Just insight

I may have startled with the title of this post, but contrary to what you may think this is related to, it’s thankfully quite the opposite!

My darling Regi is very triggered by swearing. If she hears it at school it makes her very cross, if she hears it in a YouTube video it’s an immediate swipe to the next, if she sees it in text it’s a sad thing.

A few months ago she got very excited because I had watched the “Heartstopper” series on Netflix and was thrilled that I had engaged in something that her peers had been talking about at school – relating is a big deal. When we were plodding around Asda on a late night adventure that couldn’t be helped, we spotted the first volume! Because Regi doesn’t like to read unless it is comic style, we always grab what we can if it is in a format that she can access. The glee on her face alone made me excited for her to read it!

Fast forward and we get to bed and she’s keen to read a few pages so I let her crack on with her reading light. 2 minutes later and she slams the book down next to me, face forlorn with tears about to erupt….”what’s wrong” I ask? “There’s a swear word” she woefully replies.

I flick through and there it is very blatantly staring up at me, mocking my decision to purchase this book. I gently apologise saying that I didn’t realise it would have swearing in, and very quickly have to scrabble around in my brain to figure out a solution. Return the book? Read it to her and substitute the words? And then like lightning an idea rescues me, tippex! Regi agrees with this solution and I say I will deal with it asap.

It hurt my feelings defacing a brand new book, but again knowing that it will mean my child will engage in reading I will go to any lengths! It was rather amusing coming up with alternatives for swear words as I wrote on something different so that she didn’t have to imagine what might have been there before in an empty space.

She absolutely adored the book after that, and requested the rest of the volumes for Christmas which my lovely best mate duly bought for her! I’m still working on the last one with the tippex…pretty tiring but getting it done!

This evening something else happened that prompted me to write this story.

I dropped something down the back of some drawers in the bathroom, and said “ahh I’m not going to pick that up because..” and Regi cut in with “you can’t be arsed?”

Won’t lie, I was shocked to the core! This is not my Regi. She looked at me confused, “but all my friends say that, what’s wrong with it?”

Yes, I know, it’s not the worst, but it is what I would consider older language. I explain that arse is a more grown up word for bottom or bum and her face drops.

She bursts into tears and buries her head in my chest and sobs her little heart out, I promise to her that it’s ok and I’m not mad and can she tell me why it is she’s crying so much?

“I can’t be asked” is what she thinks the phrase is 🥺 ❤️ She used the word asked. Not arsed. And she is sad, because she thinks that I think she has said arsed.

To calm her down I then explained that saying “I can’t be asked” isn’t actually a phrase, which is why I thought the latter. I didn’t assume that she had said one INSTEAD of the other, I assumed she said it because in my mind that’s the only one to say in that sentence.

Once she realised this things weren’t so bad and we could move on with the evening!

She’s such a delicate sensitive sausage! Love her ❤️