a sensitive subject.......

i'd like to present an idea concerning our younger posters. if we enter a forum and see a thread where a youngster has posted and used, oh let's say, a four letter word, let's not jump to judgment. my experience is that a poster could be in a great deal of pain and that their posting style felt appropriate at the time. if we do criticize sad poster, we are pretty much asking them to leave the forum. young adults don't always think before typing. in some cases, we might even cause that poster to act upon their impulses..that has happened here and i'm just sick about it..please be gentle with the younger ones....thanks, pat

I agree this generation uses the 4 letter words like us older generation used slang like ( dang)

I still use the four letter words and I'm 31. (SLAPS MY HAND) Thanks Pat for bringing this to our attention. I dont think we realize this sometimes.

i'm 61 and i use them!!!! thanks so much for your thoughtful replies.

I use them to express the intensity of my feelings sometimes.

what is really, really sad is that the criticism caused a unfortunate impulse that can't be taken back now. ~~read, stop, think, respond~~

and don't be judgemental, we all have been there
Angie

I agree with you TOTALLY Pat, it is so SAD that someone in pain cannot come here no matter what age and voice their pain and not be critized in any way...I know I do my BEST.... because I do NOT like it when it is done to me it causes me INTENSE anxiety and I have been fighting my urges all weekend long too.
GREAT POST PAT WTG!!!!

your post brought tears to my eyes...thank you, pat

Well, I recall a recent post of mine entitled what the f...... Some nice moderator cleaned it up for me and nothing was said. No shame, no humiliation. And you know what? Those forbidden words sometimes can convey the intensity of the feeling better then any other way I have learned. Okay, now a funny storie. My 20 year old son was not quite 3 when we were returning from the inlaws at Thanksgiving. I was quite pregnant and we hit a deer. We ended up at a motel near there and the next morning my father in law came up to take our damaged car with the blown out windows etc and give us his to get home with. The deer jumped and broke 3 windows. Anyway, at breakfast grampa asks my little boy what happened and he said: "that f"in deer". I about crawled under the table. Poor baby had been asleep and the glass was all over him. But I also almost peed my pants because it was too funny. I wonder where he heard that word? They are just words. I agree with Pat and hope to be non-judgemental in my responses.

i don't know if i would have had the nerve to get on the internet and ask for help, when i was 16-17..i bet a lot of our posters can agree with me. when someone does reach out, we need to reach back. a heart that is touched by someone who cares, is lifted up and becomes stronger..........xoxox pat

Pat, Honey, we had no internet when we were 16-17. Heck, I read your post about the mule team and thought wow, it has not been so long and look at the technology.

Aack! I tried to reply to this and my post got lost in cyberspace! Don't you hate that! I even realized that was going to happen because it was taking so long, and tried to copy it, but was too late.

Pat, I feel that you have a legitimate concern here, about considering the feelings and reasons behind language like that. Sometimes it is more important to hear those emotions than it is to give a lesson in language or morality. I think I know the thread you are referring to, and that was the decision I made when I saw it.

That said, impolite language can be a trigger to some (and using it as the title of a thread makes it unavoidable). It bothers me. My parents were not perfect, but I can say that I never heard them swear, and I never picked up that vocabulary, and I am glad for that. As a mod, if I can see a way to clean up a post and still allow the member's emotions to be expressed, I will do it. What do you all think of that? Sometimes there isn't really any other content, and changing certain words would leave nothing behind. I feel that there are more effective ways to express emotions, and I wish that people, regardless of age, would learn other ways to communicate their feelings. Is there any way that both sides could come together on this and be a little more considerate of each other?

Pat, thanks for being concerned.

you could have replaced fu<k with #$%^....what bothered me about that, was the ENTIRE post that was made by poster that followed the plea for support. i understand that the word can bother people and i'm fine with it being replaced with symbols.

I know I'm guilty as charged when it comes to swearing in posts that I make (I'm almost 30, and cuss like a sailor ). Often times, it's not meant to offend, just venting frustrations. I do, however, try to remember to 'censor' myself...but, to err is human. I can't say that the younger members offend me when they let some 4-letters fly. Sadly, it's part of society, as I hear my teenage cousin and his football buddies use the "F" word as part of normal vocabulary, the HS kids in the neighborhood when they get off the bus after school. I think F***er is a term of endearment to some of the younger people in my area. It's kind of sad really, when you stop to think about it. I remember having my mouth washed out with Ivory soap for swearing when I was younger.

Thank you for the eye-opening perspective, Pat. I think we all need it once in a while.

Hugz and Much Love,
Jenn

I am hoping we can all be a bit more tolerant of everybody's short comings. I know I have my share, as I am sure everybody else does too.

Words don't bother me but I agree with Rap in that they can sometimes bother others. Perhaps we can reach a happy medium...those who use the words could stop and consider others and those who read the posts could take the emotions into consideration.

I like the stop and think approach. If a post angers me I try and not respond either at all or at least right away.
Sometimes I have to stop and remember it is not always about me.

Thank you for the post.

I am not familiar with the particular situation under discussion. I have put one or two younger users on ignore when I couldn't handle their language at the place I was in.

I, too, used to use a lot of bad language when I was young and rebellious. Now, I don't. Foul language has become the norm. It is not rebellious. It is more rebellious to insist on civility.

I agree that a hurting post is not the appropriate place to give that lesson. That's why I will put a user on ignore, if the language is so offensive that I am not able to deal with it at that point in time.

I do think that there needs to be a balance between both set of needs. I think the mods do a good job at that tightrope act. Yeah, Mods!

I'm getting ready to go to work but I wanted to take the time to add something to this thread.

We have moderators here who do a very good job. Asking them to step in, if you are uncomfotable makes much more sense to me than what happened yesterday.

We've had a discussion lately that concerned not feeling comfortable going to a new forum and offering support. Someone stated that they wouldn't know what to say. Offer support, if you're so inclined, and move on.....and let me assure you that I do not feel like an expert here on offering support. Sometimes I absolutely do not know what to say and it makes me feel sad, but I move on. I do not believe that I should be surfing forums just to post some "wisdom"..that possibly I don't have for that situation.

This got to be much longer than I intended. But waking up at 3:45 a.m. sorta addles my brain....I rambled and probably repeated something that I said last night. I just don't want us to inflict more pain, on a teenager, that hurts more than we can imagine. If someone has no home support, no school support and they come here..let's give them what others haven't, an open heart and an atmosphere where they feel safe.