Yesterday, I was driving in the car with the kids when something hilarious happened. Dylan had made up a game where he would choose a letter and we would go back and forth naming words that start with that letter. The first letter that he chose happened to be the letter “f”. This humble letter which starts off fabulous words like fun, football, and fruit had me in stitches when I caught myself asking Dylan if he “had any other f – words for me”. Fortunately, despite the fact that I nearly wet my pants while laughing about that, Dylan did not catch on or ask why I thought that was so funny. You see, I have a terrible potty mouth, but for the past three and a half years I have been able to keep my language sparkling clean most of the time.
Anyways, as we got a little further down the road, it was my turn to say an f – word and I was fresh out of ideas. Yes, I had already mentioned fresh. Anyways, without thinking, I said “fart”. The look on Dylan’s face was priceless, as he asked me “Mommy, what does fart mean?” Despite the fact that I was laughing so hard that tears were running down my cheeks, I managed to explain to him that it was “simply another word for a toot”, which is what we had been calling such things. Of course, new words are like new toys and he started repeating it over and over, cracking himself (and me, I admit it) up every time. Eventually the newness wore off and we chose another letter, but that giggle fit got me to thinking about what, if anything, I should do about “potty talk”.
There are many different approaches that parents take to bathroom humor, and in thinking about what will work for me as a parent I also need to acknowledge that I find bathroom humor ridiculously amusing. Keeping that in mind, I know that any attempt to close the lid on toilet talk will certainly tank if I had a hard time keeping my own giggles from leaking out. Of course, I am a classy lady despite my penchant for potty humor and I realize that in certain situations “potty talk” is very much pooh – pooed. For example, no one wants to hear about bowel movements at the dinner table or listen to cracks about butts while we are out in public. Socially sensitive situations aside, though, I see no reason to wipe out potty talk if we are at home, in the car, or anywhere else appropriate. Only time will tell whether this approach prevents public potty prose, but I have a hunch that it may. My view is that if poo is not taboo, the topic will become less of a focus than it would be if it were something that Dylan knew was certain to cause a stink if he mentioned it.
What do you do about discussions regarding doo doo, and other related topics?
Photo by Oakland on morguefile.com.