Bus rides - the other “public education”
A few months ago, when Seth started singing, “Bow Chicka, Bow Woooowwww.” I laughed out loud.
He has no idea what that means. But he learned it on the bus. (And now every time he does that I think of Jess and her park ranger fetish.)
The other day, he came home with a new one… At dinner he referred to some other kid on the bus (a 5th grader) as being a “bad-ass mofo.” Stunned, I asked him to repeat what he’d just said. Stoically, he obliged.
He’s five.
I tried not to laugh. It was difficult. He knows what curse words are. He hears me swear like a trucker (when I’m in traffic) quite frequently. But he knows that as a kid, he’s not allowed to say those kind of words. (Ah yes, the “do as I say and not as I do” parenting method.) He also didn’t understand what he was saying were curse words, (as ”badass” and ”mo-fo” aren’t a part of my repertoire) nor does he know what “mo-fo” means.
But I can’t help but wonder… How can the boy learn so much from one 10-minute bus ride, yet struggle so much in a three-hour kindergarten session? Maybe I should hire a 5th grade boy to teach him how to read? You know, one of those “bad ass mofo” ones.
So… Let’s talk about sex. Or more aptly a book called Sex Detox. A review of the book, on behalf of PBN can be found here.
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By Alissa, January 30, 2008 @ 12:59 pm
Drew! Didn’t I tell you to stay out of the mud?!
Yes.
Well, what’s that all over your school shoes?
That’s not MUD, Mom. That’s cow shit!
What?!
That’s cow sh….
I heard you! Where did you learn that word?!
From Joe, on the bus, Mom. Is that a grown-up word, too, like the D word and the F word?
*sigh*
By Cheryl, January 30, 2008 @ 1:14 pm
Oh my god. I just choked on my coffee. I can hardly wait for the first time Ben swears in front of my mom. I think she’ll pass out in horror. And I’ll giggle.
By mayberry, January 30, 2008 @ 2:59 pm
Aha! Great idea. “Reading for bad-ass mofos, by bad-ass mofos.”
By Mrs. Chicky, January 30, 2008 @ 3:09 pm
School buses are rolling life lessons. I cringe when I think of all the nasty things I learned while riding the school buses.
By Susan, January 30, 2008 @ 3:57 pm
Snort! I’m sorry but anyone that doesn’t find that a smidge funny, seriously has a stick up their ass!
By slackermommy, January 30, 2008 @ 4:14 pm
So true! Maybe I should contract out my oldest to teach. You could be onto something!
By flutter, January 30, 2008 @ 6:48 pm
ok if he bow chika’d in front of me I would have wet myself. Not that I don’t do that anyway, I’m just sayin….
By Isabel, January 30, 2008 @ 7:37 pm
I love the stories of the funny things Seth says. And dude, the kids learn everything at school!
By Liz, January 30, 2008 @ 9:54 pm
OMG…I laughed real loud, too. Some of our best conversations happen in the car, too and we’ve pretty much slammed every topic there is to, you know, hit.
By Oh, The Joys, January 31, 2008 @ 12:57 am
I’m just joining in at this point… I taught The Mayor to say “Mack Daddy” tonight.
By Jen, January 31, 2008 @ 1:05 am
Bow chika came from Alvin and the Chipmunks, that is where my 7 y/o learned it. The commercials show Alvin singing it. As for bus rides, my now 16 y/o learned what a BJ is and how it is given…at 8, she learned that at 8!!!!! Gotta love the bus education.
Jen
By MammaLoves, January 31, 2008 @ 3:49 am
Hmmm. You might be on to something. *she says stroking her chin*
By Sandra, January 31, 2008 @ 11:54 am
I hear bad ass mofos make great teachers. He and my potty mouth boy can take on the town with their new found charm I tell ya
By becky, January 31, 2008 @ 3:20 pm
lol omg this is so my life right now with hannah. the stuff she comes up with! i’m like OMG where did you learn that?!
By Anne, January 31, 2008 @ 5:33 pm
Well, I don’t know about what HE learned on the bus, but I think your idea of where to get an effective teacher is a really good one!
By Pattie, January 31, 2008 @ 6:13 pm
I think of Jess, when I hear that, too.
I hate to admit this, but my kids hear things….not on the bus, but from their dear old Dad. Yup, I am always on my hubby about that but I think it’s just second nature to him.
By Sherry, January 31, 2008 @ 7:47 pm
Oh that is too funny!! Thanks for sharing…. I homeschool my son, so we miss out on all of this fun stuff!
By ~JJ!, January 31, 2008 @ 9:36 pm
It’s amazing what they absorb and what they ignore….
I’m a trucker too..
By Alexandra, February 1, 2008 @ 2:19 pm
HA!
Last Xmas (2006) my nephew and I went to pick up my dad from the airport. My dad’s flight was delayed, so I kept driving around and around the airport. I was getting frustrated. Just before I was about to go somewhere to park and wait, my nephew innocently asked me, “Are we going to just keep driving around like douche-bags?” haha!!!! It was hard not to laugh!!!!
He didn’t know that was a bad thing to say… he’s heard my brother say it over and over!! (Well, I get the sneaking suspicion maybe he DID know it was kind of bad to say…)
Kids…
By Minnesota Matron, February 1, 2008 @ 2:55 pm
My oldest came to me about a month ago and said, “Seriously, Mom, you have to do something about Merrick’s swearing.”
Merrick is four.
By Julie, February 1, 2008 @ 2:57 pm
Maybe you could hire Samuel L. Jackson as a tutor — he’s the baddest-ass mofo there is, isn’t he? At least, that’s the line I most associate with him from Pulp Fiction.
Maybe that could be one of the classes at Sam Jackson School: instead of English they’d have Pulp Fiction. : )
Oh, I just crack myself up. How sad.
By abunslife, February 1, 2008 @ 3:14 pm
Bless his heart. Jake has decided he doesn’t want to ride the bus anymore, and we were struggling with his reasons and whether it was a big deal or not, but the more we think about it, reading this, and the fact that we only live 2 minutes away from school I’m beginning to think it is not such a bad decision. If he is going to learn how to cuss it is going to be from me not some 4th or 5th grader!
By sj, February 1, 2008 @ 4:40 pm
i live in constant fear of saying the wrong thing in front of my nephew.
actually, that’s not entirely true. i have more fear of saying the wrong thing in front of my nephew in front of my sister, so she knows i’m to blame.
By Rebecca, February 1, 2008 @ 5:53 pm
Sweet little Seth saying bad-ass mo-fo is about the funniest thing I’ve heard all week. I bet those words never sounded so cute before. My cousin’s daughter, also 5, came downstairs one day and announced, “there’s a f*cking hole in my shirt,” and my cousin was just proud that she’d used it correctly.
By cousin ashley, February 1, 2008 @ 6:56 pm
Now I know why I missed out on so many “life lessons!” I walked to school. Who knew that’s where the School of Bad-Ass Mo-Fos was held-?
By Mrs. G., February 1, 2008 @ 7:12 pm
Well, I don’t know how much he can learn in ten minutes, but I do know that badassmofo is fun to say–the perfect blend of consonance and assonance. Baaaadddaaaassssmmmooooffffoooo…I love it.
By Michelle at Scribbit, February 3, 2008 @ 6:42 am
Oh that’s funny because that’s what I think of too–that post with her anniversary romp was hysterical.