On Monday,
we covered a New York Times story about
toilet training of weeks-old infants.
(login: poopreport password: poopreport) I gave the thumbs down to this new practice of "elimination communication," worrying that it could produce a generation of children more neurotic about shitting than even we are.
I felt smugly confident until the next day, when I read a follow-up article in Tuesday's New York Times. (Am I dreaming, or has the Times increased the staff working the poop beat?) In an op-ed piece, Meredith Small, professor of anthropology at Cornell, wondered why, despite all of the other child-rearing practices she herself adopted from other cultures, it never occurred to her to raise her children without diapers. This, after all, was a practice she'd observed successfully deployed in many other countries, including China, India and Kenya.
She ended up blaming Freud. It is thanks to him, she claimed, that we "see the bathroom as a snake pit of psychological danger, and believe that the only way to prevent scarring a child for life is to let him or her come to the toilet in his or her own time, assuming there will be a diaper pinned on for as long as it takes."
Hmmm. I do seem to hold this odd belief -- that society must impose itself on an infant's natural desire to poop whenever, and that if we aren't careful in exerting this power, the kid will suffer some form of analitis. When I wrap my knuckles on this idea, it does sound like a crock-o-shit. And it is easy to see how this Freudian notion -- like the idea of original sin -- may have slipped so deeply into the American consciousness that it is impossible for many of us to take a relaxing shit in public restrooms.
So I take it all back. Go for it, elimination-communication groupies. And next time I take a healthy shit and gaze into the bowl to admire my accomplishment, I'm going to keep looking until I can make out Sigmund staring back up at me. Once I've spotted him, I'll salute the old boy, then give him a summary flush down the tubes.
