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Although people would usually point to Bruce as the patriarch of the manor, that honor would have to go to Alfred. He was their grandfather, father, and the only completely stable emotional pillar they had. It was a lot on one person. Which was why, when figuring out how to balance the roles of a butler and a dad, Alfred had banned swears but allowed Batman.
Maybe it was the ex-military thing. Either way, it had created an environment where they'd be scolded for knife fights at worst and had to put Bruce's money in the swear jar very, very often. Gotham, if they were asked, would say they couldn't imagine the dark and broody batman being bound to a swear jar, of all things. And yet.
He was.
It started shortly after the fateful day in a dark alley.
"what would your parents think about such language, master bruce?"
But the pain of using the Waynes as a means of guilt and better behavior for Bruce couldn't last. Alfred couldn't besmirch their memories like that.
Thus the swear Jar was introduced. Something that worked simply because it shocked bruce the first time Alfred introduced it.
Batman had barely been going for three weeks, when it happened. He'd gotten shot by some thug trying to prove himself to his friends, apparently, and the new furry in town was a better target than pre-established criminals like the Falcones.
"Fuck," Bruce hissed. The wound was large and grotesque, and he had never pulled out a bullet before this. It hurt. It hurt a lot.
Alfred, however, once he was done bandaging him up, eyed his ward even as he was covered in his blood. He had been raised in England before, during, after, and during the war; swearing was worse than gunshots. It was impolite .
From out of nowhere--a jar was procured. There, in plain sharpie, were the words 'SWEAR JAR' written on it. It looked impossibly old and yet brand new. He jingled it in front of Bruce's face. "Master Bruce," He scolded, "Such words will not be tolerated in this household."
Bruce just stared at him, dumbfounded. This wasn't- he didn't swear much as a kid. He didn't even swear much now, and he was a grown man! "I'm not putting my money in that, Alfred-"
He jangled the jar in front of him again. "Unless you don't want dessert?"
Betrayal. This was betrayal, Alfred was disowning him, now Batman would have to figure out how to be Batman without his cooking. To a 23 year old man, this was the worst possible outcome. Bruce, not to be outdone in the ways of procuring items from out of thin air, tossed a dollar into the jar, all whilst sulking extra hard to really drive it home how much he did not like this jar.
Infuriatingly, Alfred just placed the jar off to the side, smug.
The jar started to become a permanent fixture in Bruce’s life, and soon, he started self censoring. No one was quite sure what to make of it; Not when the henchmen kept hearing Batman mutter ‘shucks’ and ‘bloody hell’ when he was severely wounded.
When Bruce had picked up a kid from the circus, Alfred doubled down on the swear jar. Dick had never seen nor used such a jar before, and although he wasn’t the type to swear, he’d started slipping foreign swear words just to see if the butler would notice. He did. Every time. Even the Romani swears.
Dick was 80% certain Alfred didn’t know Romani–it would have been a 100 but the swear jar ruined it completely and he was, if not, a child of questionable science.
Whenever one of Bruce’s new kids asks about the swear jar, or was shocked when their way of circumventing the rules didn’t work, Tim, he just responds with an exhausted sigh and an “I don’t know.”
It was the only thing he would ever admit to not knowing.