A very wise mom friend of mine brilliantly summed up the basic truism of raising children: No matter how hard you try, you can't make them eat, sleep or poop.
Everything else you have a decent chance at influencing. But when it comes to those three bodily functions, you are at your kid's mercy _ and your kid is not a benevolent dictator.
Take eating.
My oldest kid survives on a diet of rice cakes, peanut butter and apples. This is a bold step for her. Two years ago, she mostly synthesized her energy from mere air like a plant.
Experts and the court of pubic opinion would have you believe that because she didn't have a varied diet, my husband and I were simply doing it wrong. To them I would introduce my youngest kid, who will eat almost anything you put near him, including dirt and Polly Pocket's shoes.
Both kids get the same choices at meals. Both eat with the same parents at the same table. The oldest will _ literally _ throw up if we force her to eat things that she has no intention of eating. If she were forced to stay at the table until she cleaned her plate, she'd take the table with her to college.
Which isn't to say that I don't routinely nag her into trying new things. I almost always regret this later. The first definition of insanity is doing the same thing yet expecting a different result. And, yet, I still insist that she try just one bite of zucchini.
I keep telling myself that all I can do is create conditions that lead to healthy food choices. I can't make anyone chew the food, swallow it and enjoy it. The second definition of insanity might be trying to control situations over which you have no control. I'm going to have this tattooed on my forehead backwards so that when I look in the mirror after arguing with my kid about raw carrots, I can read my own advice.
It's advice that works for sleeping, too. For the first 18 months of both their lives, I swore that they'd never ever get the hang of sleeping. Those were the longest 36 months of my life.
I still feel a little squirrelly when I think about them.
Now, knock wood, my two mostly sleep on their own with little provocation from either of us. Still, there are nights when you wish they had an off switch. There are also nights I wish I had an off switch, frankly. As any insomniac knows, you can't force yourself to sleep. How on earth can you force someone else to do so?
My husband and I do our best to be Zen about all of it. Mostly, we've made peace with how little input we have into the kids' eating and sleeping habits. They are what they are. A sleeping kid might just be the sound of one hand clapping, and we soak it in when we can.
But right now, we're having some serious issues with that last thing you can't make children do. Those who are the least bit sensitive about discussing the wonderful habits of bowels might want to flip to the wedding page right now.
For those who are left, The Boy has decided that he no longer needs to poop. As you can imagine, this is an issue.
Near as we can figure out, he tried to make it to the potty in order to _ there is no way to put this delicately _ poop and did not make it in time. Since then, he's just been against the very idea of both the potty and the pooping. I gave it a try, he seems to be saying, and it just wasn't for me.
We've been trying to control what we can. We create conditions that encourage bowel movements with watered-down prune juice and dried apricots. We put no pressure on the whole potty thing.
Other than that, there's little we can do to force the issue, other than to remind him when he starts to look deeply uncomfortable and dance around the room as if he is running from his own behind is that poop wants to be free.
If I could poop for him, I would. I can't even begin to wrap my head around how I'd do such a thing, however.
That same wise mom friend prefaced her truism with a reminder that kids get to control so little in their lives. Mostly, their days are full of big people who make the big decisions _ and most of the small ones. But the when, where and how of sleeping, eating and pooping are some of the few choices that is all up to them.
Which might be why those three facts of biology drive parents nuts.
Adrienne Martini is freelance writer, instructor at the State University College at Oneonta and Hartwick College, mom to Maddy and Cory and wife to Scott and author of "Hillbilly Gothic," published by the Free Press.
Print this story
E-mail this story
