Recently, my son Jacob got into a little bit of trouble at his school. As part of his school's cross-country varsity team he was participating in one of their many fall-meets. Finishing among the first in his peer-group has been his goal this season and, even more importantly, finishing the two miles under 13 minutes. he had been inching (or better "seconding") closer and closer to that goal and his excitement and tenaciousness grew proportionally. At this particular race, Jacob narrated this later, he could see the clock throughout the last 100 yards of the race. Just a few yards from the finish-line he saw the seconds hand finish minute 13 and move into the 14th minute. He crossed the line at 13:02. Objectively, a wonderful achievement, not just this season but over the last few years. Jacob himself sees it that way, no question. But when he crossed the line and knew he had not met his personal goal the frustration was high and the combination of exhaustion, anticipation, let-down and, perhaps, even a form of fear all led to one big scream: FUCK!!!!!!!------------Nothing else, no yelling at others, no blaming of circumstances, no statements about never running again, no, just this one exasperated cry, not dissimilar, perhaps, from what we would say if we hit our thumb while attempting to hammer a nail. The rest of the story is quickly told: there was a complaint to Jacob's coach from another coach, there was a phone-call from the coach to us, two apologies from Jacob (one to his coach, one to the hosting coach). Jacob also was disqualified from the meet in question, had to set out for the next meet and was reinstated thereafter. There was no anger about these consequences, neither on the side of the "givers" nor on the side of the "receiver." There was and is a shared understanding that it is always good to learn more about expressing anger in acceptable ways.

In a twist of irony, while Jacob is supposed to learn how to avoid the F-word, Gabriel, our youngest, came home with the assignment to find at least five f-words (words that begin with the letter "f") and glue pictures of it on a piece of paper. One must wonder when he will discover "the" F-word. Or has he already?

Background: Leslie and I had been noticing an increase in crude-language-use between our two oldest boys. For Jacob it often seemed to be connected to his current favorite in video-games, Black Ops. For Noah it more seemed like a general way of asserting himself in the world of his peers. Note, please, that both of them continued to do quite well in school, dressed appropriately, kept to their schedules, etc. It was just the language.

Background to the background: Our family has had a very hard year, no further details. It wouldn't come as a surprise to me to know that, at least in part, this use of language cannot be blamed on the boys or on Black Ops or on peer-pressure but also on us, the parents, who struggled to keep their act together in the last 12 months. It is an expression of rage and frustration, exhaustion and anticipation, and of a let-down. And, yes, there is a kind of fear too: will our family meet the anticipated and expected goal, even though this has been an incredibly hard and taxing race.

Background to the background to the background: I just cannot stand the obsession with the "f-word." It reminds me a bit of Harry Potter where everyone gasps in horror when he dares to say the "V-word," Voldemort, without worrying that he'll conjure up something evil. What's the difference between the "F-word" and the "V-word?" It is that the V-word stands for something completely evil, the F-word DOES NOT.

The English language is a beautiful language. It's continued march through the world, its obvious power as the global lingua franca, is not just a symbol of American power and cultural colonialism. It is also simply a statement about this language itself, its flexibility, its adaptability, its ability to express certain things in certain ways, it's emotional expressiveness (think of rock-music), its musical characteristics as well as its amazing penchant for brevity. The F-word is part of this language. It is a beautiful word in a beautiful language and can express passion in all its variations--remember that the word "passion" actually comes from the Greek/Latin roots for "suffering/joy." Incidentally, I have been watching episodes of the tv-show Deadwood--a wild west show set in South-Dakota during the gold-rush. The use of "fuck" and "cock-sucker" and other expletives seems inflationary in this show and, yet, several people have assured me that the dialogues in this show are nothing short of Shakespearian. One friend explained "you have to let it wash over you to get the aesthetic dimension of this language." And, yes, that actually is what I did when went to watch a recent stage-performance of Macbeth, I let it "wash over me."

One more thing: growing up in Germany I simply didn't have to deal with the same fears of foul language that seem to plague this country. One of my earliest memories (not sure if it's a memory because I was told the story or if I remember it directly) is of me enjoying the wonderful acoustic qualities of the stairway in the apartment complex where I lived by screaming, at the top of my lungs, the German word for "shit"--Scheisse. It's not that nobody cared and, I believe, my mother was slightly embarrassed by the whole thing. But it also wasn't a big deal. Certainly, it didn't lead anyone to speculate how my family communicates with each other when we're alone. Soccer is a game with very high emotional stakes. Players frequently swear or get angry. The line is drawn not about what they say but to whom. Swearing to themselves is no offense, swearing at the ref or the audience is a problem and there will be consequences.

So, while I believe that everything worked out well in Jacob's case--he learned something important about his use of language, about the country and culture in which he lives and about himself--I also feel uneasy about the unspoken part of this incident. I wonder, too, if the people of this country as a whole might fare better expressing their anger in words and not with weapons, wars and other attempts to subdue those who have harmed them or attempted to do so. Does "anger management" possibly include learning about how to use the F-word and its many cousins rather than getting rid of them?