Editor's note: we've had a lot of stories recently about traumatic bathroom upbringings -- about how parents, or teachers, or nuns were so militant, backwards, or neurotic about the bathroom that the poor little kids under their tutelage suffered psychological damage. The following story is exactly the opposite. It was originally posted as a comment on one of those recent tales of trauma; you may want to reread the original post, to remind yourself of the anecdotes this story addresses.
From reading these postings, one could conclude there are very few nurturing parents out there. Francine seems to have recognized that her mother was a discipline dictator. The Tinkler's uncle appeared to have hang-ups, as did Full-Stool Stacie's church youth director; and, of course, Josiah's mom.
What is it about public restrooms that bring out the worst in adults who are supervising children? My brother and I are both hard-working, middle-class college students, and we feel we had wonderful parents who explained and helped us analyze things, rather than yell, swear, and dictate.
For example, Mom would ask me at about age five whether I wanted to go into a stall alone or have her with me. I got to make the choice, and that was encouraging to me. Once we were at a Sox game, and by choice, I went in alone. I knew I had to get over my fear of latching the door in such places, and I fully engaged the lever. I took a full poop on my own and when I went to wipe, I got scared because there was no toilet paper on the roll. When Mom checked up on me, I sat there and told her what happened and she went into another stall and got me a liberal amount of paper.
That night she related to me a story of how Grandma helped her out of the same situation twenty-some years before that, when they were at the circus and my mom was out of toilet paper. The lesson, she said, was to look for toilet paper when choosing the stall and to remind yourself to look by always tearing a couple of pieces off and wiping the front of the seat off before sitting down. This remains part of my routine, even when I'm visiting someone else's home.
My brother, who is two years older than me, appreciated not being dragged into the women's room like Travis and Josiah were. When he was alone with Mom and me, she would go out of her way to accommodate his restroom needs. She liked gas stations and convenience stores because he would have the whole restroom to himself without interference or harassment. Once, when Dad was out of town and we were paying a fee at city hall, we stood outside a men's room on the third floor -- Mom's rationale was there was less traffic in there -- and, when no one went in or came out after about five minutes, Mom allowed my brother to go in on his own. He was about seven and thought the wait was worth it to be able to go in unassisted by himself.
After he complained to us that the urinal he peed in was overflowing, Mom reviewed with him the other options he had, including using a stall -- something he admitted he had not stopped to think about. Although he got his tennis shoes a little wet, Mom complimented him on being independent. However, she said he should lift the seat first before peeing in a public toilet. This was all done without the putdowns of Uncle Jim or the unreasonable expectations of Cassidee's mom.
My brother and I are not honor students, nor are we perfect people. Rather, we were empowered by our parents instead of being put down and yelled at. One conclusion I've drawn -- and I'm a history major, rather than child psychology major -- is that parents tend to make using public restrooms stressful. And that kind of stress brings out the worst in all involved.
Editor's note: surely we can contrast the horror stories of late with some more tales of parents teaching bathroom habits in a nurturing way. Or are they really that few and far between?
