What It Means When I Swear in Front of Children

In a low moment this past week, I dropped the f bomb in front of my 14-year-old. “I am so fucking exhausted,” I said, on the verge of tears.

He lit up with delight. “Does that mean I’m allowed to say the f-word now?”

“Sure,” I shrugged. “As long as it’s not in front of younger kids and not in a mean way.”

At 13, he became a teenager. At 15, he can get a job, and at 16, he can drive. 14 needs to come with some sort of perk, doesn’t it?

This is not a newsletter about swearing, though. Nor is it about exhaustion or resentment or burnout or the thousand other unpleasant things you might feel at the end of a really long day. Instead, I want to explore what comes before those feelings. I want to excavate what preceded my frazzled and exhausted state of sweariness.

Exactly forty-seven minutes prior to my f-bomb, my 11-year-old, who was supposed to be in bed, walked into the kitchen, pleading for a mug of warm milk with honey. “Snack time is past, buddy. You need to go to sleep,” I replied.

His face grew at least six inches longer, and his head hung low as he moaned his counterargument, “But I don’t think I can sleep. Milk helps me sleep better.”

“Okay, fine, whatever.” I felt too tired to hold my boundary. Too tired to make peace with his discontent. “But you have to manage it all yourself, clean it up when you’re done, then go brush your teeth, and get right in bed.”

He agreed.

Forty-seven minutes later, he was finally, just barely in bed, and I was back in the kitchen, where I discovered the pool of milk and dirty mug he had left behind. I had less than fifteen minutes left to clean up, clear my head, take a shower, and climb into bed if I wanted a full night of sleep myself. And I needed that sleep. Time, energy, patience—everything felt scarce. This is when my 14-year-old arrived on the scene. He, too, was supposed to be in bed but was hoping for a final glass of water—and a long-winded, decidedly one-sided conversation about video games. He got the water and permission to use the f-word instead. He headed off to bed feeling pretty pleased, I think.

What I felt was this: my exhaustion and resentment were not inevitable. These feelings were telling me something important. They were showing me that—somewhere in the course of the evening—I had left my integrity. I had stepped out of alignment with own needs, values, or truest beliefs.

Pure fatigue can and will arise even when we’re living from our most aligned place. We’re human; we get tired. But I’ve learned that when I feel the considerably ickier and more negative tangle of exhaustion/resentment/burnout/victimhood/dread/overwhelm, it signals that I’ve neglected to respect my needs, boundaries, values, or truth.

Our body gives us signals to let us know when we’re off track. What a lovely, helpful, and obnoxious thing for it to do!

When my own signals grow big and loud (like f-bombs dropped in front of children), it’s my cue to trace my steps back in time and notice what smaller, softer cues I may have ignored. On this particular day, I had been ignoring my growing fatigue for hours—long before acquiescing to a late-night milk request. I had excellent justifications for powering through (I always do). It was the last day of winter break, so I needed to make it extra fun for the kids, which also means they all got extra dirty, and everyone would need showers, and a tick would need to be tweezed from my seven-year-old’s neck. And of course, I also needed to make them dinner. And we needed to pack lunches for school the next day and get backpacks organized and make sure everyone had clean clothes to wear, and don’t forget to make sure that everyone is still happy and having fun! Just push through a bit longer; you can rest when it’s all done.

You can rest when it’s all done is my favorite really stupid thing to tell myself. It is never all done. If you need rest, rest now. I’m writing that for you, and I’m writing it for me, too. I never stop needing the reminder, and even with it, my mind often responds like this: “Well, sure, I could rest for like one minute right now, but what good is that going to do?”

My mind’s rebuttal notwithstanding, what my body knows is this: one minute of rest can change everything. The simple choice to pause and give yourself sixty seconds with your eyes closed or sixty seconds of staring at the clouds or sixty seconds of whatever feels restful to you can transform your inner landscape. If you have more than sixty seconds, that’s great—take it. If you have less than sixty seconds, take that, too! Even the briefest moment, if you claim it fully, opens up space where your mind was telling you that there was none. It contradicts that inner story of scarcity. It sweetly, quietly overthrows the insidious belief that to be worthy you must do all the things or must be all things to all people.

Those beliefs and stories are not reasons why I need to work harder or reasons why I cannot rest. They are the reasons for my exhaustion, resentment, and overwhelm. If I turn back the clock, tracing my steps backward from frazzled sweariness, I always find some precipitating pattern, some insidious belief, that landed me out of my integrity. Here are a few examples:

-          Saying “yes” when I feel “no”

-          Saying “yes” without even bothering to notice what I’m feeling

-          Trying to please everyone

-          Trying to control the emotional states of the people around me (as if I can somehow magic happiness onto everyone, and if I don’t, it’s a moral failing on my part)

-          Refusing to rest (and telling myself I have no choice)

-          Imagining that my worth is tied to my productivity

-          Imagining that my worth depends on my being liked and approved of

-          Comparing myself to others in order to decide whether I’m ‘enough’

Maybe your own list of unhelpful beliefs and patterns looks different than mine. I suspect, though, that we all have a list. It’s part of being human. And it’s okay. It’s okay that we sometimes veer off course, whether in big ways or small. Each misstep out of integrity—and the accompanying signals that our body throws our way—is an opportunity to learn and to grow toward a state of greater alignment. Alignment with what? With your truest and best self, your truest and most beautiful beliefs.

Today, I’m going to pause more often to notice my own inner state. Am I fatigued? Irritated? Resentful? Anxious? If so, what can I do to nurture myself? What do I need to say “no” to? What boundaries, when held, might open up more space within me for compassion?

What about you? What parallels can you find in your own life? What cues does your body offer to tell you when you’re veering off course?  

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