It’s our mouths. My mouth, your mouth, our kids mouths. I feel like a prudish ole fuddy duddy when I say this but so be it, it needs to be said. Are we really so illiterate and vocabulary challenged that we must revert to the base line expletives of a drunken sailor? [Editors Note: No Cindy...our brains just don't work fast enough to come up with anything intelligent due to lack of sleep...hehehehe]

My daughters will think this message is aimed at them and before the rest of you get defensive and go all judgmental on me, it is truly not YOUR tongues of which I speak. But if your hackles were rising as you read that last sentence, perhaps you too have room for some self-improvement. Just sayin'. It is my own short-comings that provoked this writing. I use the words 'your' and 'our' in the strictly hypothetical sense of those words. Honest.



I could be wrong here but I think I was a high-school senior before that mother of all bad words ever escaped across my lips. I was no Polly-pure-bred for sure and many other powerhouse obscenities were in my well-used arsenal but I don’t think even I was comfortable with the power packed F-word. Now as a 56-year-old grandmother I shamefully admit, even my oldest grandchildren have witnessed a foul example from granny’s mouth. When did this become ok?



I hear trash-talk from all walks of life. It seeps from the stereo of that miniature low riding car with the tinted windows who is waiting on a red light next to me at the intersection, I hear it at playgrounds, grocery stores, even a maintenance scheduler at a Nissan dealership in Billings Montana whispered it loudly at me when he became frustrated with his own mistake in the computer. Some times it’s considered funny when it shoots out of a toddler’s mouth. I personally am guilty of using it, simply for the humor and shock value. But on a personal level, I’m over it. It is low class at it’s finest and I’m raising the bar.



It becomes so routine and natural to just let it fly, there is no way to realize how many times on a given day we allow it, ever so casually to slide out of our mouths, until, inevitably….. out of the mouths of babes, our babes, it gets used loudly and appropriately. And yes, it is a reflection on us, on our example, on our very limited vocabulary, and on the low standards we have set for ourselves and our children in the privacy of our homes.



Our mouths are our most deadly and damaging weapons. Whether we use it to express ourselves profanely to blow off steam, or to hurt our spouse with cutting sarcasm, or assassinate another person's character with gossip, we are showing our kids what character is or isn't. I had a friend many years ago who had gone on and on to her husband one night about the ugly shoes his sister had bought that day when they shopped together. When her sister-in-law dropped in the next morning wearing said shoes, my friend gushed over them. When she finally took a breath, my friend's 4 year old son said, "No mom remember, you told daddy those were the ugliest shoes you had ever seen!" Awkward doesn't begin to describe this scene. Worst of all my friend's sister-in-law was genuinely crushed. We laugh at stories like this all the time but the reality of it is: "Sticks and stones can break my bones but your words can break my heart."



When my next door little grand boys have a sleep-over with me, they sometimes say "Gramma will you pray to Jesus?" when I tuck them in. I've had days when my answer should be, not with this mouth we can't. Seriously do you kiss your kids with that mouth?