raising cavemen

I should have figured these boys were turning into cavemen when we were sitting around the bonfire and one of the Moms looked alarmed and said to me, "Do you want Nate running around with that stick? Should he be running with sticks?" That sounds like the type of question that the asker really doesn't want a verbal answer to, so I gaped at her for a bit trying to think of the answer. The first thing that came to mind was that Nathan has been running with sticks ever since he first learned to walk. To be honest, running with sticks, maybe 18 months old. But now he's 10 years old. His father is off to sea on a mission. Let him have a good run with a stick. I might as well try to stop the sun from shining. I think running with sticks runs deep in the ancestry.

The next thing that shocked a neighbor was that Nathan had developed a habit of swearing to alarm and upset the young girls his age who try to use the swings he is on. He enjoys teasing them, making them tattle, which forces me to hear about the events and dramas third hand, in hushed and incredulous tones. After a stern talk from me, he had stopped swearing out loud but then subsituted a word or words which sounded much like but wasn't the exact word. When that failed, he tried mouthing the word, careful that his male buddies could tell which word or name he meant to call the little lass who was bothering them. No, I'm sure he never mouthed THAT word, we don't even say that word. I can't think of where he hears such language. It can't be from going to school on a NAVY base, with NAVY children! Good gracious.
I was really feeling bad, bringing such the bad element into our fine cul de sac, until I saw one of the sweet little girls heaving old bike parts at the others and calling them all asses and #$&!ers. Hee hee!!! I love it when other people's children swear and misbehave just a bit more than mine.