Potty Training and Confidence

We grown-ups tend sometimes to look at confidence as a liability; like it’s something someone does to us. Either that or we look at it like something we should apologize for if we have too much of it. But potty training changes all that. And lots more.

Potty training, for instance, is not a scam. It’s the real deal. Daddy is not bullshitting you when he tells you you’ll regret taking a crap in those pants. He’s not trying to pull the wool over your eyes, he’s trying to pull the underwear off your tiny hiney in time to avoid something unfortunate happening, and since when did your wee little cheeks become like Velcro, boy? Only when it’s urgent that the underpants are removed as quickly as possible do they protest—personificationatively—as if they suddenly acquired political aspirations and picket signs, shouting as they cling to your waist, “Hell no! We won’t go!” Which means you can’t go, at least with perfect freedom. So go ahead then. Take a dump all over the picket line. It’s strangely satisfying, and in more ways than one.

Beating the porcelain menace is a big job. To pervert an old Ford slogan, it’s “job one.” And two as well, in this case, at least from time to time. It’s not just a big deal to little kids. And especially boys, who seem to have an especial and near-dangerous conflictedness about the potty. They fear/loathe it. They tend to look at their equipment as a toy, for instance, rather than from a purely utilitarian point of view. And when they make “big potty” or “big stinky poo” their interest in what’s been done strays a little too close for comfort to wide-eyed interest. “No,” I sigh, “that’s not a toy.” A little too much confidence.

Other miscellaneous quotes? Here’s a few:

“No. No! No! NONONONONONO! Don’t touch that! Not until you wash your hands—ohhh-kay, that is nasty.”

“Sweetheart, that’s—no. You don’t play with that.”

“Are you sure you don’t have to go? You’re sure. Positive.”

There’s such a thing as false confidence, too; you do know that, right. Yes. Yes, you do. There’s nothing like going through an entire fire drill, just as an illustration, and completing it satisfactorily and dismissing the “student body” to “class” only to discover mere moments later that the “fire department” showed up anyway and decided to hose down the living room carpet on a lark. Hilarious. Oh, my side. No please. Stop. You’re killing me, really.

It’s important for little kids to become big kids, and the potty is the swirling rite of passage in so many ways. One doesn’t want to have to go through life Depending. At least not until one’s own subsequent children have grown up enough to provide a little reciprocation in the sanitation department if needed, anyway. But gaining profound understanding is just as important for the grownup facilitators (perpetrators) of this crazy idea of sitting on a chair with a freaking hole in it. How weird is that? It’s so much easier to just crap your pants. Trouble is it weighs heavy on the social agenda from time to time. We all know that, and I could tell the crap out of even more potty jokes if I wanted to. What I’m driving at here is that potty training can be instructive for the one doing the training too.

While it’s humorous sometimes, and heartwarming too, to see how my youngest handles his emancipation from the diaper, I nevertheless find ways to apply his experiences to my own life. What impossible change am I staring down in my own life, in other words? There are things about which I complain to God endlessly. Things about which I assert to Him, “it’s impossible,” in so many ways. Things in which I need a little more confidence. Not too much. Just enough. I still take a dump in my pants from time to time, figuratively, but messes can be cleaned and baths can be taken and clothes washed and the day started over with fresh kit. To a point. I reckon it’s all about gaining enough ground to be able to stand on your own. Clean, dry, and proud. Confident about one’s confidence.