Trash Talking
By Kara Stanley

My nine-year old son Eli and I were taking the puppy, Ananda, for a walk. We passed the yard where a large black dog strained at the end of his chain, barking. He had snarled and snapped at the puppy everyday for the past four months. Ananda usually crouched at our feet, wriggling, as if trying to make herself invisible. This time, however, she ran to a small patch of grass only a few feet beyond the reach of Cranky, as Eli and I called him. She squatted down and peed.

�Ananda,� I said, as she straightened up, flicking her back paws through the grass, “You saucy bitch.�

It cracked Eli up. Immediately upon returning home he told his father:

�Simon, guess what Kara said when Ananda peed right in front of the Cicely’s dog? She said, ‘You saucy bitch’.� His words staggered out between long breathy laughs.

�Do you get it, dad? A female dog is a bitch and she called Ananda a saucy bitch.�

�I get it,� Simon said, giving me the eye, the reproachful what-in-god’s-name-have-you-started-is-that-the-proper-way-to-parent eye.

All day long Eli repeated his increasingly exaggerated version of events to anyone that would listen. Climbing into bed for story time he pulled Ananda in beside him.

�Come here, you saucy bitch.� He laughed like it was the first time he had said it.

�Eli,� I said, "Let’s not overuse the joke.� I was floundering and he knew it. I finished lamely. “You know some people might misinterpret it.�

He grinned. Like any predator worth his weight he could smell weakness and went in for the kill.

�Well, then, I¹m telling them they can blame you, my trash talking mama.�

Ah, the issue of blame--

Not so long ago Eli flopped down on the couch and thrust his sweaty feet onto my lap. I told him:

� I am your mother and as such you will likely be able to blame me for many, many things in your life. But not your feet. It all ends here and now. I have bought the soap and the anti-stink foot powder. It¹s all up to you now, buddy.�

For the most part, the blame part, he has taking me quite literally. When he was five and he heard the words, “No, don’t do that...� he would become fiercely shocked that I had the audacity to make him feel bad. The logic progressed. Now, if he gets frustrated and shouts “Screw it!� and stomps out of the room it is my fault, (when I suggest that speaking rudely and storming away is alienating and just generally counter-productive), for misunderstanding his intentions. On the ripe topic of his toes, we do not speak.

Eli sang his first words. In the post-bath, pre-bed, naked-baby-time I was folding laundry and he was playing with his favorite box when suddenly he sang “Mr. Sun, Sun, hiding behind the tree.� Now he can express himself fluently in two languages and can curse and count in a handful of others. His language is strong and supple, fluid and precise. If he can’t find the right word, he makes one up. His debating skills are exemplary. Some nights, after long hours of arguing with him over the distinction between his actions and his intentions, Simon and I have huddled under our blankets and wondered if it still wasn¹t too late to crush, just a little, his independent, mouthy spirit.

Recently Eli ended a game of floor hockey by stopping the play, raising his middle finger in a familiar gesture and shouting at another boy “I am not. Fuck you�, and running out of the gymnasium. Ooops. That night, safely under our blankets, Simon and I posed several unanswerable questions: Would the next few years of our life consist of mediating testosterone-charged sporting event tantrums? Was it all our fault? And finally, which is worse, being called down to the principal’s office or having to pick up your child at the principal’s office?

Eli was mortified with himself. He explained that his team had been winning, Jeremy’s losing. All through the game Jeremy whispered in Eli’s ear that he was a terrible hockey player, that he sucked and that the only reason his team was winning was because he, Eli, cheated. Towards the end of the game Jeremy stuck out his foot and Eli, mid-flight, was sent sprawling. The next time Jeremy leaned over to tell Eli he was a cheater, Eli blew up.

�I just lost it mom,� he said, sobbing, “I don¹t want everybody to think I¹m that kind of a person. I don’t want to solve problems that way.�

The next day he apologized to Jeremy who in turn apologized to him and all was well. And with Eli so clearly taking the initiative to be accountable for his actions I was left with free-parenting time to ponder: If I had been in a similar situation what words would I have chosen to make my point?

Words are both expressions of thought and modes of action; the hinged gate between an internal process and an external reality. Transitional phrases. Reasoned words, wise words, find the balance between those two discrete functions, thinking and acting. Yet words also have a peculiar nature unto themselves given the immediate time frame and context in which they are spoken, notes in an improvised solo that navigates (or blunders through) social interaction. The more I thought about the specific situation Eli was in the more appealing (if not appropriate) his words seemed. When the world, Iago-like, whispers in your ear that you are bad or stupid or mislead or lazy or confused or less, could there be any more expedient and righteous response? (Oh, how different for tragic Othello and Desdemona if either one of them had known the value of a well-placed “I am not. Fuck You!�).

So. The official word on the matter to Eli is that: “As a parent, I cannot endorse the Fuck You strategy,� however, if any parents who watched the infamous floor hockey game want to point the long finger of blame, they can point it squarely in my direction -his trash-talking mama.

Besides, the F-word, it’s not all that bad. It¹s not the worst thing. The F-word, much maligned and over-used, (and with its juicy etymology -Found Under Carnal Knowledge) has, in the annals of our family mythology, an almost endearing, innocent connotation. When Eli was two, just talking, he confused the tr’ sound with the f’ sound. Riding the bus down a busy city street he would inevitably spot intriguing looking delivery trucks.

�Look, mama, look!� he’d say, pointing.

�Yes,� I’d say, cutting him off, “A TRuck, a TRuck.�

But it never worked, there was always another truck coming and he could not be distracted. In the clear, particularly penetrating, voice of a small child his words would carry through the bus:

�Look! A big Fuck, mama, a big big Fuck!�