How can I expect the kids to respect themselves if I can't do it myself? They hear me yelling at myself, in incidents like the one described below––though around them I'm (usually) more careful about using swear words. 

Can they tell the difference between me yelling at myself and me yelling at them? I don't think so. A short while ago I forgot I had my roof rack on and drove my car underneath an awning, damaging the roof rack pretty badly. Man, did I swear up a storm. When I got finished, I looked at them in the back seat and saw the same fear in their eyes that I saw when my father swore up a storm. It was almost indistinguishable from the look in their eyes that I saw when I yelled at them.

"You know I'm not swearing at you guys, right?" I said, and they nodded. 

But the damage was done. They'd seen the real me inside, underneath the forced calm of my exterior. It wasn't as bad as that one time in Boston, but they've never seen me so demonstrably pissed off. At least they learned the proper use of swear words––have to look at the silver linings, right?