Looking on the bright side of things, if Discovery ever manages to air on the CBS broadcast network, we can get a delightful scene where they dub in something ridiculous over the curse words.
I found the way they chose to incorporate the word "fuck" into the dialogue in DSC to be completely natural and funny, and something I would readily do with my friends, family, or even certain coworkers, depending on the situation, obviously. Time and place and knowing your audience is important.
I like that they used it positively as an expression of awe and wonder at the amazing things they were doing, something which other Trek crews who had become somewhat jaded with space exploration had lost, and something I totally believe a young, socially awkward scientist would say. If they had used it negatively, like "I'm going to kill you fuckers" or "You're a fucking asshole" I would agree with it being somewhat gimmicky, but this was fun and lighthearted in the vein of Data's "Oh, shit" and seemed like a natural escalation from previous examples of cursing in Trek.
I think Scotty's use of "I bet that Klingon bitch killed her father" in
ST:VI was "worse" than this is (though it fit the context of the crew eventually overcoming their own bigotry), yet I've rarely heard many complaints about that. When I say worse, I don't mean I have a problem with it or with any of the very rare cursing in Trek, I'm just trying to compare them in terms of their relative severity in my opinion.
I can't imagine that there's an eight-year-old in America not raised by wolves or on an isolated compound who hasn't heard the word "fuck" already (or worse) from friends or schoolmates, and in a worse context than it was delivered here. I'm not going to judge anyone's parenting style or viewing habits, but I think the child will probably be just fine hearing this, and you can always take a moment to talk to them about how it's not appropriate for them to use that word until they're older.
Also, no one should have been caught by surprise by this. There were numerous articles and discussions about how this show was going to take advantage of the streaming service to feature more adult content than your average Trek series would. We talked about how CBS All-Access' previous broadcast to streaming spin-off
The Good Fight (based on
The Good Wife) featured f-bombs the broadcast series wouldn't have been able to air.
Anyway, I'm off to buy some guns at the supermarket, since apparently that's something we do here.