The other day I was messing with my friend Chloe’s hair, trying to get some really good static going to make her look funny when she asked “what the hell are you doing?” Her question gave me pause. “Are you allowed to say that?”

I honestly wasn’t sure. You see, my friend Chloe is eleven years old. She’s one of the smartest eleven year-olds I’ve ever met, and probably spends more time around adults than her peers but I’ve never known her to be a particularly foul mouthed little girl. I’m not her mother or even remotely related and although I consider her mother (a fellow rollergirl) a friend, I’ve probably had longer conversations with Chloe than with her mom. So when she tells me “my mom says that’s a swear I can say,” I take her word for it.

I try to recall myself at her age. By the time I was eleven I knew all the good swears. I knew which ones I could get away with in front of my parents, the occasional s-word, damn when not referring to the beaver home, or H-E-double hockey sticks would result in a look of disapproval or a “don’t say that” but would never get me sent to my room. A-hole, particularly when lobbed at my little brother might get me restriction. The queen bee, the mother of them all, I am of course talking about the F-bomb, resulted in a cruel and unusual punishment more humiliating than any grounding or being sent to my room without dessert. No, I didn’t get my mouth washed out with soap like Ralphie. I received far far worse. The first time I used the word in front of my mother, peppering it into a story I was telling her momentarily forgetting that I was not talking to my friends on the playground she stopped me and asked me to explain to her exactly what the word meant. As far as what my explanation to her at ten years old of what the word meant, I do not recall. I do distinctly remember knowing exactly what the word meant, but I think I might have said something about ducks. It would be many years before I would dare utter that word in front of her again

Now, I’m the “grown-up” (a term I throw out very loosely). Instead of feeling like the grown-up role model I’m supposed to be when making the conscious effort to curb my filthy mouth in front of young friends like Chloe, I feel like a bit of a fraud.  By the time I was ten or eleven years old not only did I know all the swears and what they meant, I knew had to use them. And damnit, I was good at it. I still am. I’ve done a lot of reading in my time and know quite a few more words that might be considered more sophisticated forms of self-expression. Still, nothing feels better in the heat of a moment of intense stress, anger, shock, disappointment, or happiness to let out a good solid “MOTHER F!@#$%!” I can’t explain it, but I know you can relate.

—Joy