Today, they are the enforcers of correct speech, and we parents the perpetrators of all linguistic offenses. Now that the twins are teens, the household dynamics have flipped. In third grade, our kids still thought the F-word was fart.Īlas, they grew up. No four-letter words in our house! We lasted longer than I would have thought possible. As gay dads at a time when gay families were still relatively rare, my husband and I felt the pressure to be model parents. But that fantasy ended as soon as the twins could talk. Never mind an asshole or even a bitch.Īs for our family, I’d originally envisioned a more bohemian lifestyle, with midnight dinners and toddlers who swore like sailors.
That was 12 titles ago, and I haven’t included a single damn since. Who could object? It stayed until the Scholastic Book Club demanded I take it out-or else they’d take my book off their very lucrative list. The first book I wrote, The Name of This Book Is Secret, I put the word damn in it. But it has made me think about the words I choose to use and not use-about the good words and the bad.Īs a children’s author and the father of twins, I excel at censoring myself. The law, which prohibits discussion of sexual orientation and gender identity in a manner that is not “developmentally appropriate,” is deliberately, devilishly vague. Just look at the T-shirts and protest signs: “#SayGay” is the new “We’re here. I’ve never wanted to say it more.įlorida’s infuriating “Don’t Say Gay” law has given new power to an old word.