It’s been awhile. We’ve been living life, and as it turns out life with three littles, a part time job, and all the other things life brings is… well busy, so there are few things that have gotten sidelined lately, and now we are slowly (considering) getting back on track.

Can we take a few short minutes and talk about getting advice on kids. Awesome, let’s do it.

So I have three kids and as you might imagine, I also have quite a few questions about raising those three kids into functioning members of society. These questions range from how to do I get them to eat their vegetables, to how the heck do I teach them to poop in the toilet (true story friends, turns out kids don’t come programed knowing how to do that).

For the most part I really do appreciate advice on how to shape these feral children into halfway decent human beings, but wait for it… now I’m going to say something really offensive (no it actually is). I don’t love advice on child rearing from people who don’t actually have kids.

I know I know that sounds awful. And let’s be honest it is pretty awful, but it’s true.

Unless you’ve had weeks of sleep deprived nights, or irrational arguments with a toddler about why they must wear pants when it’s 40 degrees outside (as opposed to going out in just a Spiderman mask, cape, and rain boots) I’m not sure you can truly understand the level of desperation that comes with asking someone for advice on parenting issues.

Let me start by saying that by the time I am asking how to fix an issue I’ve tried all the normal approaches. I’ve tried rationalizing with the child (oh gosh what a waste of time), I’ve tried talking to them, threatening to take something away, giving in, googling the problem, bribery, peer pressure, you name it, by the time I’m asking we’ve tried it.

Let me give you an example. When AsthmaMan was about 2.5 years old we decided he was ready to be potty trained, and honestly he totally was. He knew how to pull his pants up and down, knew when he needed to use the bathroom, had creeped on his brother enough to understand the mechanics,  and knew to wash after using the bathroom (somehow he’s forgotten that now). So we started potty training. This was the potty training experience from hell. There’s not a better way to say it, pardon my language. Have you have tried to get a brick wall to do something? That is exactly what potty training that child was like. He understood the logic, the concept, and had no problem doing it… except he didn’t want to. That’s it… didn’t want to. No amount of rationalization, bribery, or consequences worked, he just refused to participate.

Fast forward about 6 months, he had the peeing thing down (actually that part was quick), but poop (ok this blog is about raising kids, obviously there’s a lot of feces involved in the process)… no. He just refused to do it. We got to the point where we followed a well meaning but horrible suggestion to allow him to sit on the toilet wearing a pull-up so he could learn to poop sitting down, and then eventually cut a hole in the bottom so it would fall into the toilet. Let me stop you here… never do this… this is quite possibly the worst idea we have ever had as parents (which is saying something). For most children this plan is probably effective, for AsthmaMan it was not. He spent the next 6 months demanding to wear a pull-up waistband every time he needed to use the toilet… just the waistband.  Yes, I hope that picture is in your mind, because the reality was even more ridiculous than the mental image.

We begged and pleaded this kid to just use the toilet like a normal person to no avail, he would not cooperate. At one point I offered to buy him an iPad if he would just do it… yes desperate times call for desperate measures. Needless to say he refused to give in and I didn’t buy him an iPad, but that is how desperate I was. Then one day he said “Mom this is stupid” and that was the end, the pull-up was never mentioned again (except of course between Mr. Spreadsheets and me as a cringe worthy period of our lives).

I received so much advice during this horrible ordeal. All of it well meaning, but some of it was just… well let’s say naive and be kind. We had tried everything, read everything, nothing worked. Seriously nothing. The final solution was the kid making the decision.

My pre-motherhood self totally would have judged me. I would have said something like “what the heck is her problem, just tell the kid how it is and be done with it.”

But anyone who actually has a kid would respond to her by saying “Oh honey just you wait… just you wait.”

Unless you’ve been the mother of the kid chucking markers at the people two rows behind you during church you can’t judge her or tell her how to keep said child from doing it (for the record, the solution is to sit in the furthest pew back so the markers hit the wall and not people).

Unless you’ve been the parent of the screaming maniac in the grocery store you can’t give a  snide look and carefully avoid eye contact.

Unless you haven’t slept through the night in weeks (or months, maybe even years) you can’t expect your advice on the issue to be taken seriously.

I know, it’s harsh. But there’s a certain level of desperation that comes with parenthood (a level of satisfaction too, but that is a subject for another time), and with that desperation comes wisdom, creativity,  and the ability to give advice.

An experienced parent will give good advice, but they will also provide you with comments like “tell the kid batman poops in the toilet, you can’t be batman if you don’t poop” and “tell your kid if they don’t eat their broccoli they won’t get dessert, then make brownies and eat the whole pan in front of them” Seriously folks, these people are onto something, plus they’ve found a way to justify eating an entire pan of brownies so they’re winning at life.

I look back on my pre-motherhood self and I am envious of how well rested she looked and how much free time she had, but I also want to pat her arm and kindly notify her of her naiveté, if only she knew that in 8 short years she would lose her freaking mind and develop negotiation tactics worthy of a CIA operative… well she might not look so well rested after that conversation.

So with all that being said, AsthmaMan won’t stop talking during church, ideas? My current plans are to either duct tape his mouth shut or let him eat lollipops the whole time so his mouth is too busy to talk… both stellar ideas… clearly all other efforts have failed.