I drive for a living. So I see a lot of things that catch my attention. I often have my cell phone available, so I’m quick to snap a picture of whatever interesting sights I see. I’ve captured photos of both the Apple map car and the Google car navigating the streets. Then there was the car that had three huge six-feet or longer bananas on top of it that advertised some grocery delivery app. I’ve seen semi-trailers hauling hearses. I’ve seen semis hauling vintage farm equipment. But it’s the photo attached to this column that has generated a lot of conversation on social media from the moment I posted it.
Let me make it perfectly clear that I am not a proponent of placing such a sign on a car. For the life of me, I cannot understand why a mother would even consider such barbaric vulgarity. To reference an innocent baby, new to this world, in association with such a terrible, foul word is incredulous to me. A word whose original meaning referred to a female dog. And anybody who has ever seen a female dog go through heat knows that the dog’s sexual behavior — designed by mother nature to procreate for the continuation of the species — is not how human beings are biologically designed to behave (and when human beings do behave this way it’s by choice). As the top-of-the-line species of all the animals on this Earth, human sexuality is a lot different than that of the lesser animals. So for someone to proudly and voluntarily associate with such behavior is a testament to just how mindless of a society we’ve become. Whatever happened to class?
At the same time, I wonder if the woman driving the car would take kindly to a stranger asking if they can see what she has up in that b***? Or as I remarked to some individuals who told me that they wanted the sign or that they once had the sign on their car at one time, would they be offended if I asked them if it meant that they were pregnant? Many didn’t take kindly to that suggestion. But since they proudly like to profess to being one, it could be seen as the same thing.
I know it’s a generational divide that is at the foundation of how differently we see the sign. Those that didn’t have a problem with it, or liked it, tended to be in the 30 and under crowd. Those that understood the offensiveness of the sign, were 30 and older.
What bothers me is the continuation of associating the worst of behaviors and language with innocent children. I’m one who cannot stand the memes that feature young children that have been captioned with suggestive sayings or provocative sayings. Those type of images are designed to attribute adult behavior to children. Children are the future and as adults living in a responsible society, we should do all we can to protect the last vestiges of innocence that exist in this world. As a society and as a community we should try to do better.
