A parent's begrudging capitulation to self-censorship
It
was a dreary day but we'd managed to get out of the house on time. For once,
the toddler wasn't going to be late for her playgroup.
We
walked up to the community center and pulled on the door. It was locked so we
went to another door, which was also locked. Then it started to rain.
"Daddy,"
my two and half year old started, "The goddamn door is locked."
I was
shocked. Not because of the language she used but because she'd used an
expletive perfectly. She'd never done this before.
It
also dawned on me that it was time to dial back something utterly essential to
me: Expletives, and ultimately, my freedom of speech and expression. It was
time for me to be a more responsible parent.
Freedom
of speech. Freedom of Expression. I love them. I need them. We need
them. They’re necessary for a free society to flourish. We can't be free, nor
can we be truly tolerant, if they do not exist.
If
our thoughts and ideas, brilliant or otherwise, cannot be freely expressed,
then we cannot learn to live in tolerance of the mutually idiotic things we
say.
Especially
the idiotic things I say.
Without
this sense of tolerance wafting through our society, we become repressed. In
our repression, our internal prejudices grow in forced silence. Our true
thoughts reside and fester until it’s safe for us to unload. The clamps come
off and there we go- probably at inopportune times.
Some
examples:
At
the school park with your toddler after a rough day…
“Ow!
What the fuck is that doing here?”
A
family gathering over the holidays after a few drinks…
“The
[insert political party or lobbying group] is full narrow minded assholes.”
“Yeah
well, [insert name of person, place, or thing] is a shitting idiot.”
“I
can’t believe that goddamn fuck. What a shit-for-brains!”
At a
bar, when the noise level inconveniently drops…
“[An
offensive joke].”
Sure
the things you say might make you sound like an asshole, a bleeding heart
whatever, expose your ignorance, or bias, but we can’t deny ourselves these
necessary moments of expression. Freedom of expression makes our id feel good
and relieves internal pressure that may threaten spontaneous bouts of apoplexy.
Defining
and protecting this social liberty has been a struggle for humanity in the last
few hundred years and we don't always get it right. It’s still evolving today.
Being social creatures, we rage against the idea of being controlled- not
having our voice heard.
All
this free speech is entwined to our concept of freewill. A freewill that
purportedly exists despite the fact that our environment is always manipulating
us. So really, free will is an illusion.
What
the hell? Nevermind that. Let's skip that tangent. This isn't a philosophy
class.
Even
though our id is somewhat reactive and capricious, its absolute
repression is dangerous. It’s even dangerous to completely repress the more
manageable ego and superego. History is full of tragic examples, but I won’t
list them here (this post is hardly about facts; it’s about feelings).
So
expression and, by extension, speech, must be free.
“I
can believe that goddamn fuck!”
Uh
oh! The little human tape recorder that follows is, once again, right behind
me. She usually is when I lapse from self-censorship to absolute free speech.
These kids can be like ninjas when they want to be.
Children
are the real reason for any parent’s self-imposed, but occasionally unheeded,
censorship. The begrudgingly bitten tongue of any parent, who worries that
their child might, in the presence of other adults, inform another child that
that toy is “fucking hers”, is indeed swollen.
Parents
the world over have sounded silly, and continue to do so, in the midst of
strangers in public sphere for the sake of their child’s looser, unpredictable
tongue.
Trust
me on this. If you're childless and think we sound ridiculous when we talk to our
kids in public, parents are pretty aware of how they sound.
However,
in our efforts to restrict the freedoms a bloodied human history has fought so
hard to grant us, we become more dynamic users of our native language.
Innovators really.
“Oh
shoes! I messed up.”
“Holy
fudging fart.”
“Fiddle
sticks.”
“Snow
angels!”
“Balls…”
“Giant
hairy balls!”
“Ah!
Crushed nuts for infinity…”
“Holy
Moses’s burning bush!” Quite a curse, this one.
At
the highest levels of language repression, we invent words and sounds that may
be truer to our unutterable inner emotions than the words we normally would’ve
used:
“Dang
it! Shummalumadingdong.” The toddler likes this one.
“Muyakabananana.
Raaaa!”
“NanananananAAAAA!
Don’t touch that!”
“BabagaDADADADUDDLYDA!
Shizzle (probably a stubbed toe).”
My
grandmother would've been proud of that last one. No one was as creative with
new words as she was.
I
think you get the point.
Yet,
sometimes our creative use of language doesn't always turn the release valve as
far as it should go. Which is what makes social media so useful. Isn’t that
right stay-at-home mom with 2+ masters degrees? How about you stay-at-home dad
who should be doing dishes?
Hey,
the dishes are done, man.
What’s
that you say? The toddler isn’t standing behind me?
Well,
why the holy living shit-sticks didn’t you tell me? I spent this whole post
trying to keep things respectable, minus my examples.
Fuck-a-duck.
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