When I was young, I never heard my parents swear. I never saw my mother read a book. I thought at first that’s just the way they were, but as I grew I learned that they were adjusting their behavior because of us kids.

Of course Dad knew swear words. He was an Air Force veteran, a guy, a person. But when my brothers and I were kids and he was angry, we heard “gol dangit,” “good grief” and (really) “ye gods and little fishies.” Mom didn’t even say those.

They got angry often enough. They were an arguing couple (kitchen cabinet slammers), as often exasperated as any parents. But it was a tone of voice thing instead of curses or insults. Occasionally Dad referred to an act of ours (or Mom’s) as “stupid,” and neither of them were above accusing me of laziness, dishonesty, or a complete lack of common sense, but we never heard “f–k” or “s–t” or any damning around our home.

And once, when I was around 10, Dad’s attempt to combine anger with self-censorship cracked us up.

Of course I don’t remember how Steve and I transgressed. The consequence was a very angry father, standing near us in the living room while we sat (not quite cowering but plenty intimidated) on the floor. He was so mad his face was bright red, his neck was stiff, and veins were prominent on his brow. His arms were aimed straight down, shaking a bit, and his hands were tight fists. He opened his mouth and shouted at us: “god dingit!”

I met Steve’s eyes then. We knew we were in trouble but we started to snicker. There was a moment of deadly silence and then we dared raise our faces to Dad. He was trying hard to maintain sternness, anger, composure. But he lost it. His mouth cracked a smile. And then we all laughed.

It’s delicious, how much more vividly I remember that event than any of his rages.

As for Mom, she wasn’t a big laugher. She didn’t compete with the rest of us for the Sunday comics and she never told jokes. But it turned out she did read. As soon as we’d all left the nest the woman began devouring novels. I knew then that she never read more than a magazine while raising us simply because she was too busy being interrupted by parenthood.

They did a good job.