ON PROTESTS AND SWEAR WORDS

Taking your kids to protests and sometimes swearing in front of them? What do these questions look like through the lens of the diaspora.

If you have read my blog before, it is possible you encountered the fact that for me Serbia’s culture, tradition and social context are essential elements in my children’s bilingual upbringing. To be precise, these topics help bring Serbian closer to them. They inspire our conversations and activities. They are also the way in which my children connect to that part of who they are, as well as people in Serbia. 

MY PAST

My memories of Serbian politics being mentioned in daily conversations go back to my early childhood. I guess the situation couldn’t have been different growing up in Serbia in the nineties. I remember the protests, protest walks, revolt, and later on noise making by banging saucepans. And these memories are not ugly. They remind me of my young parents, other members of the family, friends and their children. They remind me of the rebellion, unity and love. Of our childhood. 

THEIR PRESENT

For that reason, as well as the reality we live in, in Serbia and outside of it, I consider political protests an integral part of our Serbian identity. Therefore, it doesn’t come as a surprise that I have taken my children to protests whenever there was an opportunity for it. In Belgrade or in London. Of course, I did not take them to protests that were likely to turn out violent. But we did attend a considerable number of them!

Klara was only three when we took her to the protest against a lithium mine in Serbia. I remember how interested she was in all those colourful whistles being blown. My mum bought her her first, pink whistle. It accompanied us to many future protests, until it broke. And how did we explain what we were doing and why we were there to a three-year-old? In a short and clear way, suitable for her age. 

We continued explaining little by little, until she started getting a clearer picture. Still, suitable for her age. And Oliver? He attended protests from the time I was pregnant with him. Then from the pram. He enjoyed endless amounts of plazma¹ I kept feeding him so that he sits still. He also created his own understanding of the situation. Such that I can only hope he won’t make an inappropriate comment in front of the wrong people. 

TOO MUCH

I understand that there are those who think that involving Serbian politics into children’s lives in the diaspora is not necessary. That it is too much. Also, maybe it is a part of being Serbian they would gladly cancel from their lives. Because they can, because they have a choice, because they are not in the country. 

The same goes for swear words. 

TO SWEAR OR NOT TO SWEAR IN FRONT OF CHILDREN, THAT IS THE QUESTION

We often hear parents, Serbian or foreign, say they do not swear in front of their children. That they are horrified by any type of content that contains swear words. OK, I respect that. But Serbian is so creatively enriched with swear words that by negating them we deny our children access to one segment of the language that is so authentic to us. 

In her book “Memory Speaks: On Losing and Reclaiming Language and Self“, Canadian psycholinguist of Czech origin Julie Sedivy says that she regrets not knowing how to swear in Czech. ”I had never before felt like such a tourist to my mother tongue” she says, to explain a situation in which some Czech teenagers swore in front of her at a bus stop. She understood the meaning of swear words they were using, the one that you can google, but not why they chose to use them in front of her. “…were they mild enough to be uttered in front of an adult stranger?” she wondered. She didn’t know, because she couldn’t feel it.² 

It’s not that I swear in front of my children like crazy, but I do say “jebote“, “*bem mu mater“ or “u p* materinu“³ in the moments that naturally ask for that kind of reaction. I say naturally because my dad on occasion swore in front of us when we were children. Naturally because I “know when to use them and, above all, which ones to use in specific communicative situations.”⁴

PROUD MUM

I am therefore secretly proud when I hear Klara occasionally swear in Serbian. Unexpectedly, but appropriately. I almost always react in a way that shows surprise, but in the context of being familiar with her mother tongue, I am proud. Because she feels when to use them. 

IF NOT NOW, WHEN?

Each one of us of course knows what is best for their children. Each one of us has an idea on what kind of people we want our children to become. And that becoming starts in childhood. 

As with the swear words, if we don’t teach our children early that our politics is their concern, it’s unlikely they will advocate for it later in life. Let’s not forget that our children will have a right to vote in a decade or decade and a half. They should receive enough input and information now, so that they are able to decide for themselves in the future who to send to hell and who to give their vote to!

1. Serbia’s most popular biscuit. ↩︎
2. Sedivy, J. (2021), Memory Speaks, On Losing and Reclaiming Language and Self, The Belknap Press of Harvard University Press, 1st edition, p. 55-56. ↩︎
3. Various creative nuances of f*ck in Serbian. ↩︎
4. Costa, A. (2021), The Bilingual Brain, 2nd edition, Penguin Books, p. 125. ↩︎