Beren deMotier * writer * artist * human  

Parenting Position: Strong Stomach Required, Apply Within

            Frankly, one of the things I was thinking of least when considering the ultimate compatibility of the wife and I as co-parents, was our level of tolerance for grossness.  Certainly there was the obvious; who will be changing the diapers, and will they retch each and every time they do so?  Do either parties sneer at spit up, have difficulty with blood or blanche at mucus?  But beyond this my mind did not venture.

            Of course, we were both looking pretty weak in the stomach department when we were starting out on the parenting voyage eight years ago.  My wife, whose true nature will soon be revealed, has always admitted to being one of those people that is easily disgusted.  And I was similarly easy prey to my sadistic older sister who would reduce me to tears or worse with the skill of a professional.  However, when we were getting down to brass tacks on who would be popping and changing those babies, we knew it would be the one who used to clean a pet store for a living that would be more adept at the job.  And ten thousand diapers later, it’s true, it just doesn’t have the same thrill.  Any disgust you had in the early days is quickly numbed by fatigue and besides, how dare one be picky after you’ve been through childbirth in all it’s au natural glory.

            Which is not always easy for me, not being picky that is.  Despite my aforementioned willingness to be elbow deep in rodent cages, or diaper pails, I’m a pretty prissy gal in most ways.  There were only sisters in my family, and our mother was born of a woman with only sisters, she was born of a woman with only sisters, and on through the lineage.  All of them (here I’m doing some speculating) the same kind of hypersensitive, flatulence avoiding, too cerebral/ethereal for my body kind of woman.  Basically your born Victorians.  And so despite breaking masses of molds, coming out, clomping around in cowboy boots and not much else (the early years….), still, I am my mother’s daughter and I like things a little more refined thank you very much.

            My wife, as seems the natural order of things, is my polar opposite.  She’s a military brat, has lived all over the country, and has a more realistic, proletariat, some might say “childlike” attitude.  This has all come to a head because of three things: 1. We have a dog, a Boston Terrier, who snorts, burps, and, like any dog, brings all sorts of bodily functions to the foreground.  2. We have a seven year old boy who comes home from school singing songs about exterminating Barney and other, less lovely subjects, and is dying to try some uncivilized behavior at any junction.  And 3, We have a girl who can break wind at will, and does so in order to punctuate her comments with truly comic flair.  Add these together, mix with a mother who is “the fun one” and wallows in this stuff and we have a simply disgusting state of chaos around here.

            Recently, I tried to draw some lines in the sand.  On a car ride to the video store I tried once again to delineate the difference between “at home behavior with family only” versus behavior in front of any other adults, anywhere, anytime.  Our daughter started in with a string of pretty typical three-year-old potty talk and our son pretended to burp in rhyme.  I got serious.  I brought out the threat of the “cuss jar”.  This brought tears.  Our son doesn’t like to let go of his cash, not even for a few well-timed objectionable adjectives, most of which he only spells aloud at present.  He swore on my grave that we didn’t need to take his quarters to get him to change his ways. 

Days later, we were basically rehashing the same subject for the same reasons, and this time I told them I thought it was their Mama’s fault just as much as theirs.  She was encouraging them, and I’d have to get her to stop since it was causing them grief.

            You should have seen the tears.

            “But that’s what makes her Mama!  That’s what makes her so fun!” they wailed.  Faced with two distraught children who thought they were going to be robbed of their partner in crime, I caved, admitted that indeed, that was what made her “Mama, and so much fun.”  And after all, it would be no fun to have two mothers who were just the same, especially two like me, even if I do get to be “the love one”.

            Which leads me to the fact that during a recent kids’ video party I found myself surrounded by seven and eight year old boys belching the alphabet in unison around our kitchen table.  And I was smiling.

And so, years from now, when our children bring home prospective mates, and these mates are subjected to a jaw-rattling round of rude noises and doggy-snort imitations in sentimental memory of our experiences together, it’ll be a good proving ground.  Let them learn a lesson from us.  Get this issue on the table first, or you never know what will be happening at your table twenty years hence.