And, We Have Issues.

I was wondering when it would start. It seemed too good to be true. A 6 year old who remains the size of a 4 year old, seldom argues, reads at a 3rd grade level easily, has empathy to put my peers to shame... there had to be a catch. Something had to go terribly wrong some time. Yesterday was that some time.

Mommy: "Why didn't you come out with your class?"
Perfect 6 year old: "Oh, I just wanted to wait."
Mommy: "OK, what's going on?"
Slightly nervous perfect 6 year old: "I don't want to tell you."
Mommy: "Well, this is me telling you that you have to tell me. Out with it."
Bursting into tears 6 year old: "I Got a red, I said a bad word today!"

The other kids at her lunch table (ohhh, how I wanted her to change lunch tables last week) were teaching each other bad words. Or, bad words in their houses, clearly. It so happens, bad words in my house, her fathers family home(I don't care what kind of money they come from, those people are traaashy when they're red-wine drunk--and they're almost always red-wine drunk), even my ex boyfriends good Polish family (who are much more like a fathers family than babydaddy's creepy brood)... those are the good words. Those are the words the other kids need to know.

Specifically, "Shit" is the word those kids need to know.

As though this were not bad enough, at some point in the conversation that followed we stumbled as I knew we would on why it's OK for me to cuss (though in my defense, the aforementioned swear is not one I use). And I had already though about this, I have been waiting for this question for years: "I am an adult, Morgan. I am old enough to make decisions about how I want to behave myself, and I'm old enough to know when it's a bad time to say certain things. You are not old enough to use those words in the right way, they're very serious words, and you don't have those kinds of serious situations to use them for yet."

To which my little angel with her tear stained cheeks took a deep shakey breath, gently touched my hand and asked with wide shiny eyes... "So when can I cuss mom? When I'm a teenager?"

Fuck.

Eventually the subject was dropped... we had to go back to school a few hours later for the first grade holiday concert (which consisted of her spinning on a riser dangerously, forgetting some words, and at one point just turning the other way completely for no clear reason), followed by some very sweet pictures of her little boy-friend (this is not a title I approved, just one I don't feel like fighting with). At the end of the photo-op she turned, grabbed his face, and kissed him in the middle of the hallway.

My daughter is cussing and kissing boys.

All of this started in the same 5 hour stretch, and I would not have been surprised in the slightest to find her smoking in the ice cream parlor bathroom after the show, or sipping gin and juice boxes in her bubble bath before bed. I don't know if it's because she lives in a single parent household, because I cuss and smoke and kiss boys (I don't drink, can this not count for something?), but somehow it's finally happened-- I ruined my child.

I can't believe they gave me a baby, and this is what I ended up letting happen to her.