The Mimic

MT was telling us a story about her daughter, OT, when OT was four years old. OT was riding in the car with her father one day in traffic, when someone suddenly cut him off. Out of habit and instinct, he called the person an f***ing moron and didn’t think anything about it. A few days later, MT and OT were in the car, when someone cut MT off too. She brushed it off, but all of a sudden OT screams from the backseat, “F***ing moron!”

Caught completely off guard by her sweet, four year-old swearing from the backseat, MT tentatively asked, “Where did you hear that word?” OT said, “I heard papa say it.” “I see,” MT said. “And do you know what it means?” OT replied, “I think so.” “So, how would you use it in a sentence?” MT asked. OT thought for a second. “I don’t know. I guess f***ing tomatoes.” MT was still shocked, but she also couldn’t fault her daughter’s logic. Frankly, she didn’t like tomatoes either. But she tried to downplay it, so she told OT that that wasn’t considered a very nice word by most people, and she shouldn’t say it anymore.

A few nights later, they were all sitting around the table, having dinner. MT’s husband was kind of agitated, and his thoughts were confusingly all over the place. He was in the middle of a rant, when all of a sudden, OT looks up from her food and says, “What the f*** are you talking about?!” NT was stunned into silence. MT had to run out the room, so that she wouldn’t laugh in front of them.

The moral of the story is that kids are, in fact, listening. And they will repeat the worst things we say in perfect context.