S-t-u-p-i-d

This past February, when I was realllly pregnant (I know they say you’re either pregnant or you’re not, but I think when you are 9 months pregnant, you are realllly pregnant), my sister came down from Michigan to visit us and to be here for my baby shower. I absolutely loved having her here. She is one of my best friends, and she’s lots of fun. We always have a blast when we’re together.

We have many similarities not only in our physical appearance but in our senses of humor, our beliefs about certain things, and so forth. Of course, we also have some differences, and one of these is that Kristen will occasionally use a curse word. However, when she’s in my home, she voluntarily makes an effort not to do so. This visit, she’d been doing great in avoiding what my kids and I call “bad words”. So as we sat chatting in the living room, she said, pleased, “I don’t think I’ve used any bad words at all.”

“Nope. You’ve been doing great,” I said.

And from her position next to me on the couch, Ellie piped up into the conversation, “Mommy said a bad word once.”

“Huh?” I said, and the look on my face must have shown that I didn’t know what Ellie was talking about.

“Oh, really?” Kristen said gleefully at the same time. “What did Mommy say?”

Ellie glanced at me. She knows you’re not supposed to repeat bad words.

“It’s okay,” I said to her. “You can say what I said.”

Ellie glanced from me to Kristen and back to me.

“Really,” I said, curious to find out what bad word I had supposedly said. “You can repeat it.”

Ellie looked at Kristen and said, as if she felt embarrassed on my behalf, “She said ‘s-t-u-p-i-d’.”

Yep, she spelled it. She was unwilling to say such a bad word out loud. So she spelled it, then looked at me, hoping I wasn’t mad.

Kristen and I burst into laughter. “That’s it?” Kristen asked, disappointed.

I must have called something “stupid”—I absolutely never use that word to refer to a person, because it’s insulting, demeaning, and totally unnecessary to use it in that way. I really don’t remember the incident Ellie was referring to and therefore don’t know what exactly I said.

What I do know is that my word choice stuck with Ellie. Even when it was no big deal to me, it mattered to her. I don’t know how long it had been since the time I used that word, but apparently Ellie still remembered it.

What this tells me is that I better be careful and intentional about the words I use on a daily basis.

I can’t afford to be careless or unintentional in my speech to my children. They will remember the words I’ve said—maybe not the “clean your room” words, but at least the words they considered bad. And when those words are directed at them, they may remember for a very long time.

That’s not to say that kids remember every mistake we’ve made. They don’t (thank God). Nor does every carelessly spoken word lead to their being scarred for life (thank God again). But knowing that our words can have an impact we don’t necessarily intend, we must do our best to make sure we are purposefully uplifting in our speech, especially to our children. We must.

Moms, if someone were to ask our children what bad words we had said lately, would our children have to work very hard to come up with a response?

Would they recall curse words? Would they recall insults directed at them or even at that driver in front of us? Would they remember that we shouted or rolled our eyes as we spoke? Would they remember a tone of disgust where there shouldn’t have been one? Would they be able to tell others about the times we used our words (even unintentionally) to discourage or belittle them or their efforts?

I pray the answer is no, both in your family and in mine. The old saying “sticks and stones may break my bones, but words will never hurt me” simply isn’t true. Words, even those that aren’t specifically insults, have tremendous power to uplift or to tear down. Even when our words aren’t directed at them, our children’s consciences can be wounded by hearing us speak rudely to the clerk at the grocery store, talk about someone behind her back, or disrespect our husband.

I once heard it said that if you wouldn’t want to stand up in front of your church on Sunday morning and tell them you did something, you shouldn’t do it at all (the obvious exceptions being those things that are legitimately private). This is a great rule, and it applies to words too. If you wouldn’t want to tell others what you said and the tone with which you said it, you shouldn’t have said it to your children either

But I’m not perfect, you might be thinking. I make mistakes all the time.

We all do. Sometimes, we get things wrong. We wound our children when we don’t mean to. You’re not alone.

But because that’s true—that we’re imperfect and guaranteed to mess up sometimes—we owe it to our children to do everything within our power to make sure those times are as few and far between as possible. We should give our children the best we have, not just whatever words happen to come out of our mouths without much thought.

Most of us recently spent a lot of time trying to decide what to get our kids for Christmas, purchasing the chosen items, wrapping them, and placing them under the tree. Shouldn’t we spend just as much time—actually, far more—in purposefully speaking to our children pleasant words that will create a peaceful, secure, and loving atmosphere in our home?

After all, most of the Christmas presents will soon go by the wayside. But the gift of our consistently loving speech will never be forgotten.

Proverbs 15:4—Kind words bring life, but cruel words crush your spirit. (GNT)

Proverbs 16:24— Pleasant words are a honeycomb, sweet to the soul and healing to the bones. (NIV)

Colossians 4:6—Be gracious in your speech. The goal is to bring out the best in others in a conversation, not put them down, not cut them out. (MSG)