A concerned mom enlisted the help of Santa Claus to stage an “intervention” to address her 4-year-old’s swearing.
Though many children are told not to swear, the reality is that swearing is a part of everyday life for millions of adults.
A survey of 1,500 U.S. residents, conducted by Preply, an online language-learning marketplace, found that the average respondent swore 21 times a day. The poll also found that 11 was the average age Americans began swearing.
In the U.S., Tommy Doyle’s swearing would be considered advance for his age, and his mom, Gemma Doyle, has a pretty good idea where he picked up his bad language.
“Definitely off my Mam, who visited last month from Ireland,” Doyle told Newsweek.
Doyle and her family recently moved to Perth, Australia, and while Tommy seemed to be taking the change to his surroundings in stride, Doyle said he had been “swearing a lot lately.”
Up until recently, his mom thought it was innocent enough. “He never used it in the proper context, so I figured he didn’t understand and was just looking for attention,” she said.
That changed after a recent trip to Kmart to get Halloween decorations. While they were shopping, Doyle told Tommy she was “so excited for Halloween,” and he replied, “Yeah, mam, I can’t f***ing wait.”
In the moment, Doyle decided: “We need an intervention here.”
Fortunately, she knew just the right man to help: Santa.
“He is really excited for Christmas this year and has mentioned Santa a few times to me,” Doyle said. “He randomly asked me a couple of weeks ago if Santa could see him when he wasn’t sharing with his brother, so the idea came to mind then.”
A plan was put in place: Doyle would collect Tommy from school with a letter from Santa himself. She decided to record the Christmas-themed intervention, figuring that “if it worked, it would be great for other parents and caregivers.”
Gemma_DoyleX/TikTok
In the clip, which Doyle post on her @gemma_doylex TikTok account, she can be seen reading the letter from Santa “writing to you from the North Pole.” In the letter, Santa tells Tommy how impressed he has been with how he’s settled into life in Perth.
“As it’s coming up to Christmas, we have been busy checking in on all the boys and girls to see how happy they are because we know that happy boys are good boys, and good boys deserve good things,” Doyle read, getting down to the business at hand.
“We understand when you get very excited you like to use big words starting with F, and we understand that sometimes adults let this word slip out by mistake, but this is not a word that lovely boys and girls should be using, so if you could try and stop using that word that would be amazing,” she continued.
The words appeared to get through to Tommy—though it must be noted that he let out a quiet utterance of the word “s***” after Doyle finished reading the letter and the camera filming them got knocked over.
He is also heard asking, “If I do it [swear] quietly, can he hear me?” Doyle replied, “He can hear everything.”
Despite those initial bumps, Doyle said the plan worked almost perfectly. “He really hasn’t said the f-word since,” she said. “He said it once but then said, ‘Sorry Santa.'”
