“Would you eat a brownie with dog poop in it?” “NO WAY!!” my kids yelled astonished I would ask such a question. “But it’s just a little dog poop” I said showing just a pinch in between my fore finger and thumb. “That’s gross Mom! Why would we ever do that?” “But it will be such a small amount, you won’t even taste it – you sure you wouldn’t eat it?” I nudged. “We would NEVER eat dog poop Mom!” “Well good!” I responded, “Then you will understand why I don’t want you to watch this show that has just a little bit of poop in it.”
I learned that trick from a MOPS event and consider it one of my most golden techniques as a parent. A song might come on with more bleeps than words and I would change the radio station with the simple word “Poop!” Or a new movie would come out that the kids begged me to see and all I had to do was say, “Sure, you can watch that movie if you decide you would be willing to eat a brownie with dog poop in it” and it worked every time.
I do remember one occasion where my son had to think real hard about it and asked just how much poop would go in it but thank goodness he decided against it. No more hassles, no more begging – they understood, if something had a bit of poop in it, they weren’t going to have it. This was the perfect tool for many years.
As the boys got older, it became more difficult to monitor the appropriateness of material for my youngest. Having the older two less than 2 years apart – it was easy to set a limit for the two of them to the younger one’s appropriateness level. But having my third almost 5 years later made it a bit challenging.
What was appropriate for the older ones wasn’t at all appropriate for the little one but then the older ones would find something else to do if for example we tried to plan a movie or game night that matched the youngest level.
Perhaps the worst of it was the youngest didn’t want to watch age appropriate things. My youngest wanted to watch or play or sing or dance to all of the things he saw his brothers doing. He completely missed out on Blues Clues and Bear in the Big Blue House.
When we took a family trip to Disney, I realized at the last minute that my youngest knew only a handful of characters. I was begging him to watch Lion King and Peter Pan so he would have some idea of the significance of the rides we would be taking but he wanted no part of it.
I even remember one day the music teacher in my youngest’s toddler class asked everyone to stand up and sing their favorite song. One child sang the “ABCs”, another “Twinkle Twinkle”; when my son stood up, he sang “Life is a Highway” the theme song from Cars perfectly.
And so I had to change my tactic with the little one because what was poop for him was okay for his brothers to eat. I had to explain to him that some of those things his brothers were watching were just not good for his heart. (Although I question my own logic – if it isn’t good for one heart, why would it be good for another?) Anyway, he seemed to understand it well and removed himself from the room if something ever seemed inappropriate.
Well, I made the worst decision of my parenting career a few weeks ago when my oldest son and his friends asked to watch a rated R movie.
Every bit of my core said “No!” and then other kids said they had already seen it and it was a good movie. I told them they needed to find a PG-13 movie instead. And then my son came to me privately expressing his embarrassment that he is the only one of his friends who isn’t allowed to watch those movies and began to beg. I still said no. And then my husband approached me privately and asked if I had ever watched a rated R movie at my son’s age – he thought I was being over protective as well. The answer to his question was yes – but movies and music and TV are SO different these days. I was allowed to do a lot of things I would never allow my own kids to do!
I didn’t want to be the bad guy – it feels like I am always the bad guy. I knew my oldest son would be able to walk into a movie theater and choose to watch the movie by himself in just a few short months. He was always held to a standard that was higher than his brothers so maybe I was being over protective. Maybe it was time to allow him to make a choice. If other kids’ parents had allowed them to watch the movie, then maybe the comedy wasn’t so bad I reasoned. In the single moment I said yes, all the things I ever tried to teach my children about making choices that were good for their heart AND having the courage to overcome peer pressure was lost by allowing them to watch poop.
I sat in the next room listening to the movie trying to prepare how to undo my mistake. Foul language was flying left and right out of the speakers. The kids were laughing- they seemed to understand the adult content which was disheartening in and of itself.
But you know, just as I always tried to reason with the kids in the past, you can’t just close your eyes or cover your ears on the bad parts. Once you experience something – it is with you for forever – you can’t take it back –it hurts your heart.
Sometimes our imagination about what we are missing if we do close our eyes or ears is worse than what we would actually see or hear. The only way to avoid the experience is to prevent it in the first place. By the time you realize something is far too inappropriate, it is too late – they’ve already tasted it – poop.
And so it happened – I heard a scene I would never want my kids exposed to but it was too late. I immediately walked into the room and said, “Sounds like this is inappropriate!” and everyone agreed – kids got up came into the kitchen, had a snack and we all made small talk trying to cover up the mistake that had been made. They tasted it – poop and they didn’t like it.
Mortified I beat myself up a thousand times – I couldn’t sleep all night. Everything I ever prided myself as a mother went out the door. What I did was exactly the opposite of what Mother Mary would do. Not only did I expose my own kid to the filth but others as well – even if they had seen it before, perhaps their parents felt the same regret after they let them watch it and perhaps it was just the kids telling me they had seen it to get me to say yes.
I am still having a hard time forgiving myself but an amazing thing happened that I should have had faith in to begin with..… God found a way to make something good come out of it.
The following morning, my son came and apologized. He said he had no idea rated R movies were so bad and he would never ask me again to watch one – especially while his friends were over. He was more embarrassed by that scene than by the fact that his mother wouldn’t allow him to watch it.
A few weeks later one of the friends came over again and asked if they could watch South Park – a cartoon full of adult content. Without hesitation I said no and shared with his friends I had made such a big mistake with the last show that never again would inappropriate movies be watched in this house. Even the friend agreed with me.
My kid did what he said he would never do – the equivalent of eating poop and to make it worse, I gave it to him. For some reason I didn’t think it would taste as bad to an older child as it would to a younger one but thankfully I was wrong and hopefully he will never eat it again.