(no subject)

[rivka]

[Poll #1397675]

NB: Don't worry, this is not something I am considering doing to my children. Although the three-month-old cusses like a sailor.

Comments

[pbrim.livejournal.com]

Traditional thinking is that swear words are dirty language. Saying them gives you a dirty mouth. Therefore the mouth must be purified with soap.

[ex-serenejo.livejournal.com]

That strikes me as not a logical consequence, but a twisted-logic-al one.

[naomikritzer]

Even applying this traditional "swearing makes your mouth dirty" approach suggests that the kid should be sent to brush their teeth with toothpaste. This is still a reasonable disincentive to swearing (it removes the kid from the conversation, where they'd probably like to be, and sends them off to some other part of the house), it allows the parent to be seen as Doing Something, and it sends the message that swearing is not acceptable.

But, unlike soap, toothpaste is an appropriate thing to put in people's mouths.

[almeda.livejournal.com]

It does, hwoever, make toothbrushing into a punishment.

I should note that being forced to go off and do pages of times-tables practice as punishment made me not any better at math, because I resented it and avoided it in all non-punitive contexts thereafter.

[naomikritzer]

It doesn't have to, any more than responding to inappropriate nose-picking by sending someone off to wash their hands turns hand-washing into something stigmatized.

[rms10.livejournal.com]

I don't think so. Sending a kid off to wash their hands after nose-picking isn't punishment; it's a necessity because they have dirty hands. But brushing teeth after swearing is not a necessity, therefore it is being used as a punishment. Also, that reinforces the idea that swearing makes your mouth physically dirty.