“With a Little Less Shit”
I remember it like it was yesterday.
I thought I had meticulously planned a birthday party for my five-year-old at the local indoor bounce house—but clearly not, because I found myself making a hasty run to the gas station for some last-minute supplies. I hopped into my minivan, hoping to get everything before guests arrived. My four-year-old spitfire was strapped into her car seat in the back as I signaled and turned into the Raceway.
Apparently, I took the turn a bit too quickly before slowing behind a row of parked cars—just as someone in a smaller sedan began to back out. That’s when it happened.
From the stillness of the back seat came a tiny, matter-of-fact voice that cut through the silence like glass shards on fire:
“Shit.”
I froze. Surely, I didn’t just hear what I thought I heard.
“What?” I asked, still half hoping I’d imagined it.
She repeated, calmly and clearly, her tone forever etched in my memory:
“I said ‘shit,’ Mama. A car is coming.”
Well… yes. A car was coming. And yes, it looked like we might collide. And yes—she had used it perfectly in context, demonstrating an alarming comfort with language once believed to be reserved for those of a certain age.
And there I sat, marinating in the obscenity that lingered in the air like a dark cloud—torn between horror and pride, straddling the fence of denial and conviction.
My brain immediately wanted to blame the TV or her poor, innocent dad. But the hard truth is, she’d heard it plenty of times before… from me. And that arrow drove straight into my chest.
Colorful language has always flowed from my lips like life-giving water—especially in my younger years—and I prided myself on using it with a certain creative flair. What really drove the arrow of undeniable truth in the furthest, though, was that this particular word had been one of my most faithful companions, reserved for my most expressive moments…which happened with relative frequency.
It had always been a bit of normal, creative expression, but hearing it echoed back to me in that small, certain voice did something different. It stopped me cold.
Because she wasn’t just choosing a (perfectly applied) word.
She was holding up a mirror I wasn’t ready to see—but needed to.
She was imitating me: the way I spoke, reacted, lived. I was her model for how to move through the world and experience life. I was creating the filter through which she would see everything, and handing her the toolbox with which she’d respond.
And that realization hit harder than any four-letter word, no matter how perfectly used.
We find ourselves telling our kids to do as we say, not as we do, but deep down, we know it doesn’t work that way. I think it’s one of the great lies of parenthood—that if we preach morality enough, they’ll become the people we hope to raise.
But the truth is, they aren’t listening to the lectures as much as they’re watching the lives we live… and taking painfully detailed notes.
So maybe the goal shouldn’t be to tell them to filter themselves— it’s to live in a way that doesn’t require one.
Because our example becomes their echo and the blueprint by which they build their own lives.
And one day, we’ll hear our reflection in their not-so-tiny voices, reminding us who we really are, not who we had hoped they’d see.
So the question is:
Do we want to raise children who show anger or grace?
Impatience or empathy?
Selfishness or gratitude?
Intolerance or kindness?
However we answer should dictate how we live— because one day, they’ll repeat it back to us unfiltered.
Maybe not with our tone,
but with our truth.
And when that day comes,
I hope what echoes from my children’s lips isn’t just my favorite four-letter word, but the grace I (mostly) chose instead of it.
Because that’s how they’ll raise the next generation— not because we demanded different standards, but because we lived the standard.
With grace.
With love.
With intention.
And hopefully…
with a little less shit.
With You in the Shit-a-cular Shitticane,
Emily
Ash and Bloom