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My 12-year-old daughter (on her way to bed for the night): “Everybody shut up!”
Me: “That’s ’shut up PLEASE!”’
Detail of painting "Letitia and Sophie" by Cassandra Barney, one of our Featured Artists of the Spring 2008 issue
Posted on »
Sunday, 20 January 2008
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Dalene
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Slice of Life
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16 Comments
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HA!
That’s beautiful.
When I was a young mother raising four kids, Shut up was a garbage word. We all got in trouble in we used it.
Between my baby girl leaving home, etc., and adjusting to living with my husband, I started yelling at my dogs to shut up. If I did it outside, the neighbor kids would look shocked at me. I felt guilty, weird, for yelling at my dogs to shut up. Although those dogs deserved a chair thrown at them. They love the sound of their own voice.
But my little Rowan, who is seven, never shuts up. She talks constantly. And I admit that after an hour in the car with Rowan chattering, interrupting everyone else, I have yelled at her to shut up. Usually, first I say, “Rowan, Grandma needs a moment. Could you count to 100 in your head?” and that blissful ten seconds of silence will keep me going for awhile.
I know it sounds awful, but everybody in the family has told her to shut up at least once. You really have to experience it to understand. It’s the worst when we are trapped with her in the car. Then Maxwell yells at her to shut up, it’s like people lining up to slap the screaming girl in Airplane.
One day I’d had her all day, not yelling, but constantly catering and listening to her. Finally, I put her in the tub. She kept calling me from the tub. Finally, Max, who was seven at the time (she was 6), said, “Grandma, don’t go in there again. She’s been bugging you all day.” And he went in there and said, “Rowan, stop bugging Grandma. What do you want?”
He probably told her to shutup then, too. Of course she didn’t and I ended up putting her to bed and thanking God that people need sleep because I had a few hours of quiet until she woke up the next morning.
And she has not been shocked at all. In fact, if she shuts up after we yell at her, it’s for maybe 30 seconds. She just doesn’t shut up. Even when I yell at her. She ignores me and goes on talking. She knows I adore her, she is the cutest and smartest little thing ever.
And in yet another sense, I feel a failure because I lose it that way with her.
Those who might be wondering, ADD runs in my husband’s family and Rowan and Rhiannon, whose father was on Ritalin at age 2 (having been diagnosed by the top expert (then) in the country, and having driven his mother to drink–well it wasn’t all him, Bill’s hard to live with, too). These people would have definitely made it over the plains.
And if they were in the Martin Handcart company, they’d have made it before the first snow because they’d have driven everyone so crazy they’d never have stopped.
Anyway. That’s my experience with “shut up.”
I like that story, Anne. And I like that story, Dalene.
All day long I teach a class of 4th graders, about 8 of whom will not. shut. up. They are the classic definitions of motor mouths. There isn’t enough space in the classroom to spread them all apart. All day long I bite my tongue, because I just want to yell. “shuuuut uuuup!!!”
So when I came home from school the other day, and my 7-year-old yelled in my ear, I accidentally told him to shut up. It was the talk of the town. “Mom said shut up! Mom said shut up! Mom said shut up!”
This is so great! I don’t know what to say . . . I’d best say nothing. It’s perfect.
I know it’s not the nicest of phrases but really, when did “Shut up” become so taboo? I lost my patience with my Valiants class a few months ago and told someone to shut up and one of the girls (the worst offender in terms of motor-mouth but then she’s got Aspergers) was all shocked and shouted “That’s a bad word!” I thought “Good grief, I’m going to get reported to someone’s mom for bad language for saying ’shut up?’”
PD of E: Yea, shut up wasn’t a bad word in our house growing up. We reserved scorn for the more serious non-niceties that I will not name. I guess one could make the argument that shut up is not a great word to use because it’s a disrespectful way of asking someone to be quiet. I don’t know, I don’t really care if that word is used and I use it myself. But there does seem to be some logic in discouraging it (like when my kids turn it back on me and I want to hang them upside down from the ceiling and find someone on the street to take over their mothering). But, hey, that’s just me.
Dalene–love it. motherhood rocks, no?
When I was in the YW presidency I was told, by my president, that I needed to stop telling the girls to “cram it.” But, seriously, they needed to cram it. So I substituted “zip it” and “shut your cake hole” and rolled my eyes. And it was not the same.
I sometimes say shut up in my brain to my three-year-old son who has a rather loud decibel and is only quiet when asleep or watching Thomas. However, the incessant noise made for a fun story:
Soon after Christmas this same son came up to my husband with a blanket wrapped around a toy and said, “Dad, I’m Santa. I have a present for you. What do you want for Christmas?” My husband replied, “I want some peace and quiet.” Santa thought for a split second and, opening the package, said, “We don’t have any of that, but you can have this train!”
Well, there’s always a call for being polite, especially if you want to tell someone to cram it.
It especially important to learn to be polite right now when so many of the social graces have been forgotten or labeled hypocritical. We never said shut up or encouraged our kids to say it.
Of course it isn’t a bad word because it is dirty, but because it is impolite and usually accompanies a show of temper. Sometimes a show is all that is needed to achieve the desired result. Rolling eyes etc. (#8) Is a show of contempt.
Of course, if you add please then that makes it a request rather than a command, and that changes everything.
Um, I guess I need to clarify that I rolled my eyes inward at my YW president and not at my girls. Because I would not want it thought that I was contemptuous toward my girls. Because even though they were contemptuous, at times, towards Personal Progress, Mutual, Boys, Leaders, Other Girls, the Bishopric, the Church, and The Savior, I was never contemptuous towards them–and NEVER told them to shut up. Just to cram it. And only with love and a smile. (So please don’t call social services on me.)
Annegb, I know some parents of very verbal children who can relate. Rowan is so cute!
I have been told that when I was a toddler and not talking much yet, my dad was talking in the next room and I think being loud. I was sitting with my older brother and called out, “Shut up, Da.” My paternal grandma thought it was so funny, thankfully.
Sometimes, the girls need to hear ‘cram it’ or ‘knock it off’ or ‘aren’t your toes freezing in those flip-flops you wore to church?’ I stand by you, La Yen.
La Yen: More power to you. I wouldn’t want to be in your shoes. A YW’s leader can be the best thing that happens to our giirls. There is at least one out there that I will always be grateful to.
Once early on in my teaching career, I told my 6th-grade band to ’sit down and shut up’, but in a nice way. They erupted! They were chanting, “Office! Office!” as if I needed to be sent to the principle. I was astonished. I had no idea that I had done anything so horrible. It was OK for them to be little hooligans ALL the time, but let the teacher loose it just a little just once, and you would think that I had beat them all with a stick! That is one of many reason why I got out of teaching.