Parents' 14 favourite swear word alternatives

We asked our Facebook community for their fave swearing substitutes and here’s what they came up with. We are loving these memorable, mischievous words that are (mostly) kid-friendly.

1. ‘Shiver me timbers!’ There’s no crisis if this gets repeated at school, it’s just a playful pirating phrase, right? Arrrgh.

2. ‘Motherfuschnickin!’ This is a rather nonsensical new word we’ve added to our vocab. We’ve lumped this one in the word family with Mary Poppins’ ‘supercalifragilisticexpialidocious’.

3. ‘What the fluff!’ Such a cute little phrase, full of bunny tails and doggy ears. We all know what’s lurking behind that furry coat of fun.

4. ‘By crikey!’ Step into the age of Dickens and poor yourself a cup of tea with this one. What sophisticated language!

5. ‘Shi-take mushrooms!’ This is a fave of Gordon Ramsay, who’s cooked up a storm of swear word alternatives, including ‘fructose’ and ‘asparagus’. We like to call this one tasteful cursing.

6. ‘Cheese and rice!’ We’re loving the food theme here, just make sure you don’t say this one at church.

7. ‘Shut the front door!’ If ‘shut-up’ has become a naughty word in your household, then you’ll love this one. It totally applies in the mad rush of leaving the house in the morning.

Other honourable mentions (that we really had to share) go to…

8. ‘Fudge!’

9. ‘Shighzen!’

10. ‘Gosh darn mudder fudder.’

11. ‘Shishkebabs!’

12. ‘Little ship.’

13. ‘Fire truck’ or ‘fire tanker!’

14. ‘Mother forklift!’

Seriously, how could these not give us a little giggle in a stressful moment.

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