A Mom Explains Why She Lets Her Seven Year Old Swear At Home, And The Internet Is At Odds
A mom on TikTok recorded her daughter cussing, and it's sparked a debate among parents.
TikTok Influencer Abbey Fickley made a name for herself on the social media platform with hilarious content about her children and family life; however, one video, in particular, has the internet debating whether or not her parenting style is appropriate.
In a recent video, her 7-year-old daughter, Myla, openly swears on camera, and her mom is totally okay with it.
The mom, who has over 300k followers, posted a video of her daughter complaining about her socks, which were mismatched. She captions it, “My perfectionist 7-year-old.”
In the clip she says, “Alright, what is the problem now?” to which Myla replies, “Why do I have two different socks on?!”
Abbey responds that she didn’t realize she grabbed mismatching socks, and her daughter quips, “This is like some wacky Wednesday kind of shit!”
Instead of pointing out and correcting the cuss, the mom laughs, shrugs it off, and says, “I’ll get you new socks, okay? You’re funny.”
Some parents joined in on the fun and felt the video to be super relatable, writing, “Good job, mom!! It’s only a word!” and “HAHAHA! She’s a keeper!”
But while some parents were supportive of Abbey allowing her daughter to express herself unfiltered, others were a bit horrified by her parenting choice.
“You just let her cuss like that?” one person wrote. This comment alone prompted 136 replies, where many parents came to Abbey’s defense, writing, “YES! my kids can "appropriate cuss" just not "cuss" for no reason. BIG difference!!” and “She said it very respectfully and hilariously. Why not?”
Others were hung up on her demand for mom to grab her new matching socks, stating things like, “Girl, you better be happy you got clean socks to wear!” and “I'd be like, I guess you can go without socks, or you can wear those.”
Fortunately, most of the 66,000 comments praised Myla, commenting that she is, to put it simply, a total vibe.
“HAHAHA Lil miss Myla is too much lol…7 going on 25 & absolutely ICONIC.” said one user. “We claim her. 😂 We love a mannered queen 🥰,” gushed another.
Fickley responded to the comments about her daughter swearing in a follow-up video.
“About a year or two I decided that I would be the person in my daughter’s life to teach her the context of swear words,” she explains. “And in my house they are called ‘home words’. Because that’s what they are: they are words that are only allowed to be used at home.”
Of course, she goes on, her house isn’t a lawless den of cussing.
“Home words are actually a privilege, which means they can be revoked at any time,” she continues. “Examples of when home words would be revoked if she ever used a home word to offend or be mean to another person or to be mean to herself.”
How’s it going?
“In the past two years of teaching my daughter context and allowing her to use home words, we’ve never had an issue. She’s a very well-behaved, polite little girl who just gets good grades and is respectful to teachers and classmates. Never had an issue. Isn’t that crazy? I decided from day one that I would be a safe space for my daughter to come to be about anything and everything and never be afraid or fearful that she’s going to be in trouble. I understand that not all of us were raised that way. Sh—t, I wasn’t raised that way either, but I’m choosing to break the cycle.”
This explanation got a lot of support in the comments.
“The more you try to tell a kid to not do something it makes them want to do it more anyway,” one commenter noted wisely.
“In our house, swear words were 100% okay as long as they never used racist words or when they were used to be mean or spiteful,” another added — showing that not all swear words are created equal. There’s the difference between using them as “color commentary” and using them to hurt others.
