When I opened my paper Monday morning, I became concerned when I saw an article about this week being “Cuss Free Week.”

What the fudge?!

You see, I can be quite the potty mouth.

As I read on, though, I discovered that it only applied to California. What a freaking relief!

But it got me thinking. Why do I cuss anyway? Is it all that bad? Does it hurt our kids in some way?

I started to do a little research and I opened up a discussion on The National At-Home Dad forum.

According to Steven Pinker, a leading researcher on language and cognition and a Johnston Family Professor of Psychology at Harvard, cussing is “used to attract attention, to shock or to inflict psychic pain on a listener.” Read more here.

But I don't think that reason explains why when I stub my toe on the footstool, I instinctively say “SH@#!” Perhaps, that's just a bad habit.

I do know, though, that I am definitely trying to attract attention and shock my kids when I cuss AT them. After the tenth time telling them to put their dirty clothes in the laundry basket, I have been known to say, “Put your F-ing clothes away!”

I usually don't have to tell them an eleventh time.

But is it bad? Pinker further explains that, “When used judiciously, swearing can be hilarious, poignant and uncannily descriptive.” Daddyfever agrees in his post on athomedad.org: “I like to think of swear words as cayenne pepper: a fantastic spice in small amounts.”

Clearly, cussing is a part of our culture and experts and non-experts alike seem to agree that there are acceptable ways to use a naughty word. However, if there are acceptable ways to use one, there must be unacceptable ways.

Adults learn over time when it may be OK to call someone an a-hole. Children, according to Yale's Paul Bloom in an interview on National Public Radio use words instinctively. They don't have the capability to know whether a word is appropriate or not. This is probably not a shock to any parent who has heard his or her child use one -- and at just the wrong time.

So where do children usually learn these naughty words?

Yep, you guessed it.

Us.

A survey by youngpoll.com that was reported in The Telegraph found that nine out of 10 kids in England learned to cuss from their folks.

SAHpops from athomedad.org can relate. After blurting out “GOD D*** IT!” in a frustrated moment, his 1-year old daughter instantly began repeating it. “She knew when to use it, too," he wrote. "Any time she was frustrated, tired or did not want to be removed from whatever she was doing, she would shout that one out. Got the tone and volume right as a bonus...”

Does any of this cussing hurt our kids, though?

Rabbi Shmuley thinks so. On Oprah Radio a couple years ago, he explained that, “Hearing bad words defiles a child's core humanity – it makes them coarse and vulgar.”

Sixteen-year-old McKay Hatch couldn't agree more. He founded the No Cussing Club in 2007 and lobbied the California Assembly to declare the first week in March to be “Cuss Free Week.” The reason, he explains on his Web site is that, “The words we use affect how we feel about ourselves, how others react to us and how others feel about themselves.”

All of this leads me to believe there is little good reason to cuss at, or in front of, our kids. Adults, maybe. Kids, probably not.

But what do you think? Are you a potty mouth? Does it harm our kids? And if I stop cussing, how am I going to get them to clean up their freaking room?!

Al Watts is vice-president of Daddyshome, Inc. – The National At-Home Dad Network and an at-home dad of four children living west Omaha.

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