Oil Field Class

The F-Word

I was riding my mountain bike through our local park the day before yesterday, and I was shocked. A baseball game was going on and a few children were taking turns riding a skateboard on the sidewalk next to the road. One of them tried to do some kind of trick and the board flew out from under him. Another one of the boys laughed and said, “You sure f****d that up!” I had to look again as I rode by. These little boys couldn’t have been more than 8 or 9 years old! They even said hi to me like nothing out of the ordinary was going on.
When I was a kid we did curse. We said every swear word we knew, and sometimes a few we didn’t really know the meaning of. This was among our friends, but we always made sure that an adult couldn’t hear us first. My friends and I would have been in serious trouble if an adult had heard us, any adult. If I had been swearing in the grocery store, someone would have taken me to find my mother and explain why I said what I did. I would have been punished.
I am an adult and I swear frequently. The funny thing is I still have enough respect for my elders that I tend not to curse around anyone older than me unless they start the sailor talk first. When did it become acceptable for grade school children to swear and say the F-word without any concerns?
When I looked at it deeper, it is our fear of each other as adults. I could have taken that child to find his parents, but I stood a good chance of either having to fight his dad, or look like I was trying to kidnap him. Either way, I’m the only one who would have learned a lesson. Don’t interfere! We insulate ourselves from other people’s lives saying quietly under our breath, “I can’t believe I just saw that. Someone should do something about that!” The courageous few intervene when someone’s life or physical welfare is on the line, but anything else just doesn’t seem to be worth it. Maybe it’s time we changed our attitudes. Look what it’s doing to the F*****g children.