‘My future SIL thinks it’s okay to swear in front of me’

A lot of young adults swear like there’s no tomorrow when they’re with each other, but when an older person enters hearing vicinity, the cursing usually stops. Not always though, as one mother found out when her daughter and prospective son-in-law came to visit her recently. 

Taking to online forum Gransnet to share her experience, she explained that her daughter’s boyfriend seemed to think it was okay to swear in front of her as if he was with his mates.

She added: “He apologised beforehand, as he was just recounting his mates words, but I can’t help but [think], that someone in their twenties shouldn’t be be talking like that to someone in their sixties! I don’t think I have ever uttered those words to my kids, let alone them to me. Dread to think what his parents would think if my daughter did the same.”

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Bad language has definitely become more free-wheeling in recent years, and it’s not uncommon to hear profanity-laden anecdotes on television and the radio nowadays. While it seems children are using swear words at a younger age, many older members of society are left lamenting the good old days when people were less liberal with colourful language. 

Starts at 60 readers weighed in on the topic, with Pamela Rowley saying she didn’t mind a bit of dirty language as long as it’s not “the C-word”

However, Jeanne Palmer said, “I’m old. I expect respect. I don’t mind the milder words, but the C and F words are not acceptable,” and Marilyn Hurst added, “My SIL [son-in-law] swore in front of me once and my daughter told him off. He hasn’t done it since”.

Unfortunately, it seems that swearing aside, society isn’t as polite as it once was. In a recent blog for Starts at 60, Brian Lee wrote that the “good old days” of manners just aren’t what they used to be, noting that something as simple as men carrying handkerchiefs to offer to ladies in need, or children knowing how to use their knife and fork correctly seem to be lost in the past. 

“I think it is very sad that a lot of these simple rules no longer seem to be taught to children these days, anything goes it seems, and they are given as much power as adults have, something that can never work in the long run,” he wrote.

Read more: Remember when manners and discipline were instilled in society

What do you think? Is it acceptable to swear in front of an older person? Do you think it’s still important to be polite?