Swearing

Those of you who pride yourselves on you and yours never swearing in front of the grandchildren means nothing really except you have self control. You're not protecting them because they'll hear it everywhere, nursery, the park, school, language in the playground is appalling. My children still knew it wasn't acceptable for them to swear and adults who swore were naughty too. My children as adults choose to swear and I'm sure they'll teach their children swearing is wrong but I'm also pretty certain their kids like all kids will be exposed to swear words wherever they go, they just have to learn that just because others swear they don't need to.

Why is everyone focusing on using or not using particular words?
The OP's DGC are experiencing very aggressive reactions from their mother. That is the problem.

Probably because the topic heading is "Swearing" not"Anger"

To be honest it is not always what is said but how. Swearing tends to accentuate anger but I have heard parents speak hideously and abusively to their children and not swear. We have all lost our rag and yelled I am sure ..well I have... but not as a habitual mode of communication.
If the OPs grandchildren are subjected to this approach regularly and it is aggressive then I could not condone it. If it is a one off, or even said in a light-hearted way, well we all make mistakes occasionally!

I doubt it was a one off or lighthearted in all honesty I suspect it's habit and I agree I've heard all sorts of abuse without so much as a raised voice or swear word.

I hate to hear people swearing at children - it seems to be the norm these days. I do swear but have never done it in front of my own children or their offspring and although I've heard my youngest son swear over the years he's never done it directly to me or in front of his little ones. I worked in an engineering factory for many years and heard all sorts of bad language but the lads were always respectful to me and apologised if something slipped out in front of me.

It's not compulsory to stick rigidly to the topic heading, FlexibleFriend, and GNers usually don't.

Did I say it was?

Newmom101...you might be right. I think it depends on the actual swear words. If someone said "bloody hell" or something like that, I wouldn't call it "proper" swearing - but my son (and so the rest of us) don't even say those things when his kids are there - they are 7 and 4.

However, if someone said "what a f**king c*nt", that's a completely different matter. I confess that ANY swearing is fine with me when I'm with adults. My language is pretty bad. With children around, I believe it should be moderated.

Newmom, what words do you use when you are really p*** off ? If you use all the swear words in general conversation what is left when you really need it??

Oh golly gosh, oh my days and if things are really bad - bum. Not really just wish I was more mindful of my language. I definitely don't like the 'c' and 'f' words. It's laziness with language that with all the words at our disposal we choose to use these.

Mostly bloody hell, bugger or piss off to be honest. So very tame 'swear words' I suppose. I use crap a lot but don't consider that swearing. I work in a school so I'm pretty good at regulating my language. DPs a bit worse than me but wouldn't use the c word!

I find the whole concept of swear words baffling though. I think we should just accept them as normal parts of language and then people would probably use them a lot less and they wouldn't have the same connotations when they did. And kids wouldn't be so keen to copy if they weren't so taboo.

Thinking about it there's probably some occasions I've said worse. I just remembered walking into the living room yesterday to find that 1 year old DD had gone into the shopping bags, found the pack of gingerbread men, tore the packaging to shreds and bitten a chunk out of every single one. I laughed and you 'you little shit'. However, I think the big difference here is the level of aggression behind it, I wasn't angry at all, just quite amused, and DD was quite pleased with herself.

.... and DD too young to appreciate that shit is not "polite'. But if she repeated it it may not be so good! My DD1,when a bit older, was a messy kid with food and in garden play. I often called her "disgusting" but used an affectionate tone. She, one day, hugged my mum and said after kissing her , " you're digusting Nana" ??