March 23, 2009

You're With Stupid

I just won a contest at Mocha Momma! For being the stupidest of the many stupid commenters. Really. Todd was not shocked--he often tells me that he doesn't know how someone so smart can have so little common sense. (I choose to focus on the fact that he thinks I'm smart.) I knew my bumbling would pay off sometime. Ha!

In a bit of an adopto-land coincidence, I also recommend following that link to read the story of the Mocha Momma's (placed) daughter's new tattoo. Tears, people. Tears.

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I've been busy at the PNR review blog, but remiss in blurbing here: I suffered through a licensed-product stage show just to see my son have the time of his life, enjoyed but was troubled by a novel most everyone else loved, and was charmed by a new children's book.

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This post has me thinking about "stupid". It's a hot topic among parents around here--whether or not they allow their kids to use it, just how bad it is, if its use is inevitable, etc. We've been successful so far with replacing it with 'silly' at our house, but the boy is still young and fairly uncorrupted.

What's your approach to the S-word? Do you maintain a stupid-free household?

10 comments:

Anonymous said...

My kids think stupid is the ultimate bad word. They gasp in horror if anyone unwittingly says it in their presence.

Also I went in to read to my kid's second grade class and when I read the word "stupid" out loud, the entire class nearly fainted with shock. Apparently it's a bad word there, too.

Rebeccah said...

Of course, Squeaker hasn't reached the speaking stage yet, but I have a childhood story about this. When I was in kindergarten, our class prepared an "Indian pow-wow" (probably completely un-PC now) and we were all supposed to choose appropriate names for ourselves. I wanted to be Stupid Snake. The teacher convinced me to be Silly Snake instead.

KLTTX said...

Stupid is a bad word in our house too but we didn't teach our 5 year old that. He must have picked it up at daycare. If my husband or I say stupid, we get "you just said a bad word".

Anonymous said...

I agree stupid is a bad word. I did not tolerate it in my classroom when I taught. Unfortunately, I've caught myself saying it a few times lately. Thankfully, Little Lassie hasn't picked up on it. She's in the parrot phase and repeating everything.

Congratulations on the award. I enjoyed reading Mocha Mama and look forward to hearing what she sends you.

spyderkl said...

That's a tough one. In our house, people are never, ever stupid. Sometimes the things they do are stupid (but we like to mix that up with other adjectives, just because), but never people.

Anonymous said...

@spyderkl - That's the tricky part for me. Calling people stupid is an obvious no-no to me (because insulting people with any word is not okay). But I use it all the time as a stand-in for more, ahem, adult adjectives when I'm talking with Todd in front of the kids. Especially when we're talking politics.

Anonymous said...

I'm with spyderkl for the most part....I agree that calling people stupid is off-limits, but I think there are things that ARE stupid!

My thought? Stupid is a word that kids are going to learn. As a parent, my job is to teach the child what the word means and when it's appropriate to use it.

When is "stupid" okay? With regards to people? No! Questions? No!

But come on - there are some TV shows that are stupid. Some movies that are stupid. Some times that stupid is the right word.

Making a word a "bad" word doesn't make it not exist. And there are some BAD words that I think we can protect our kids from (at least longer than others) but stupid isn't one that's necessary (for me).

I know I'm not a parent yet (well, I'm not a parenting parent) so maybe these plans will go out the window once I deal with it for real...

call me mama said...

Growing up, we did not, could not, dare not say it. That word that still puts me on edge. I work with kids and especially dislike having to hear them say it- let alone think it about themselves or others. So yeah, we're a stupid free household, car, classroom, studio, and help to work against it's use in the world.

Anonymous said...

haven't gotten to that point yet. I will try to stop him from using it.

Anonymous said...

congrats on your win. I just visited mochaman. Hilarious. Glad i found it

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