Is profanity hereditary?

When I was pregnant and again when my kids were very small, many people joked that my children's first word would not be "MaMa" or "DaDa" but rather "Fuck." It happened so often that I began to be offended.

Nonetheless, I managed to control my foul mouth and my children did not learn any profanity until a few years ago when my parents kept them overnight. Scouter and I had been somewhere and soon after we got home, Rainbow slammed her fist into the kitchen table over dinner and exclaimed, "God Dammit!" She was about three and she had the tone down and everything. Scouter and I could not look at each other for fear of laughing. And we are mature enough (just barely) to understand that we should not encourage that kind of behavior.

Finally, I was able to look at my child and ask with a straight face, "Pardon me?"

"She said God Dammit," Taz replied matter of factly.

After another moment of looking at the ceiling and biting my lip, I asked where she had learned that phrase.

"Pa Pa," she replied.

Ever since, we have asked my father to refrain from teaching the children any new profanity every time he sees them unsupervised. I quite enjoy it.

Fast forward to last week, when Taz at the ripe old age of seven announced that he knew "every cuss."

"Really?" I said somewhat skeptically - yet fearfully.

"Yep. I even know the 's' cuss," he replied.

I held a small internal debate until curiosity got the better of me and I asked him what the "s cuss" was.

He smugly responded, "Stupid. But don't tell Rainbow."