It’s hard to keep a secret diary when you can’t spell “keep out.”

My six-year-old huddled over her new sparkly pink book, painstakingly sticking the tiny key in the lock. She popped her head up when I walked into the room. “Don’t LOOK!” she shouted. “It’s my diary!”

I raised my hands in innocence. “I have no plans to read your diary.” I worked hard not to snicker and passed through to the kitchen.

Moments later she stuck her head around the corner, blond hair falling on her cheek. “How to you spell ‘secret?’” she asked.

Again I stifled a laugh and gave her the letters.

“Not so fast!” she climbed up on the stool and spread open the pages to her book. I could see in big letters, the words “CEP OWD.” Below it she scrawled the letters to “secret.”

I know everything that she writes in there, not because I snoop (although she has me keep the extra key in case she loses the other – I am, apparently, safe) but because she asks me to spell everything.

So for this Flashback Friday, I tugged out my own first dairy, given to me for Christmas in 1978, when I was eight years old. The first entry is a microcosm of that entire period of my life:

New Year’s Day we all stayed at home, all except Daddy. Dad went hunting without us.

Later in the day, the water went out, and we had to go without water. When dad came home, he knew he would have to get some water soon. I could not go to school in the morning because we did not have any water, so I could not take a bath. I wish I could though. I LOVE PATRICK!

It’s all there, on January 1, 1979. You can read between the lines about my home life, and we how we barely could eek out an existence in the middle of the country.

What I do love about it, though, is how no matter how bad things got (and eventually they would get pretty bad indeed), I always counted on love. Still do.

Over on Verla Kay’s Children’s Literature boards, we had an intriguing discussion about the use of swear words in young adult books. Published writers and author hopefuls all weighed in on when, if, and how much it was appropriate to curse in books targeted for teens.

As a former teacher of both middle and high school, I know fervent language is a rite of passage among even the most well behaved kids. While I didn’t allow it in my classroom, we had a rule in the darkroom. While in the pitch black, holding sensitive but squirrelly rolls of film in our hands, trying to load the tight coils onto a wheel for development, we agreed that “if the film hits the floor, any words you say cannot and will not be held against you.”

Teacher included.

I’ve been wondering myself when and how to let the kids get exposed to language. It crops up unexpectedly, even in movies targeted for small children. I remember well the shocking moment in Stuart Little when an alley cat uttered a four-letter word. Kids pick up on new sounds and often roll them around their mouths, or tuck an interesting sounding word away to repeat at a bad moment.

So we sat at Jason’s Deli, and I asked them if they knew any bad words. Emily insisted she didn’t, although in 4th grade, I felt certain she had been exposed.

“Really?” I pressed her. “Nothing? It doesn’t matter to me. I’ve heard everything and you won’t be in trouble.”

Still, she shook her head.

“I have!” piped up Elizabeth, newly minted in 1st grade. This did not surprise me at all.

“Well, out with it!” I said. “I want to hear which one!”

She dropped her eyes to her mac and cheese. “No.”

“Hmmm,” I said. “I’d really like to hear it.”

She still said no.

“Well, what does it start with?”

Elizabeth thought for a moment, straining to recall her spelling, which was still new. “S,” she said finally.

“Well, is it ’s’ like snake or ’sh’ like share?”

She seemed confused by this.

“Is the next letter ‘u’?” I asked.

She didn’t want to answer anything. So I pondered s-bombs for a bit, then suddenly realized the word. “Elizabeth, is the word stupid?”

She snapped her head up. “Don’t say that!” she hissed.

I honestly tried not to laugh. “Stupid is not a bad word!”

When she continued to scowl, I persisted. “You shouldn’t call someone stupid, and that is not nice. But stupid is just a word to describe something you find to be less than smart. Like a stupid rule.” (As in a rule about not using stupid, I thought, but didn’t say. It’s one thing to keep children playing nice, another to remove language to accomplish that. Makes me think of Newspeak.)

She still flinched every time I used the word. We finished dinner, me trying not to laugh and wondering how to get across the difference between actual swearing and mean words. I guess I have a bit of time left before the true four-letter words start to fly.

Maybe I should get them some good books.