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Thursday, July 07, 2011

Lisa and I watched 'Jo Frost: Extreme Parental Guidance' on Channel 4 last night. It's the follow-up to 'Jack Frost: Extreme Peripheral Gangrene' (I think), and follows this woman (I forget her name) as she travels across Britain, dispensing childcare advice to parents in need.

Obviously the only advice Lisa and I require is how to get orange face-paint out of Amelie's pillow, and if we ever need a Supernanny, we'll call Zenaida Fernandez-Gonzalez, but nevertheless, it was interesting to hear the problems that fellow parents face. In a stroke of genius, Jo had identified the one place where parents go to shout at their children, and duly naughty-stepped into the nearest shopping centre to answer their childcare queries.

We were then shown a line of people queuing outside a branch of Debenhams to ask questions of Supernanny, at which point the programme's voiceover artist said this:

"The first problem is one that's all too common for many parents..."

Naturally Lisa and I leaned forward on the sofa to catch the solution to this age-old problem. Whereupon the woman at the front of the queue asked this:

"How can I stop my two-year-old from swearing?"

Personally I just tell her to shut the f**k up. Well ok, I don't. To be honest, the question left us both open-mouthed. So I could see that Lisa hadn't been flossing. I'm not saying Amelie's a little angel - trust me, not even Casey Anthony could lie that convincingly - but of all the many thousands of phrases in her vocabulary, I don't think she knows a single swear word. She did once say "Oh my god", but I think that was some kind of vision.

It does make you wonder what some parents are up to though, if swearing toddlers are an "all too common" problem for "many parents". It makes me glad that Amelie doesn't go to nursery. She'd be swearing like a trooper, and turning the air as blue as Igglepiggle with her x-rated curse-words. As it is, the only potty-mouth phase she's ever been through was when she started licking the toilet.

4 comments:

Phil's Mum said...

It DOES all depend on the company they keep.  I'd better not enlarge on that comment here!

Dave said...

The problem with many children is their parents.  Present company excepted, obviously.

Phil's Mum said...

......or their parents' friends.......or their parents' friends' children......or perhaps the local tramp......

Phil said...

We've told Amelie not to talk to him.