MidAmerican Girl: I Hate the F Word

Hi Fam & Friends,
In lieu of the usual Gardiner family update, I'm writing today to vent my frustration with what I see as another symptom of a culturally deteriorating society. I realize that since the only people who actually read this blog are my family and a friend or two, I'm preaching to the choir, but here we go.

When I was little my brain categorized swear words into 3 levels; there were those that were bad, but you could read them in the Bible, the ones that were really bad and could be heard in a racy PG-13 movie and then there was the forbidden word. I learned the forbidden word by watching A Christmas Story and having a friend fill in Raphie's infamous dashes. The F word. Though I wasn't sure what it meant, I knew the F word was in a class of taboo all its own.

Fortunately I grew up in "Happy Valley" Utah and my virgin ears were kept so until high school and even then the F word was heard only rarely while passing through certain stoner populated hallways. I did not hear it in my family, in the media or amongst my friends. I said it once in 6th grade in retaliation to the taunting of a jerky 7th grade boy after which I was immediately picked up from school and told that I would never be using that word again. On those few occasions when I was subject to it, it made me cringe and want to wash my ears out with bleach. It was to me the very worst thing you could say and I hated it.

These days I hear the F word every single day: on the radio, in movies, barely bleeped out on TV, walking through the grocery store, at sporting events, in the airport and amongst men and women of all ages and at all levels of society. My childish 3 tiered swear-o-meter no longer applies as the F word has found its way into casual conversation and has seemingly lost its former status as the forbidden word.

You would think that the natural process of desensitization would occur with this constant exposure and that the word would barely register on my offensive scale, but in fact I still hate the F word. I hate the way it sounds, I hate it's many definitions, I hate that no one seems to care about the impact of words or the benefit of using appropriate language. I hate that I hear it from people in positions of leadership and influence and I hate that my baby will grow in a world where the F word is seen as an acceptable expression of humor, anger, excitement, pain and every other emotion in the human experience. I realize that this opinion is probably seen as self righteous and old fashioned, but I don't care. I hate the F word and no matter how many times I am forced to hear it, it will always make me feel uncomfortable.

That's all.

On a happier note, here are some more pics of my awesome baby.