Okay. Now I can feel less guilty. Know why? Scientists have found that SWEARING ACTUALLY HAS AN IMPORTANT PURPOSE. It makes physical pain more tolerable.

 

Duh. I could have told you that! Otherwise, why do I do it everytime I stub my %$#@! toe? Or for six straight hours before they’d give me an epidural because I wouldn’t &^%$#@ dilate? It’s not because I like to swear like a sailor. 

Okay, actually I do. Or DID… before I had a kid. (In case you haven’t noticed, having a kid puts a damper on certain behaviors.  Like swearing and sleeping and actually having a relationship with your husband).

So according to this new study, swearing (which apparently has been around since the dawn of language) actually helps people tolerate pain for longer – as opposed to say, humming THE NATIONAL ANTHEM or watching THE HILLS (which if you’ve done on a regular basis, your nerve endings are probably dead anyway and you don’t need to curse).

So put into terms we mommies can relate to…swearing is sort of the epidural of everyday mishaps! Who’d turn THAT down? Not me!

STUB YOUR TOE?  %$#@!   

TOUCH A HOT PAN?  *&#$%!    

STEP ON A SCALE?  &^%$#!

(Okay that last one is more of a psychological pain …but pain nonetheless!)

So if swearing actually DOES make pain more bearable–it stands to reason that next time your kid gets hurt, instead of Boo Boo Bunny, you might want to whip out a certain “s” word for them to repeat.

But I guess that would be unseemly and very un-mommylike. Except, isn’t it our priority as mommies to ease the suffering of our children when they are ailing? Don’t we want to do that at ANY COST?

Nah. Know why? Cuz we also want people to think we’re GOOD MOMMIES and that we’re raising NICE KIDS. If we encouraged our kids to swear… we would be labeled BAD MOMMIES. And if there’s one thing we mommies DON’T want (besides our kids to be hurting) it’s to be the Hester Prynnes of mommydom. Talk about PAIN.

Nope. The kids’ll just have to make do with kisses, Neosporin Pain and the good ol’ baggie of ice.

Meanwhile, if I let slip occasionally with a %$#@ or a friggin’ *%!*%  in front of my kid… according to scientists I’m not being a bad mom. I’m following an instinct as ancient and primal as protecting my young. So there.