After posting my Blogging A to Z challenge post for the letter E, there were tongue-in-cheek comments about what the F word post should be. And it turns out that it’s not a joke because my F word post is indeed about the F word. So if you find the F bomb offensive, you’re best off not reading any further.

This post is actually a guest post from the friend who actually suggested it first. Laura tells a great story about the first time she let the F word fly in front of her mother and how she struggled to make sense of why it was a bad word. Her story really struck me in two ways: first, it made me think about the first time my own daughter let the F bomb fly — she was maybe 3 or 4 years old. She was mad at me and said, “You’re fuckin’, Mommy.” My mother-of-the-year response was, “I’m fuckin’? You can’t even use the fucking word the right way.” But the thing (the other thing) that strikes me is that word — why is it bad? What makes a word good or bad? I guess I can wrap my brain around why a word that is used as a racial or ethnic slur would be bad — its intent it is to hurt and degrade. But why are swear words bad? I readily admit the F word is a pretty big part of my vocabulary — for better or worse. That’s why my daughter said it at such an early age. But rather than continue to ponder the origin of evil, I present to you my friend Laura’s guest post about the F word. Fuck yeah!

“As a child, I repeated things my mother said. Unfortunately for her, what she said one day was worked into song form, which I sung for my family after supper, to the horror of everyone:

Fuck it! Fuck it! Fuck it in a Bucket! Fuck it on a Truck! Fuck it, Yeah, just Fuck it!

Mercifully, I don’t recall a dance to accompany it.

I remember a completely shocked, white-faced audience. I remember saying, What…? About a millisecond before my mom snatched me up.

Oh no! You can’t ever say that, Laura!

But you said Fuck it today and it rhymes with truck it and bucket and lots of stuff…

It doesn’t matter, it’s a bad word! I shouldn’t have said it.

I looked at my one year younger brother, like, Do you believe this shit? Who was chewing on his sleeve in nervousness and despair at my situation. There goes my song! I remember yelling. Then I just remember my siblings running from the room in fear and later, eating a popsicle and wondering, What the Fuck was that all about? Did I mishear my own mother, who’s every utterance I hung on? What was wrong with my song, was my pentameter off? Did someone else write a Fuck it in a Bucket song first, and was I plagiarizing? What in the Wide World of Sports was going on?

My sister’s counsel: You said a swear word! You said the worst one!

Me: So?

Sis: You can get spanked for that!

Me: I didn’t get spanked.

Sis: But you could! It’s the worst one!

Me (perched analytically in the head of my 5 year old self): But I didn’t. Why is it a bad word? How does a word get to be a bad word? How can words be bad? I said it, Nothing happened. (If there’s no consequence, is it still bad? Are there things in this world that are bad just on account of?)

Sis: it just is! It’s the worst one!

While I was trying to digest how my mom did anything bad, because she was a sweet, singing, pie baking chestnut haired angel who I adored unconditionally, and while I tried to decipher the idea of a ‘bad word,’ my sister kept breaking into my day dreaming with her insidious nagging. (It’s the worst one!) Do things have worth outside of their purposes? (Spankings!) If so, how is that worth assigned? (You’re in trouble!) Am I to deduce that worth is inherited? That things have a worth outside of my idea of value? If that’s true, things are only important in relevance… (Wait til Dad finds out!) Maybe a word exists merely to be bad, but if that’s true, how are we all assigning the same value at once? (You said a Bad Word!) Where does a bad word come from? (Mom’s mad at you!)

Finally, I couldn’t take another dire warning, all because I wrote a KickAss song, and I started to cry. I said, I’m telling Mom on you! And then I ran outside to play, thinking, Oh well, Fuck it. She’s always a Cassandra anyways.” — Laura Pogliano