Avoiding Bad Words

Cotter was sitting at the table reading aloud his "Runny Babbit" book, which is full of mixed up words, where the first letter of two words are exchanged to make silly words, but the original story line can still be followed. I was wandering in and out of the kitchen, half-listening to him as he was enjoying this new challenge. At one point he looked up at me and said, "I'm not sure if I should be reading this book. It has lots of bad words. It has the "s" word, the "d" word...a thoughtful pause...and the "b" word." Well, that caught my attention! I was a bit perplexed at my 7-year-old's account of the words in this book, so I asked him what he meant.

Not wanting to really say the words out loud, he sheepishly said, "It says "stupid," "dummy" and "brat." "Mommy," he says, "is brat a bad word?"