As a nurse, what is the most shocking statement you ever heard from a young child

Im not a nurse but a doctor. Well I remember the 12-year-old boy we had on the paediatric floor with a fractured shaft of femur. I was told by my boss to give him one or another antibiotic by I/V push. When I entered his room, he looked me up and down and then said “You, you’re that f*****g fat, they could feed the whole f*****g world off of you for three f******g years!!!” Now I take an American size 12, which is not exactly sylph-like but neither is it fat, by most standards.

My reaction to this was to leave his room at a dignified but speedy pace to head for the doctors’ lounge, where I could have a good belly laugh. I found it hysterically funny and it would not have been good for the boy to have seen me laughing. But at the same time, I was disgusted at this river of profanity that flowed unchecked from this child’s lips. And if his parents were there, they only egged him on to find new profanities with which to shock and upset the nursing and medical staff. For instance, I heard him shout “C’mere, you old bag of bones” to the head nurse. Most of his comments had to do with our weight or our figures for some reason.

When this little monster of a boy was discharged from hospital, we all breathed a sigh of relief. But later that year, I met him at the bus stop outside the hospital. he said “Hiya, fatty, I’m coming on your ward next week to have my metal taken out. I replied “it’s not my ward any longer K____, I’m on a new rotation. Guess what, the OR”. I made this statement as meaningful as I could, short of verbally threatening him.

I find it shocking that children are allowed to come out with such language as a matter of routine, Moreover, for its parents to encourage it to invent new insults with which to insult the staff who were there to care for their child is the utter end.