Hamish Blake has revealed the surprising swearing rule he and his wife Zoe Foster Blake have set for their two young kids.
The comedian explained how he’s been teaching his 12-year-old son Sonny and daughter Rudy, aged eight, about the limits of swearing and how to use cuss words responsibly.
‘Swearing in our household, obviously the kids aren’t allowed to swear. (But) they love the concept of swearing,’ Hamish told his Hamish & Andy podcast co-hosts Andy Lee and Jack Post.
‘Zoe and I tried not to (swear) for a while but that slipped. After the first few times when the kids catch you swearing under your breath or something and they’re like (gasping), you just get a bit over that.
‘You know what? I can (swear). Stop policing me, it’s annoying. I can do it, mum can do it. We’re grown-ups, we kind of know how to do it appropriately.’
Knowing that swearing was inevitable under his roof, Hamish said he jokingly came up with a rule that allowed the kids to swear in one designated spot.
‘We have a rule. There’s a waterslide park we like to go to – it’s a few hours out of Sydney. And there’s a ride there that’s a dark tunnel,’ he said.
‘Just for the fun of it, I go… “In the tunnel, we can swear”.’
Hamish Blake has revealed the surprising swearing rule he and his wife Zoe Foster Blake have set for their two young kids
Andy and Jack burst out laughing as Hamish revealed that his children get excited knowing they’re allowed to swear in public – but only in the dark tunnel, where presumably nobody can tell who’s responsible for the outburst.
‘It makes me laugh so much to hear Rudy,’ Hamish said, laughing.
‘She can’t get them out fast enough.’
Rather than simply banning cuss words altogether, Hamish said that his kids can say ‘whatever they want’ in the tunnel but once they emerge, their swearing time is up.
Andy couldn’t control his laughter, as he suggested: ‘You’d hear some odd combos I’d imagine as Rudy tries to go through what she can remember.’
Many parents chimed in, with one mum sharing as she laughed: ‘I told my kids they’re allowed to swear once they’re as tall as me.’
‘My son is told not to swear, yet if he really needs to he can in the house. And only in the house for a good reason – dropping something on his foot for example,’ another said.
Many shared their amusing stories about their kids swearing.
The comedian explained how he’s been teaching his 12-year-old son Sonny and daughter Rudy, aged eight, about the limits of swearing and how to use cuss words responsibly
‘My five-year-old knows the naughty words and doesn’t say them unless she asks (she will say, “Mum can I say a naughty word?” I usually say yes),’ one mum shared.
‘However her two-year-old sister has just started repeating words without knowing the meaning. So at a friend’s house the other day, she dropped a cookbook on the ground and it made a loud bang noise, to which she shouted “f***ing hell”.
‘We all p***ed ourselves.’
One dad shared: ‘In our house they’re called “daddy words” and the kids have been told that if they ever hear a daddy word, it’s their responsibility to chide whoever said the word (especially if it was in fact daddy).
‘I’ve always had a sailor’s mouth and have dreaded that I might one day have a six-year-old dropping F’s and S’s. Instead, they never swear, and slowly my own bad habits are improving too.’
Meanwhile, one parent shared a sneaky way to prevent her kids from swearing.
‘My kids asked why we don’t get Santa presents, I said maybe because we swear,’ the mum said.
While another mum said she loved one dad’s rule where he only allows his children to swear once a week so they ‘really think about when and where to use it’ and which particular cuss word to use.
