When I was 17 I spent most weekends at my Aunt Molly’s house babysitting. I adored my cousins and still do. One of my cousins, Ginny, is an adult now and absolutely amazing. Make a laundry list of everything you’d like your daughter to be some day and that is my cousin Ginny: beautiful, intelligent, great job, adoring boyfriend, physically fit, you name it. All that being said, once upon a time my cousin Ginny was the toddler from HELL. She was stubborn, disobedient and downright strange. She said strange things, she acted in strange ways and for over a YEAR she dug her heels in and refused to be potty trained. She was not going to poop on the potty, no way, no how.
One weekend I went over my Aunt Molly’s house so she could go out with a friend. I honestly don’t remember her name so I’ll call her Hope. I’ve always liked that name. My aunt left and assured me she’d be back in three hours. She was back in one, and obviously very upset. Now let me preface this with a piece of intel I didn’t have at the time: In 1991 my Aunt was, what I like to call, a One of These Things Just Doesn’t Belong Here Mom. I’ll call them OOTTJDBHs for short. This is the label you get when your child is the only one in a certain group that hasn’t reached a particular milestone. Maybe your child is the only one who still wets the bed at 6, or the only one still sucking on a binky at 4. It doesn’t matter. What matters is that being a, One of These Things Just Doesn’t Belong Here Mom SUUUUUCKS. You feel like you glow fluorescent red and every time you enter a room loud sirens go off shrieking, “Danger! Danger! If you go ANYWHERE near that woman your child is going to stop pooping on the potty, or go back to sucking his binky, or start pissing on cereal in Shoprite!!! Run!!!!!!!” You feel like you have a sign on your head that reads, “Hi my name is Molly and my 4 year old still isn’t potty trained. Feel free to tell me I’m a COMPLETE failure as a parent. I already know that but reminders are oh so helpful.” And there are LOTS of women just dieing to take you up on your offer. They actually circle the Earth hunting for OFTTJDBHMs so they can beat them down to a bloody, emotional pulp. And let’s face it you’re not hard to find; you glow fluorescent red and loud sirens go off every time you enter a room. So on this day, lo these many years ago, my aunt went to a party with lots of women her age, who had lots of kids her kids age and all of them had been completely potty trained for quite some time. Except Ginnie. And my brave, determined, optimistic Aunt approached some woman I’ll call Connie the Cunt and shared her struggle, searching for some advice. And Connie the Cunt, because she’s Connie the Cunt, looked my Aunt Molly straight in the face and said, “I wouldn’t know what to tell you dear. My children never behaved that way.”
Back at the house Ginnie and I were playing Pretty Pretty Princess: we were having a ball. Then her mom walked in with Hope and asked me to take the children downstairs so they could speak privately. It was terrifying. I had never seen my Aunt look so shaken. I thought that someone had died and she needed advice from Hope as to how to tell the children. So in true teenager form, I shoved lollipops in all 3 kids’ mouths, turned on the TV, told them all to shut up or I would never play Pretty Pretty Princess again, and eavesdropped on my Aunt’s entire conversation.
“Who says that?!” she screamed. “Who says that to someone looking for help? Who!?” She started to cry and continued, “I’ve done everything Hope. I’ve done everything and I don’t know what else to do. I’ve read books, spoken to doctors, begged, and punished, there is NOTHING I haven’t tried.” At this point Hope attempted to say something encouraging but my aunt wasn’t having it. “I know I’m the only one, TRUST me I know. I just want this to end so I’ve started asking people for advice. I NEED advice Hope. I have nowhere else to turn at this point.” And again, poor Hope tried to say something encouraging and my aunt just kept on going. “I thought maybe she’d have some good advice you know? She’s potty trained 5 kids and I just thought….” And then it was eerily silent for awhile until my aunt said, “Do you know what she was really saying to me when she said, I wouldn’t know dear my children never behaved that way? She was saying if you were a better mother and your daughter wasn’t so strange, you wouldn’t be having these problems, and I’m beginning to think that she’s right.”
Now thank God, after that comment, Hope had had quite enough. She didn’t call my aunt’s attacker Connie the Cunt but she did have some rather harsh words for her, and my Aunt, for beating herself up like that. I don’t know if Aunt Molly and Hope are still friends but I do know that on that terrible afternoon Hope gave my aunt, well, hope.
And then, after a brief silence I heard my Aunt Molly say something so powerful I remembered it 23 years later. She said, “I am going to get through this. I don’t know how but I am. And any time a mother asks me for advice, I’m going to try my best to help. AND…… if they ask if I ever experienced a similar problem with my own children, even if I haven’t, I’m going to lie and say Yes. Then (and this was the best part) she continued, pretending to be a woman asking for advice. As if it was a play, and she was playing both parts, it went a little like this:
Aunt Molly pretending to be a woman in need of advice: “Hi Molly. I’m having a terrible problem and I need your advice. Every chance she gets my daughter runs around the house buck naked with pencils in her ears and no matter how hard I try I just can’t get her to stop. Did you have this problem when your kids were little?”
Aunt Molly pretending to respond to an imaginary woman whose daughter runs around the house buck naked with pencils in her ears: “Yes. Yes I did. It was an enormous problem in my house for years. As a matter of fact, all 3 of my children used to run around the house buck naked with pencils in their ears. We called it the Pencil Parade. I can’t tell you how many times I ended up in the emergency room. Those were dark days imaginary person, dark days indeed. Let me help you through this!!”
BTW If you haven’t figured it out yet, my family has a very sick, twisted, inappropriate sense of humor. It’s one of the reasons I am fairly convinced that, behind my back, my in-laws refer to me as Chris’ FIRST wife. Hope springs eternal right? Anyhoo………
By now both women were screaming with laughter. If memory serves, Hope actually peed herself a little and had to run to the bathroom which made them howl even louder. It was the greatest conversation I was never meant to hear.
Dear readers: Please don’t be Connie the Cunt. If a mother comes up to you and asks for advice and you don’t have any it’s OK to admit that. And if she asks if you ever had a similar problem with your own children you don’t have to lie but…………………………… it would be nice if you did something like this.
I sparked up a conversation with a nice lady at the speech therapy office yesterday. Her son has autism and he’s become quite the escape artist. He tears out of class daily and tries to escape the school. Last week he ran out of the house and was almost hit by a car. “That must be so terrifying,” I said. “It’s awful,” she said. And then, very timidly she asked me, “When Kevin was little did ever go through a phase like this?” And that’s when, 23 years later, I remembered this conversation between my Aunt Molly and her friend Hope. I chose my words carefully. “Although he did not go through an escaping phase,” I said, “He did go through a very aggressive phase. He hit, kicked, and bit all the members of my family including the dog and his teachers for months. It was awful. With the help of a great behaviorist we managed to get the situation under control, but for a while there Stranger I Just Met, I hated him.” And then she smiled.
