This post is part of my #ordinarystories project. Check out the other participants at the end of the post.
Prompt 1: What’s the most memorable thing that happened to you in a bathroom?
Although many mothers bemoan the fact that they can’t even poop in privacy, this has never bothered me. Quite possibly because even before I became a mother, I was very free about the bathroom doings.
Perhaps this was the final straw that killed all romance between me and my husband, but honestly, we were never a romantic people. We have always been that couple that poops and pees with the door open from Day 1.
There are no secrets – at least with the bodily functions.
In the same way, we are very free with our bodies in front of our children. I suppose at some point, I will balk at my children walking in and out of our bathrooms as we shower, insert and remove menstrual cups, shit, or urinate, but at the moment, it doesn’t bother me.
I like the fact that our bodies are just that: bodies.
Sinew and bones that excrete and secrete. The stuff of incredible and mundane feats.
I want my children to be shameless about their bodies – because our bodies are not cause for shame. I want my children to see bodies in all their shapes and sizes. I want my sagging breasts, my stretch marks, my pubic hair, and my underarm hair – and all my husband’s counterparts – I want my children to see it all in its ordinary glory.
To me, it is the cumulative effect of all these naked moments that will compose the body of their bodily worldview. It is my hope and desire that they see their bodies as functional, beautiful and acceptable in their perfunctory motions.
That as they grow older and are further bombarded by the world with its twisted ideas of what humans are supposed to look like, they can hark back to their formative years and remember how free and unencumbered they could be.
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This is my belated entry for my first #ordinarystories prompt. Here are our brave first souls who joined me.
Sad Cherries by Justina Sade
When eating too many cherries collides with your first day on the job and subway stops with no bathrooms.
The Most Memorable Thing That’s Happened to Me in a Bathroom by Jennifer Duann Fultz (no relation)
When you pee on a stick and everything changes.
