While getting some gas tonight, I was watching a couple women who appeared to be in their early 20’s. They had a perfect little girl between them. I’m going to guess that this little was maybe 3.
They got my attention by using the “N” word. They said it the way it pops up in rap songs; the “r” at the end of the word wasn’t pronounced. It seemed to refer to people in general, and not any one of a certain skin color.
It’s still an ugly word. Particularly with a kid around.
And sure enough, this perfect little girl, in this almost cartoonish voice said, “Damn, how many stores we gonna go to?”
I was disturbed by the fact that nobody even seemed to notice. Damn, of course, is not the ugliest word in the english language. But the child was of the age that she should be watching Barney say things like, “Super-dee-dooper.”
I spent some time contemplating this interaction, and mourning for the future. This is not a place where I’ve got my head in the sand. I work with behaviorally challenged adolescents. I spend my work weeks surrounded by kids who need to be taught how to notice when they are dropping “F” bombs.
As I pumped my gas, I decided that one was a dead beat parent and the other was a sister or best friend. I’d pretty much chalked them up to the type who never watches their kid at the playground, park, pool, or store. I’d laid out this little 3 yr. old’s whole life before her. This whole thing was generational. This three year old girl would surely be pregnant before she was out of her own teens.
The first thing I realized when I started to think in this way was to recognize my own hypocrisy. My eldest son was concieved out of wedlock. It was wrong that we did this, but it is how things went down. Who am I to project this on anybody else?
But more than all this, it occured to me that these words, they don’t mean the things they used to mean. This is partially generational and partially cultural. Generations and cultures can be wrong. Perhaps they are. There is a whole theological aspect to using words like “damn” lightly.
There is a question of whether it’s wise for people to run around flaunting the norms of society. But that’s sort-of the point. In the world these kids run in, expecting kids not to say “damn” is less and less of a norm. Prior generations would have disaproved of women wearing pants, using the word, “cancer” in polite conversation, etc.
My point isn’t whether these ideas are right or wrong. My point is that my opinions were probably as irrelevant to these people as the old-fashioned people above are irrelevant to me.
I don’t think that this means we ought to give up and decide that anything goes.
I think we ought to shift gears. I think we ought to work at demonstrating to people what the prevailing culture’s expectations are (in those cases where they don’t know) and I think we ought to work at demonstrating to people that they actually have something to gain by following these expectations (in those cases when they know but don’t feel that it really matters.)
This could require changing more than perceptions. To some extent, they might be right to feel disenfranchised from the system. It might be accurate that they’ve got nothing to gain by folllowing along with expectations such as people– particularly kids– should steer clear of the word, “damn.”
As I was screwing the gas cap back on my car, the trio approached me. They were looking for directions. They were polite and respectful.
One interpretation of this fact is to suspect that that they new how to play the game. When they wanted something from me (directions) they figured out how to follow my expectations.
The alternative interpretation is that the specific words we deem acceptable vary from one culture-generation to another, but the overarching idea that we ought to be respectfuland courterous to each other, this is a constant.
