‘The word’
By Ashley Walker (Contact)
Originally published 02:28 p.m., May 16, 2008
Updated 02:28 p.m., May 16, 2008
Tuesday, May 6 of this year, my daughter, Grace, came home from a typical day at school — or so I thought.
And, like a typical 7-year old girl who considers even the most menial of housework chores to be “fun” if they’re done with Mom, she wrapped her purple apron around her waist to help me prepare supper.
Normally, during these less contrived times I can learn a lot about what’s making headlines in the life of a first grader. Of course, birthday parties always top the list. Always. They could be nine months away. It doesn’t matter. The politics of birthday parties in the first grade are complicated, consuming —and come this time of year, almost as exhausting to hear about as the campaign battle going on in the Democratic presidential race.
But on this specific evening, Grace had something else on her mind.
She left her post at the dining room table, where she was folding napkins and neatly placing a fork at the left of each dinner plate, and met me in the kitchen.
She had a question. “What is this word, Mommy?” she asked.
“What is what word?” I responded, keeping one eye on the Moroccan stew simmering on the stove top.
“This word,” she repeated, looking inquisitively at her right hand that she held up in a fist-like formation.
I figured it was some new sign language she had learned at school recently. So I pressed her to make the sign more obvious.
She was reluctant.
I asked again.
And she again refused.
Frustrated, I insisted that if she wanted my help she must make the “sign” more explicitly.
This time she certainly did.
Like the scene out of A Christmas Story when Ralphy accidentally speaks his first sweeeeaaaar word in front of his mother and the horrible sound of it slowly and loudly reverberates in the ears of his mother, I noticed Grace’s middle finger sloooooooowly begin to rise above the others.
It was “The Word.” The “Mother” of all swear words. The “Mother” of all swear words that every mother hopes her child will manage to make it through school without ever learning.
Call me naïve. But I guess we both were. Because it felt like that day, perhaps on the playground or in the lunch room at school, my innocent 7-year old had picked the forbidden fruit from the Tree of the Knowledge of Good and Evil. Her eyes were opened and the world was no longer the same.
Upon further inquiry, however, Grace informed me that she had known about “The Word” for quite some time.
Great.
The whole incident couldn’t help but remind me of my fourth grade year at Walnut Elementary School when one day on the playground I “tested” a new word I had learned. Completely oblivious to its meaning, only aware of the mysterious power that it had, I didn’t even bother asking my mother about it; I just said it.
A lengthy visit to the principal’s office ensued. And I never said the word again — at least not for a very long time.
Likewise, I’m not quite sure Grace actually knows what this new “word” is that she’s not allowed to say with her hand. (We never actually discussed its phonetic counterpart.) But what she does know, unfortunately, is that what used to simply be her third finger on the piano keyboard is now capable of much more than just helping her practice her Suzuki pieces.
So the world did change on Tuesday, May 6 — but maybe not as much as I feared.
Because I haven’t heard a word about “The Word” since then. Rather, I understand that there are some big birthday parties in the works for the summer months. And for now, those still seem to be far more compelling to Grace than any four-letter word.
Perhaps naiveté isn’t as fragile as I thought. Now if we can just keep it
intact for the next 11 years!
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