Barnacles!

I love Spongebob Squarepants. It's a silly cartoon that doesn't ever get too gross, although I admit lots of times they push the envelope. Well, at Christmas my son got a Spongebob music CD called The Best Day Ever. It has lots of fun and funny songs on it, and he (and his parents!) really enjoy it! But today one of the songs came up in my random playlist and it gave me pause:

We all know that the alphabet has 26 letters... count 'em!
You can mix and match to make many nouns and verbs
But if you say the wrong one to your mama, it may upset her
So in Bikini Bottom, we have a word that's preferred

We just say "barnacles"
It's a word that's okay to scream
When you want to let off some steam
And say what you really mean
We just yell "barnacles"
And go on our merry way
Barnacles is the way we say what they say we can't say.

A cute lyric, isn't it? The music is cute, too... click here to listen to a clip. The only problem is that Jesus made it clear that evil comes from the inside, and although it may be displayed on the outside, the evil is really in the heart. I don't actually see anyplace in the Word where it specifically says that some words are evil, but I do see that it says anger (which is not of the "righteous" kind) is evil. So if I shout "barnacles!" in anger, is that any better than shouting "s**t!"? Sure, the word "barnacles" is less likely to offend those around me, but if the anger is there, the anger is there... and that's where the sin lies.

The reason that the song gave me pause today is that it struck me as a good way to teach children to swear at an early age. Once you are used to releasing your anger through speech, it's that much easier to start doing it with real profanity later. I won't take away my son's CD... I don't think it's inherently malevolent (well, except for Plankton, but that's his job!) , but it's one more thing that as parents we might have to deal with later. Thank you too much, Nickelodeon.