At dinner on Saturday night, the boys were playing games and all of a sudden I hear “Son of a B…..” shouted at the table. Not something that you expect to hear at the dinner table, especially in public at a restaurant, but there it was.

I was in second grade before I heard my first cuss word, let alone saying it out loud. And the one time that I did say it in front of my dad, let’s just say that it didn’t end well for me. But sitting there Saturday night, hearing my son say Son of a B….. for the first time, totally caught me off guard. I was speechless for about 30 seconds.

And then I was faced with two choices and he knew as soon as he said it, that he was in trouble. But Option 1, take him out side and spank him or Option 2, calmly explain that what he said was wrong. So, I went with option 2 and we talked about how little boys do not need to talk that way.

Let’s just mark this down as just another thing that I was not expecting to deal with at such an early age.  I knew that it was coming, heck my wife swears like a sailor at sea, but I have really tried my best to keep my language clean. Now that being said, the boys are still not allowed to watch the UNC vs. dook basketball game, as I save all of my bad language for those games. But it was moments like Saturday night that really made me question if sending the boys to public school was the best option?

Do not get me wrong, I have zero plans to send the boys to private school for several reasons and the most important is that I pay city and state taxes, which directly effect the school, so why would I pay more? But more importantly, I will not lie and say that home schooling the boys did not cross my mine Saturday night.

As the night went on and we talked more about appropriate language, I was taken back to sitting on my grandfather’s front porch, talking with my Dad and he spanked me. And as I talked with my son’s about their choice of words and how they responded, I realized that I made the right choice in talking with them versus spanking. Even when they Son of a B….., I just sometimes shake my head.