in a certain way...), but it’s not something I want to hear coming out of my seven-year-old’s mouth!  

 

While I initially thought nothing of phrase on the radio, it wasn’t until my little girl asked politely what kick-ass meant that I became a little worried.

 

And as I tried to explain in the nicest of terms what it meant - whilst hurriedly turning it off incase they said something much worse - it got me thinking: what if she heard something a lot worse?

 

I am well aware that we can’t protect our kids from everything they hear; I’m the parent singing along to The Killers in the car with my little girl (who shamefully knows the words to a lot of their songs) so I am definitely not some kind of holier-than-thou mum.

 

But knowing what your child hears and being prepared for the questions is not the same as them accidently hearing something well before you’d like them to!

 

Recently the news was transfixed on a certain trial, using terminology and phrases that I didn’t want to hear, let alone my daughter, but I was prepared for them and managed to turn off the radio as soon as it came on!

 

But at four o’clock in the afternoon, I am not ready for mild bad language and now all I can imagine is my little girl going into school saying kick-ass! 

 

Oh the shame! 

 

Mary Byrne is a staff writer at MummyPages and mum to a horse-crazy, sports-mad, seven-year-old girl.