Son-Made Raisin

I spent most of my professional career as an executive in a male-dominated, Fortune 100 company.  Being a woman in such an environment is a tricky tap dance.  If you are too girlie, it is perceived as weakness; too brash and you are a bitch.  Many of the men are Neanderthals, but if you take it upon yourself to supervise their evolution you’ll find yourself noticeably excluded from meetings and task forces, a sure way to run your career aground.  If you take a militant feminist stance they will find you a job in a closet.

I tried very hard to stay true to my better instincts, even when I occasionally found myself surrounded by testosterone-addled morons.  The key was to let boys be boys without making them self-conscious that you were in the room.  On the other hand, the occasional nudge let them know when they were perilously close to crossing a line.  As a result, I tolerated a lot of harsh talk, more than my fair share of inappropriate jokes, too many football metaphors, thousands of hours of second-hand smoke, and countless hours bellied up to a bar.  I had a few survival tricks.  For example, I commonly ordered vodka and cranberry juice at the bar.  After one drink, I would switch seamlessly to cranberry with a twist without detection.  On more than one occasion I was praised for how well I “held my liquor,” matching drinks one-for-one with the best of them.  In the morning, I would be fresh and alert for the client while the guys were choking down aspirin and shaving their tongues.

There was one consequence for which I was unprepared.  Due to long term exposure, I developed an infectious case of “potty mouth”.  When my kids were very young I was more vigilant about word choice within range of their tender ears.  As they grew, we adopted the “Do as I say, not as I do” framework.   I found my kids to be nicely sanitized around the house, but later discovered the extent to which f-bombs flew from both their mouths in the locker rooms.  Now that they are college age, it is too late to institute the “cursing jar.”  Nevertheless, as we sat around with them over winter break, we found ourselves sharing our distaste for this unattractive mutual affliction.  

In a stroke of brilliance, my son proffered a suggestion:  let’s substitute another word for the f-bomb.  I loved his idea, adding my own suggestion that it should be a common yet incongruous word that would stick out hilariously as we use it.  My daughter took up the challenge.  “RAISIN,” she proclaimed, in her perpetually deadpan demeanor.  Thus agreed, we high-fived each other, congratulating ourselves on our raisin-good idea.   When my husband came home, we informed him of our collaboration, giving fair notice that raisin-potty mouth was no longer welcome in our home.  

It turns out that our agreement is a raisin-good plan.   It gave us a fun little game to play with our kids who are—let’s face it—no longer kids.   As we implemented the new vocabulary, it created unexpected common ground and a playful atmosphere around the house.  There was more giggling and less swearing—a win for Mom on all counts. 

Now back at their respective colleges for winter term, the raisin plan lives on.   The kids and I seldom talk by phone, but “raisin” has found a new place in our texting lexicon.   My son declares he is "so raisin-prepared" for his midterms; my daughter "kicked [her opponent's] raisin butt" in fencing.  One good thing we have discovered is that the spell checker on our cell phones does not try to turn “raisin” into some alternate G-rated word.  It also is fun to coin new texting phrases, such as WTR, or LMRAO.  I suppose at some level, we really have not curbed our need for extra-grammatical expletives, but we certainly are having a raisin-good time!

Tomorrow's blog:  Getting in the Write Mind