The Poop-Nostalgia Conundrum
On missing the smelliest parts of life
When the poop disappears, it will be the saddest day.
I’m talking about my kids and my elderly dog. At least once or twice per week, I’m getting up in the middle of the night to pick up dog poop because she’s getting too old and sometimes can’t hold it. And with the kids, poop is about as taboo as hearing “you betcha” in the Midwest.
“Poop smells weird.” - Harper
“Boys pee fast but poop slow.” —Harper
“I don’t wanna go poop but I have to.” - Nora
“Poo-poo [on the potty?'] YEAH” - Nora, age 4
[with melodic cadence] “Mom-ah-I-Pooped-on-the-pottah” - Remy, age 4 (predicted to age 14)
and my favorite:
“Don’t forget daddy, syrup makes you poop so don’t eat too many pancakes” - All my kids. This is true, but strange that they’ve deduced this.
What I’m talking about here is the poop-nostalgia conundrum: I don’t want to miss poop, but I’m afraid that’s exactly what will happen.
Charra is my first baby, albeit of the canine species. She’s going on 12, which is quite old for a 115 pound German Shepherd. Her hearing is worsening seemingly by the day, her hips aren’t strong and she falls regularly. She has some spinal nerve deterioration that makes it so she can’t always feel when she needs to go to the bathroom. I know, I know - the writing is on the wall here and I’m just trying to enjoy the last few months while she doesn’t appear to be in constant pain (she still trots around the yard, eats, wags tail).
My issue is that I have been frustrated with her for the in-home accidents. I’m less vocal about it with her because I know she can’t help it. But I’m angry all the same. I’m angry that I have to clean up her mess, but I’m mostly angry that she’s gotten old on me. She was my first dog that was all mine (excluding childhood family dogs). She followed me around everywhere I went when she was a puppy. We bonded fiercely when I went home during lunch to let her out of her kennel. She’s been such a joy to have as a best friend. When that not-so-far-off day comes, I’ll be deeply saddened by losing her. And then when a few days pass, and I’m not cleaning up her poop in the middle of the night, I’ll be equal parts relieved and devastated. Thankful for the fuller-night’s sleep, but wishing, odd as it may seem, that she were around to make one more mess for me to clean up.
Nora (9) and I were going through old videos from when she was a baby/toddler. There are a few all-time favorites that I’ll cherish forever. One is of her smiling ear-to-ear talking about how proud she is of having pooped on the potty. Man, that feels like yesterday but, at the same time, so long ago. What I miss about that moment is her need for our pride. She knew was this was something we wanted her to learn to do and she did it. The purest of toddler transactions: do a thing, receive love and praise.
As it should be, her quest to seek our approval is at odds with her journey to establish her independence. Considering that at 37 I still want my parents’ approval in certain circumstances, there’s comfort in assuming that my kids will want the same from me. But the simplicity of life’s requisite need for poop and approval is, dare I say it, pure — even if it’s disgusting.
Meanwhile, Remy (4) is a boy who loves to talk about poop more than politicians actually shit the bed (debatable)!
Just last night he peed in his bed after we both tucked him in and Ashley read him a story. He had EVERY opportunity to go to the bathroom and is fully capable of doing so on his own. An interesting thing about kids is they can weaponize their bodily discharges to get your attention. I’m not letting him off the hook, exactly, but we’ve been busy and have made less time for our nighttime routine and so…pee on the bed is that consequence.
When he gets older, he’ll be influenced by masculine ideals (even if they’re evolving, slowly) to be guarded with his emotions and his communication will be challenged by the social preference to grin and bear it. There is no doubt value in emotional regulation and grit — but all the same, the likely subconscious act of throwing shit (figuratively-ish) to get my attention is easier for me to understand. While I still have the ability, I’m going to make a conscious effort to not lose my…cool…when Remy acts out. This will be far easier than when he acts out, within.
I can’t write about poop without talking about changing diapers.
When Harper was a baby, I changed two poopy diapers in a matter of minutes (maybe seconds). She was crying like a banshee. She’d cried all night. She wasn’t hungry, and she was probably as tired as I was. Out of pure exhaustion and not knowing what to do, I punched the wall. Not through it, but hard enough that it made me yelp-hollar, which made Harper scream even more.
I don’t think there’s much to learn from this story. Just don’t punch a wall, I guess, which sounds obvious but honestly it’s hard not to punch walls when they’re little and inconsolable…for hours. By the time she fell asleep, she had me melting all over her again and I napped with her in my arms in the glider. I still keep that glider in my office — it’s the one thing from the baby days that I couldn’t let go of.
I don’t yet know from experience, but my perception is that changing our elderly parents’ diapers will be the most challenging experience we face. At a point in life when helping our parents preserve their dignity is the most important thing we can do for them, their bodies start to fail. We return the favor of caring for them so that a stranger doesn’t have to. And perhaps its they who want to punch walls, but it’s we who want to tear down the ones we built over our lifetime in the name of our individuality, of a grudge, or of some other infraction that we only being to see as trite as they complete life’s circle.
My last remaining grandparent, my grandma on my mom’s side, had a stroke recently and is nearing 90 years old. My mom lost her dad 2 years ago, and my dad lost his mom a year after that. My mother-in-law lost her mom this past spring and she admitted to having to wipe her clean most of her last days. I’ll wager that each of my four parents find solace in the service-act of love and respect.
We probably have it floating around the house somewhere: the kid’s book “Everybody poops”. It de-stigmatizes the go. Or maybe, there really isn’t as much stigma as we might assume there is. Sure, you can’t tell your co-worker that you’ll be back in 15 because you have to drop the kids off at the pool (my favorite euphemism from my teenage years!) But this is because the nostalgia we feel with poop is directly connected to the helplessness of the new and old humans we love. There is no nostalgia with BMs when we’re between 10 and 80. And so for 70+ years we stigmatize it because otherwise it will simply remind us of what we’ve lost or what we will one day lose.
Everybody poops. It’s a refrain that we teach our toddlers and it’s a curtain call for our parents and grandparents. It’s also the saddest chore when our dogs get too old, to quickly. Crazy as it may seem, the poop-nostalgia conundrum is real, so buck up and wipe up - it’s not just a chore, but a privilege.