This morning, coming home from the pool, Sophia announced, “I’m going to wear my bride hat at the dinosaurs.” By “the dinosaurs” she meant the memorial that was erected by a local eagle scout in honor of the dinosaur that was discovered several blocks away from our home. There’s a plaque, a picnic table, and a rag tag set team of plastic dinosaurs, which on-your-honor you can play with and leave behind for the next visitor. By “bride hat” she meant the veil that was in the bag of hand-me-down goodies dropped off by Aunt Emily yesterday.
“Oh? Who are you going to marry?” I asked, bemused.
“Daddy,” Sophie said, without hesitation. And then, as an afterthought, “or Jan [Emily’s charming, silly, sunny boy with whom Sophie is enamored]. He’s a really nice boy.”
I was hurt. Jan I can understand. But why daddy? Why not me? I’m a catch. I cook. I clean. I arrange splendid playdates and outings.
I was afraid I already knew the answer. Still I had to ask: “Why don’t you want to marry me?”
“Because, Mom-Moms, I have to marry a boy. Girls marry boys. Daddy is a boy.”
Just as I suspected.
Kevin and I have been very careful not to articulate expectations that she will date, fall in love with, marry or grow up to be with a person of one sex with the other. We wanted to avoid transmitting the message that a heterosexual relationship is the only kind of relationship. Should it so happen that she’s gay, we want her to look back and know that the only thing we ever cared about was that she would wind up with someone who loves her, edifies her, and with whom she is happy.
My own parents did a good job of this. Gay was normal. Our neighbors were a same-sex couple who ran a kennel for miniature schnauzers. We’d go over to their house at Christmastime—their home was built during the American Revolution and had slits in the walls where you could hide behind and stick a gun through. It was always beautifully decorated and they served us hot cocoa and had little gifts for us. And every summer we went to Cape Cod. We spent our nights in Provicetown where we watched transvestite parades and hung out in feminist bookstores and vacationed alongside families of a variety of configurations.
Thus, I try to speak in general terms, if at all, when I talk to Sophie about a romantic future “one day, when you meet someone you fall in love with….blah blah blah.” She knows male-female couples as well as male-male couples and female-female couples. Still, somehow, she has picked up on the hetero-dominant model.
I blame the princesses. Cinderella mooning over Prince Charming, Aurora waiting for Prince Phillip to ride in on his steed, Ariel sacrificing her fish tail to be with landlubber Prince Eric. Where are the lesbian princesses? The gay princes? Surely they are out there. Certainly there are stories where the princess ditches the prince (The Paper Bag Princess), and stories where princesses eschew their dainty image (The Princesses have a Ball, Atalanta in Free to Be You and Me), and even where princesses kick some royal butt (The Princess Knight), but none that I know of that propose a same-sex romantic path.
Which means it’s up to us. “Sophia.” I reply, “You know, not every girl marries a boy. And not every boy marries a girl. Some girls marry girls. Some boys marry boys.”
“Oh,” responds Sophie, “You can mix and match. Boys with girls. Girls with boys.”
Not my point.
I can see that this is only the beginning of a long conversation we will have over time.
Showing posts with label princesses. Show all posts
Showing posts with label princesses. Show all posts
Sunday, August 7, 2011
Sunday, October 10, 2010
We Don't Poop on Princesses
Who is responsible for the invention of pull-ups? Wherever you are, I have a bone to pick with you. These objects of modern convenience are the bane of my existence. They are the limbo of toilet learning—not quite diaper, not quite big girl underwear, they do nothing to promote pooping in the potty.
The fantasy:
1. That pull-ups would allow Sophia to be more independent as she learned to toilet—pulling them up and
down herself
2. I would avoid the unpleasantness of “accidents.”
The reality:
1. It is much much harder to clean a child who has pooped in a pull-up than one who has pooped in a diaper. It has to do with removing and containing the hazardous waste. In fact, I am contemplating writing up a step-by-step process to post for first timers as a public service.
2. A friend related this story, which basically sums up my main beef with pull-ups. Her two-year-old daughter, who is quite verbal, would ask before she eliminated: “Am I wearing a pull up or underwear?”
Yes, pull-ups allow our children to wallow in their own filth as long as they please, which, in the case of my daughter is “until I’m three,” as she announced yesterday. Once again, I assert, if a child can tell you when she is planning on being toilet trained, he/she is perfectly capable of doing it.
So, I bit the bullet. I went to Target, and—against my better judgment and all my principles—I bought the damn princess panties. I am very tempted to go into a princesses rant here, but I’ll save it for another day. Suffice it to say that I have nothing against royalty in general, I do have an issue with Disney marketing their products to my daughter from infancy and that she, along with every other girl I know, is able to recognize the brand pre-lingually. But I digress. She carried her precious princess panties all the way to the register and set them down gently on the conveyor belt. The whole time I babbled alongside her, “Now Sophia. On Wednesday we are DONE with diapers. That’s it. No more pull-ups. You are going to wear your princess panties from here on in. And there is a rule associated with wearing princess panties: We don’t pee or poop on princesses!” I was rather proud of myself. This seemed fairly straightforward and sensible. Sophie repeated what I said, internalizing the rule: “No Pooping on Princesses!” “That’s right,” I reinforced. “Very good. Starting Wednesday, we are just going to pee and poop in the potty.” “I will do my poops in the potty like a big gurl!” Sophie declared.
If this does the trick, it will be worth the sacrifice.
Of course, she wanted to put them on right away when we got home. I thought it was wise to build the suspense a little. “Nope.” I said, “we’ll start on Wednesday.” A tantrum ensued. “I want my princesses!” “Wednesday,” I repeated. “You know what you have to do.”
The next morning, she woke up dry, peed in the potty, and told me, “Mommy, no pull-ups. I’m done with pull-ups.”
“Really?” I asked.
“Yes!” She said. “I want my princess panties.”
“Okay,” I relented. Pulled them out of their hiding place. She chose Cinderella. The blue-eyed blond. I felt another pang of liberal guilt.
Sophia donned the panties. She stayed clean and dry throughout the morning, her nap and her time at the babysitters, gleefully whipping her pants down to display her hidden treasure for anyone with a pulse.
Maybe this wasn’t such a good idea.
I picked her up from her babysitter and announced that we were going to the Discovery Museum. “Hooray!” she said. I reminded her that no matter what we were doing, if she felt the urge to go, she needed to tell me. “There will be plenty of time to play, but we also have to make time for the potty.” “Okay,” she old me.
I tried when we got there. She obliged, but she didn’t have to go. I checked in with her at multiple points. Each time she insisted, “I don’t have to.” We were in the diner and I was serving her a strawberry milkshake when she assumed sumo position.
“SOPHIA!” I shouted. “WE DON’T POOP ON PRINCESSES!” Oh yes. I did.
But it was too late. There was no stopping her now. “I’m pooping! I’m pooping!” she cried, as I lifted her, still in squatting position, and ran with her to the girls room. As I pulled down her pants, one errant poo dropped down and rolled across the floor.
“Damn it!” Whoops. Did I say that aloud? I did my best to contain the mess and myself. I silently cleaned her up. Sometimes, it’s best not to say anything at all. Still anti-pull-up, Sophia went commando.
As with all things, there are many roads to the same goal. I suppose I could keep her in pull-ups until she turns the magic number of three. I could allow her to soil the princesses, one by one and then tell her that’s it, there are none left. (And then improvise, because I have no plan for what would happen next.) My plan should be based on the function of the non-pooping in the potty behavior. Only, the function eludes me.
Is it a control issue? Is it a fear? Does she want to keep herself a baby a little bit longer? She’s clearly uncomfortable when she does it. She talks about wanting to be a big gurl.
Someone said to me that there comes a time when it feels wrong to be changing your child’s diaper. For me that time has come. Perhaps what it boils down to is Sophia has to feel it too.
The fantasy:
1. That pull-ups would allow Sophia to be more independent as she learned to toilet—pulling them up and
down herself
2. I would avoid the unpleasantness of “accidents.”
The reality:
1. It is much much harder to clean a child who has pooped in a pull-up than one who has pooped in a diaper. It has to do with removing and containing the hazardous waste. In fact, I am contemplating writing up a step-by-step process to post for first timers as a public service.
2. A friend related this story, which basically sums up my main beef with pull-ups. Her two-year-old daughter, who is quite verbal, would ask before she eliminated: “Am I wearing a pull up or underwear?”
Yes, pull-ups allow our children to wallow in their own filth as long as they please, which, in the case of my daughter is “until I’m three,” as she announced yesterday. Once again, I assert, if a child can tell you when she is planning on being toilet trained, he/she is perfectly capable of doing it.
So, I bit the bullet. I went to Target, and—against my better judgment and all my principles—I bought the damn princess panties. I am very tempted to go into a princesses rant here, but I’ll save it for another day. Suffice it to say that I have nothing against royalty in general, I do have an issue with Disney marketing their products to my daughter from infancy and that she, along with every other girl I know, is able to recognize the brand pre-lingually. But I digress. She carried her precious princess panties all the way to the register and set them down gently on the conveyor belt. The whole time I babbled alongside her, “Now Sophia. On Wednesday we are DONE with diapers. That’s it. No more pull-ups. You are going to wear your princess panties from here on in. And there is a rule associated with wearing princess panties: We don’t pee or poop on princesses!” I was rather proud of myself. This seemed fairly straightforward and sensible. Sophie repeated what I said, internalizing the rule: “No Pooping on Princesses!” “That’s right,” I reinforced. “Very good. Starting Wednesday, we are just going to pee and poop in the potty.” “I will do my poops in the potty like a big gurl!” Sophie declared.
If this does the trick, it will be worth the sacrifice.
Of course, she wanted to put them on right away when we got home. I thought it was wise to build the suspense a little. “Nope.” I said, “we’ll start on Wednesday.” A tantrum ensued. “I want my princesses!” “Wednesday,” I repeated. “You know what you have to do.”
The next morning, she woke up dry, peed in the potty, and told me, “Mommy, no pull-ups. I’m done with pull-ups.”
“Really?” I asked.
“Yes!” She said. “I want my princess panties.”
“Okay,” I relented. Pulled them out of their hiding place. She chose Cinderella. The blue-eyed blond. I felt another pang of liberal guilt.
Sophia donned the panties. She stayed clean and dry throughout the morning, her nap and her time at the babysitters, gleefully whipping her pants down to display her hidden treasure for anyone with a pulse.
Maybe this wasn’t such a good idea.
I picked her up from her babysitter and announced that we were going to the Discovery Museum. “Hooray!” she said. I reminded her that no matter what we were doing, if she felt the urge to go, she needed to tell me. “There will be plenty of time to play, but we also have to make time for the potty.” “Okay,” she old me.
I tried when we got there. She obliged, but she didn’t have to go. I checked in with her at multiple points. Each time she insisted, “I don’t have to.” We were in the diner and I was serving her a strawberry milkshake when she assumed sumo position.
“SOPHIA!” I shouted. “WE DON’T POOP ON PRINCESSES!” Oh yes. I did.
But it was too late. There was no stopping her now. “I’m pooping! I’m pooping!” she cried, as I lifted her, still in squatting position, and ran with her to the girls room. As I pulled down her pants, one errant poo dropped down and rolled across the floor.
“Damn it!” Whoops. Did I say that aloud? I did my best to contain the mess and myself. I silently cleaned her up. Sometimes, it’s best not to say anything at all. Still anti-pull-up, Sophia went commando.
As with all things, there are many roads to the same goal. I suppose I could keep her in pull-ups until she turns the magic number of three. I could allow her to soil the princesses, one by one and then tell her that’s it, there are none left. (And then improvise, because I have no plan for what would happen next.) My plan should be based on the function of the non-pooping in the potty behavior. Only, the function eludes me.
Is it a control issue? Is it a fear? Does she want to keep herself a baby a little bit longer? She’s clearly uncomfortable when she does it. She talks about wanting to be a big gurl.
Someone said to me that there comes a time when it feels wrong to be changing your child’s diaper. For me that time has come. Perhaps what it boils down to is Sophia has to feel it too.
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)