By Bea Joyner

I was having a conversation with my son, Askari. He is teaching Yoga in schools to children and he was a little dismayed at their behavior. This was not new to him as he had been an assistant track coach in his old high school, so he knew the behavior of children has changed drastically since I was raising him. This gives us a great opportunity to have discussions as I am involved in training parents.

Askari shared with me an experience he had years ago on his very first day of working in an elementary school. A little boy entered his classroom and asked what the class was about. When Askari told him, the boy proceeded to cuss him out, using very explicit foul language. Askari was shocked, not just at the words the child was using, but his manner. The boy, as Askari explained, was so smooth in his delivery of the words that it was clear he was used to speaking in this manner.

Another observation Askari shared was that he believed the little boy was learning this language from his mother because his choice of words was not something that one male would typically say to another male. Listening to Askari, I understood his perspective. What concerned us both was that the child learned this language from somewhere.His ease in saying it to another adult came from being in an environment that accepted that behavior.

I was relating the story to another friend, Kai Bey, who said she had observed the same behavior in children on their way to school and I had an “Ah Ha!” moment! I remember being in middle school, around the age of 12 or 13 learning how to cuss. For the elders, Baby Boomers and maybe a few of you who are younger that are reading this, you know that cussing children were not common in our communities at that time. So, my cussing was done on the way to and from school where no adult was likely to hear us, because in those days, word of that behavior would have reached my home before I got there. Neighbors could out-do any smart phone for transferring information of that kind! I wouldn’t be here to tell this tale if any adult had heard us, but that’s another story for another time!

But my “Ah Ha!” moment came because I flashed back on how much fun it was learning to cuss! The way the words rolled off the tongue; the giggles it would cause; the instructions, “that’s not how you say it!” made it fun. But sadly, I have observed that what ever age you were when you were doing “forbidden” things, reduce that age by 5 years and that is the age that our children are doing those things today. So, if I was cussing at 12 or 13, then yes, children today at age 7 or 8 are cussing. In fact, too many times people are talking about children as young as 2 or 3 cussing people out!

I understand the shock of hearing our babies cussing, and it’s not just the words. They aren’t manifesting the joy, the feeling of living dangerously that I did because I was doing something that was challenging my upbringing and being a child. No, there is an anger and violence contained in those words that is at the heart of the issue. Our babies are being damaged in words spoken to them and in other ways too horrific to imagine, but they are living through those things and cussing is just an outward sign of them trying to handle it.

Yes, cussing can be fun, direct and very descriptive, but when it becomes the language of the wounded, it is a sign that there is much healing that needs to be done in our communities.