Boys Will Be Boys

I first posted this five years ago. Things are changing in my family, you know. I might be feeling a little longing for the old days.

I’ve never met a little boy that didn’t love playing superhero.  If they don’t have a real superhero costume, a pair of briefs over long underwear and a towel-cape will do. If you let them (or you’re not looking) they’ll take flying leaps across the livingroom from the coffee table or the back of the couch. It’s always cute, sometimes annoying, and possibly dangerous, depending on what superhero he is, what superfeat he’s attempting, and how many other superheroes there are in the room.

Playing superhero is fun, for sure, but it’s also very important work—purposeful work. When the caped pretender turns 12 or 13, give or take a few years, you’ll see him begin to unfold into a real hero.

The metamorphosis might start with a bit of a bad attitude. He thinks he knows better than his parents; he thinks he’s invincible; and he doesn’t like taking instruction. This can be a difficult stage, because he doesn’t know better than his parents, he’s not invincible, and goodness knows, he needs instruction more than he ever did. This stage of hero development is not much fun, but parents who hang in there may see that this, too, has a purpose.

Youngest daughter is twenty-one and works at a gym. A week or so ago she came home and told us about her day. A young man, a customer at the gym who is the same age as youngest son and still in high school, had been hassling her.

“We should hang out sometime,” he said. He was nothing if not persistent, even though she thought she was obvious in her refusal.

Oldest son’s response? “I should have a talk with him.” Youngest son? “I’ll beat him up!”

As it turns out, her boss had overheard things and he had a talk with the young man, so  it was all resolved without any help from her brothers.

Yes, youngest son needs to learn a better approach to fixing these sorts of problems—a better step one, anyway. I expect that to come with time. A year ago, however, it would never have crossed his mind that this situation might require something of him.

He’s one step closer to becoming a hero, and that, really, is what the briefs pulled up over the long johns when he was five were all about. Boys will be boys, and that’s a good thing, because it’s working to turn them into men.

Popular Posts from the Past: Potty Training Made Easy

[This is another popular post from my blogging past—probably the second most popular one. It was linked by a baby care site—one I hadn’t heard of previously and don’t remember—that sent me several hundreds hits a day for a month or so. These potty training rules continue to bring people to the old blog, referred from searches for “potty training.”

This is the method I used for training the last three of my children. The firstborn? She’s the kid I fussed over, bungling things up in a big way, and from whom I learned the potty training lessons that I applied successfully to the other three.]

From Rebecca’s Rule Book

I bet you didn’t know I have a rule book, did you? Well, I do. It’s impossible to raise four kids and not have a rule book to show for it. From the chapter on potty training, I give you these surefire steps.

1. Wait until the child is two and a half. Or two and a halfish. If you live where there are four seasons, wait until the spring/summer/nice weather nearest the two and a half milestone.
2. Make a trip to buy several pairs of toddler underwear bearing the likenesses of things beloved to the trainee. Don’t think you can substitute Pull-Ups! Pull-Ups, no matter how many gimmicks they add, can work against successful toilet training.
3. Don’t allow the precious panties to be worn yet. (Admiration, however, is encouraged.) Tell your trainee that these special unmentionables are being saved for that hallmark day when they begin using the toilet (or a tree) like mommy and daddy do.
4. Put the potty chair away. Go straight to more grown up receptacles like flush toilets. Unless, of course, you have some compelling reason to disregard this rule. Like, “But potty chairs are so cute,” or “I really prefer dumping to flushing.”
5. Wake up one day and say to yourself, “This is the day.” It’ll work best if this is a day with weather fine for staying outdoors and a day when you can stay home, but you can also opt for a day when you feel up to tolerating puddles indoors.
6. Dress the trainee in the cherished underwear and a t-shirt. Any more clothing is counterproductive. 
7. Go outdoors to play and wait for the first accident. Sympathize with the child over the wet underwear. Help the little one change to a new pair of similarly loved undies and have them put the old, wet ones in the hamper. Mention in passing that if the child feels like they need to pee, they can tell you and you will help them go in the toilet so the beautiful undies don’t get wet. Resist the urge to say much more than this, and avoid at all cost the question, “Do you need to go yet?”
8. Repeat step 7 as many times as necessary, for as many days as necessary. You will probably be surprised how few times step 7 needs to be repeated.
9. If your child is male and you have a private yard, feel free to encourage the use of a tree or fence post instead of the toilet. This will add to the potty training ease for you and the fun for him. You can always civilize him later, if necessary. If you do go this route, you may want to mention to the little guy that the parking meters on Main St. are not exactly the same thing as fence posts. And while we’re on the subject of prudent warnings, it’s also best to remind your potty trainee that the demo toilets in Home Depot are not for emergency use. With my own eyes I’ve seen the results of both these misunderstandings, and while they were certainly amusing, most of us would prefer to get this sort of shopping entertainment from other people’s children rather than our own.
10. There isn’t really a step 10. There IS a money-back guarantee of success. If you follow these steps religiously and your child still goes to kindergarten in diapers, please write for a refund.

Never Say Never

My youngest child is about to graduate from high school, which means that pretty soon I’ll have four semi-adult kids. My kids have taught me lots of things, and many of those lessons might be more important than this one, but this is the one I feel like writing about today. So what is it I’ve learned? I’ve learned that that it’s usually best never to say “That would never happen in this family!”

This is advice that I don’t always follow. Just last week I found myself wondering out loud about what kind of a home grows a child of a certain age who still thinks that a certain childish tactic will get them what they want. Of course, behind my remark was the assumption that this sort of thing would never happen in my home. And, you know, I’m pretty sure I never did have a child try that particular trick, probably because they knew by that age that it wouldn’t work for them. Nevertheless, it was exactly the sort of thing that an honest parent could never be completely sure that at least one of their own child would never try, so I really should have kept my mouth shut on the grounds that my remark assumed things I couldn’t be sure of, never mind that it was just plain mean-spirited and gossipy.  But most of all, my remark showed a fair bit of pride. Ironic, wasn’t it?  If rearing four children to adulthood can teach me anything, it ought to be humility.

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