ROANOKE TIMES
Copyright (c) 1996, Roanoke Times
DATE: Tuesday, October 29, 1996 TAG: 9610290040
SECTION: EXTRA PAGE: 1 EDITION: METRO
COLUMN: BETH MACY
SOURCE: BETH MACY
I did it once in the car in the preschool parking lot when the 177th tiger mosquito of the year bit me on the neck.
I did it again in the car - quietly, this time - when I spilled hot McDonald's coffee on a portion of my anatomy where you really don't want to spill hot McDonald's coffee.
And I did it at my mom's house last weekend when my cranky 2-year-old, Max, spit his prescription medicine out - directly onto my brand-new jumper.
I cussed.
Specifically, I said ``damn.''
In front of my son.
This was a bad thing, I know.
To make matters worse, the parental slip did not go unnoticed. The other night, while waiting for bedtime stories, Max stood up on our bed, and gleefully shouted: ``Damn! Damn! ... Do we say damn?''
We do not, I told him.
``We say damn when we spit our medicine out,'' he countered.
We do sometimes, but we shouldn't, I said. I'm sorry, it was bad.
Then he whispered, ``Damn,'' grinning as he looked up for my reaction.
Please don't say damn, I asked.
``It's not bad to say damn if you say it real soft,'' he whispered.
One of the scariest things about becoming a parent is when you realize your child not only mimics you, he mirrors you - the good, the bad, and all the expletives in between.
My friend Gerry found this out recently when he was working on his age-old lawnmower in the backyard - in a scene not unlike the furnace-battling father in ``A Christmas Story.'' Gerry had no idea his 3-year-old son, Alex, was within earshot until Alex fetched his plastic toy lawnmower and came to join him, cursing ``[expletive] lawnmower!''
(Gerry later had his wife take Alex inside while he beat the unruly mower into scrap with a sledgehammer. He said it felt really, really good - even better than cussing.)
Most of us have cringed at similar scenes - while trying our hardest not to laugh.
In my friend Kate's home, the do-as-I-say-not-as-I-do issue is her 7-year-old's messy room. ``I'm constantly getting on her about cleaning up her room. Meanwhile, I'll trip over my own shoes, which makes me yell even harder, and I realize I'm really mad at myself for being so messy.''
In other words, it's hard to set a rule for your kids if you don't also set the example.
Mary-Eve Zangari winces every time she realizes she's speaking to her children exactly the way her parents spoke to her. ``I grew up in a family of screamers, and I always thought I'd turned out pretty quiet - till I heard myself screaming at my kids. A couple of times I screamed so loudly, I hurt my throat.''
Zangari, a family therapist, says parents shouldn't be afraid to apologize to their children when they goof up. Don't set yourself up as the ultimate authority - at the risk of being human.
``When I hear my daughter screaming, I tell her I recognize that she heard me do that; and that it doesn't work for me,'' Zangari says. ``I tell her I'm embarrassed I did that, and I'm sorry. That I lost my temper, and I wasn't thinking.''
As kids get older, the issues go from the easy black-and-white variety, to a tougher shade of gray. For instance: You've had a bad day at work, and all you feel like eating is ice cream for dinner. Is it wrong to insist your kids eat the four food groups?
Is it right to limit your child to 30 minutes of public television a day - and then settle in for ``Seinfeld'' and ``E.R.'' after they've gone to bed?
And what do you say to your teen-ager when you've just caught her drinking, and she offers this defense: ``But you and Mom have a glass of wine every night?''
Most kids experiment, Zangari explains, whether it's with bad words when they're 2, or cigarettes when they're 12. ``I talk about the consequences and tell them I won't shield them from the laws if they're caught,'' she says.
When her 11-and 13-year-old children cuss, she explains that ``words are just words. But a lot of people, including me, won't want to be around you if you talk like that. If you absolutely have to do it, go to your room and get it out by yourself.''
John, a co-worker, has battled his son's utterance of a certain word ever since John shouted the word - when an iron skillet fell on his foot - four years ago. Recently his 6-year-old asked him, ``Dad, [cousin] Andy told me there was a word that started with F that's even worse than `fart.' Is that true?''
John is holding his breath - and hopefully, his temper - waiting for the next skillet to fall. He knows it'll only get tougher from here.
Because no matter how loud or how often a parent says, "Do as I say but not As I do," kids can spot hypocrisy long before they can spell it.
LENGTH: Medium: 92 lines ILLUSTRATION: GRAPHIC: color.by CNB