What The Fruck? My Son’s Accidental Cursing Is Out Of Hand

truckMy fifteen-month-old son has one word in his vocabulary. He’s the strong silent type, or he’s just fucking lazy, and chooses to point at whatever he wants, instead of using words. This is a blessing in disguise, in one sense, since I have one pre-teen daughter, two pre-teen stepdaughters who chat non-fucking stop, and one yappy dog. Unfortunately, the one word in my son’s vocabulary is ”Fuck.”

Now, you COULD assume that mommy uses that word A LOT while she’s driving and he’s in the back seat and you COULD say that maybe he’s overheard that word one too many times. But the fact is, he didn’t learn it from me. The fact is, ”Fuck” is what he calls his ”Trucks.” Rather he says, ”Frucks,” but to most people, who overhear him say this, it sounds remarkably like ”Fuck.” Also, unfortunately, my little dude needs to take his ”Frucks” everywhere. To me, all I hear is ”Fruck! Fruck! Fruck!” To others, all they hear is ”Fuck! Fuck! Fuck!” I’m kind of lucky, if you can believe it. My awesome co-writer/editor on this site, the much-loved Eve Vawter’s son, used to love dump trucks and when referring to his beloved dump trucks, it would come out as, ”Dumb Fuck!” So, now I find myself saying to everyone around me, when my son is off on his, ”Fruck! Fruck! Fruck!” tangent, which is always, because there are always trucks on the street, or mini trucks in his hands as toys, I tell everyone, ”He means TRUCKS!” as I hang my head, knowing that others are ”tsk tsking” me for assuming I’m using foul language all the time around him.

Sure, he babbles ”˜mama’ and ”˜dada,’ but his most oft-used word is ”FRUCK!” I love when little kids can’t pronounce words. There was an entire year when I made my daughter say the word ”˜yellow,’ because she would have me in stitches by saying, ”Lellow.” Over and over again I’d say, ”What color is that?” pointing at something yellow. And she’d scream out, ”Lello!” Which was frucking adorable! But not so much with my son. I mean, what am I going to tell him when he grows up? ”Your sister’s first word was Baba for bottle,” and yours was, ”Fruck?” Which sounded like FUCK?” So, here I am, honestly wanting to cover his mouth every time we go out in public, because, really, who wants to see a little guy out whose only word is ”Fruck?”

At home, however, I’ll admit, it’s a different story. I love to appall people, especially my parents. They came over to visit and I held my son and pointed at one of his toy cars and said, ”What’s that?” Of course his answer was ”Fruck!” and to my aging parents, who are becoming hard of hearing, it DID obviously sound like ”FUCK!” I’ll admit I loved seeing their mortified faces, before I told them that’s how he says ”˜Truck.” I have one friend who had to take her son to the hospital when he was three, because she was making a hot blended drink when the top flew off and her son was hit with hot liquid. The doctor asked her son, then three, how it felt and her three year old answered, ”It hurt like a bitch!” I found this story hilarious because, come on, it is funny when kids swear. The difference is, obviously my friend used the word ”˜bitch’ around the house a lot and her son picked THAT word up from her. I didn’t teach my son to say, ”Fuck.” That’s just how he pronounces his most beloved possessions. Today, my son has said ”Fruck” about twelve times and it’s not even noon. Anyone in my house, who didn’t know us, would think, without a doubt, he was saying, ”FUCK! FUCK! FUCK!”

I much preferred it when my daughter mispronounced words, pretty much because she was so NOT into trucks, so there was nothing that came out of her mouth that remotely sounded like a swear word. Even at age ten, she still can’t pronounce the word ”certificate” correctly. I’ll say to her, ”Say birth certificate!” She’ll respond with ”Birth cerficatet” and we’ll both howl with laughter because WE find it funny. And she’s ten! What if my little dude still can’t pronounce ”˜truck’ the right way when he’s ten? So I ask you, what the ”Fruck” am I going to do?

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