Embracing My Inner Grandma

I am just going to embrace my inner grandma and admit that I am out of step with many cultural trends. So here’s me doing that: What’s up with profanity suddenly being OK in professional publications, network TV and other public realms? My husband and I have both recently read well-regarded professional publications with curse words -- "asshole" and "bullshit," specifically -- in the titles and names of recent network TV shows include S*%$ My Dad Says and Don’t Trust the B___ in Apartment 23. Don’t get me wrong, I have been known to say a curse word on occasion, I love me some First Amendment, and I don’t expect the world to cater to the fact that I have young kids. But...using profanity in these settings doesn’t make shows or books “edgy” or cool; it makes the writers and producers look...well, crass and unimaginative. I think cursing is a personal decision that belongs in private and not in professional settings, on mainstream TV shows, or anywhere near young kids, who can read billboards and hear ads for the shows that are aired during the day. There are many far-worse issues facing kids today, certainly, but this seems so easily preventable. Isn’t there enough crudeness and incivility in the world that I have to explain to those sweet little faces, without having to explain what the “B___” stands for? Can’t we do better than this?

I know what you're thinking. "Teresa, you read the profanely titled books and are thus participating in the problem." Please know that I refused to buy mine (meaning no financial support for the author or publisher) and both books had critical information in them that Rome and I needed to do our work.

 

Now come give your grandma some sugar...and stay off my lawn, you kids!