freud

my son stopped out back the other day, squatted, and poohed in his "big boy pants." right there, in our carport. in broad daylight. i guess he really had to go.

it is kind of heavy. don't you think? potty training. potty training.

i am really parenting now. sometimes i flash forward and imagine mark and me, in the future. he has come to me for money again and i am lecturing him on responsibility, (or something,) and he turns to me and he blurts out something he heard recently in a psychology class to the effect of, "i am this way for a reason dad. perhaps you should not have been so permissive in potty-training me."

mark is doing fine-i think. he ramped up quickly when we focused on urination and he has a good grip on that.

it is hard to know what is right in any number of moments. faith and i sometimes have differences of opinions but usually we bat them back and forth a bit and who feels strongest gets the final lean. and we act and we hope and we work and we cope.

because i don't think of myself as having been hard on my parents i am hoping to have the benefit of karma in such a way mark is not hard on me, (and he turns out all right.) terra, for her part, potty-trained quickly and seems unscathed by the experience.

still, i remember that psych 101 class. i remember freud's conclusions and i understand he has not been proven wrong about anything. the idea that parenting styles play a large role in determining who and how people turn out as adults makes all the sense in the world to me.

what do parents do? what did my parents do? what did your parents do?

do they think about these things as i am? do they tailor their parenting like a man creating a double-breasted jacket by hand or do they live and react daily all the while allowing factors such as moods and time constraints and measures of energy to play on their influence?

that is how i lose control of my master plan. sometimes i am tired and lazy from working and all the rest and instead of engaging with my kids i turn on the noggin channel. their little brains slip softly and smoothly into a lower gear, whirring along with the learning shows noggin presents but still enduring a decrease in synapses all the same. alas, i can read or work or watch a movie or facebook, (yeah, i used facebook as a verb-so what?)

do i feel guilty? at times. a little bit. unlike most guilt this one has a point. it checks me and helps me create more energy and focus for raising my children.

mark runs up to the act of pooping, (if taro gomi can use the word then so can i.) like a dragster heating up its wheels by gunning the engine so they spin ahead of the start line and ahead of the race, mark needs about three trips to the potty to actually execute a pooh. he knows he needs to go but then when he gets there he seems to become a little frightened and he changes his mind. i try to coerce him to stay but on that first trip (so far,) always to no avail. he cries and we put his big boy pants back on him and go about whatever may have been happening until some short time later he has to go again.

i told faith i think mark is experiencing a form of postpartum depression in that moment when he actually defecates. it is as if this thing his body has created demands exit and there is something in mark, in all of us, that is tied to our creation. it's not the major part of us. it's an overwhelmed fraction and hence, everyone poops. (right?) and so we all must have passed through this moment in life when we come to grips that this, our basest and most common art, these daily little creations, must be disposed of and discarded summarily. a two-year-old can only assimilate or consider so many facts or aspects of an issue, so perhaps they feel a base sadness in release but after so many times begin to realize they feel relieved too afterwards and soon, letting go becomes normal and they, (we,) never return to our initial misgiving.

faith and i are doing our best. we love terra and mark so much and we are trying to give love and guidance and support and nurturing as best we can. and i am trying to be responsible in thinking about these things. i don't want to just sort of guess and hope for the best.