Motherhood: Dirty Scrabble Wars & 'Hoes
We are a Scrabble family. We love it. We play it on vacation. We play it on holidays. We can be pretty competitive, but it's mostly for fun. We also occasionally play "cheat" scrabble where we look up words. It's a fantastic way to learn new words for both the kids and even adults.Hence we learned the word quim. Yes, look it up if you dare. Holy crap. I made that one up. I was challenged and oh, lordy, did we learn a new word.
Yep, in the quest for points, we get some interesting words.
For instance, my nine year old put down "woes," last Monday's game. All good. Nothing to raise an eyebrow at, right? Then he sighs dramatically.
Li'l Man: "I wish I had an 'H.' Then I could have put down 'hoes.'"
My husband laughed and said, "You mean like a tool you use in the garden?"
Li'l Man: "Nope, like women." He laughs.
Oh. My. Gott.
This one I blame on his teenage brother's inappropriate jokes or maybe my husband's music. Seriously, Beastie Boys and 50 Cent are banned...as soon as I stop laughing.
We played another game before lunch on Tuesday. My nine year old spelled, "twat."
I kid you not.
I tried to get him to change it after I explained it was a naughty word. Nope, not having it. Even when I challenged, it turns out it is officially a word according to the dictionary which has always been our rule.
Then, my eleven year old daughter, looking at his letters, counseled him to use "C-U-M." I gasped. She looked up innocently.
PB: "What?"
Me: "Do you know what that means?"
PB: "No, but now you need to tell me."
I hemmed and hawed then finally said ejaculation. Than she burst into laughter.
PB: "My health teacher is Mrs. Cum-mings."
Then my teenager son came down from his
PB: "Did you know what cum means? "
His face?
Priceless. Blushing. Embarrassed even. That never happens.
So much for learning new words here? I think we opened a whole can of worms that will be hard to stop. It's official. We have ruined our kids! I didn't even learn the word twat until I was in my 20's.
I think they are trying to shock me into an early grave. I grew up in a very conservative, religious family.
Is this what kids do? Are they just exploring for boundaries? I definitely think there will be new house rules that known naughty words equal negative points.
Note to self: Don't use "crap" like I did last game.
5 comments:
Scout, this is a great post! It introduces an important topic. As parents, we are our kids' primary sexuality educators. I never ever want my kids to be in a situation where their peers are telling them something about (shhhh!) sex and they do not know what is true. It can put them in a situation where they can be victimized, among other things. Also there is a growing body of research indicating that kids who have adequate sex ed make better choices when it comes to matters of sexuality in their own lives. Who knew that Scrabble would be a tool for your kids to access their parents' knowledge base? ;-)
Can I just say I love your take on my posts. I had never thought of it that way. True, I wish they'd use more biologically correct words and we are pretty open about sex, but allowing them to use the slang--naughty or not-- in a safe environment might not be so bad as I thought. Scrabble as sex ed? Indeed, who knew!
~Scout
When I taught fifth grade, we played Scrabble regularly in the classroom, culminating in a huge tournament. As for what words could be played, I told the kids to imagine if the principal were to walk in and look at their Scrabble board. If he would fire me on the spot because of what he saw, it was not a legal word for our classroom. Occasionally some smarty pants might play something racy, but his (always a boy!) teammate or opponents would nix it if they thought it crossed the line. Fortunately, most inappropriate words aren't worth many points!
Smart thinking, Cindy. :) Maybe I should say the same. No naughty words if you wouldn't put down the same in front of your grandma or principal. I guess I am glad they can feel safe acting silly, but lately it seems they have been taking it a bit extreme for shock value. I do worry they use these words at their friends' houses or school rather than just test them out at home to shock their mom. My older teen son knows better, but the nine year old is getting a bit indiscriminate. You are right--it is definitely a boy thing.
Then there is the fact that some of these words just happen though when they cobble together some letters and then they look it up to find out what they wrote is a real, racy word. Like my "quim." Heh! I still can't believe that's a word. :)
It's always hard when you have a variety of ages. Mine span from 18 to 7. The 7 yr old recently used the word gay to describe someone. I asked her if she knew what "gay" meant and her reply was "a boy that likes to sing and talks with a high voice". That's cause she's been catching snippets of Glee when the older ones are watching it! What can you do?
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