Poo updates

This morning I had a great poo. It was fairly loose in consistency but was spot on time for my normal motion-hours, so I am pleased to report that movements are nice and routine. I failed to get a look at the colour, but from previous movements over the last few days, I'm fairly confident that it would be a standard brown. 

How do you feel about this update? Did you pull a face as you read it, was it too much of an over-share? If someone were to give you a breakdown on their cat or dog's most recent feces, would you be enraptured by the update and pleased when they concluded that the little pet's poop has sufficiently progressed from liquid squits to solid plops?

I don't know about you, but I don't want to hear about poo. If you're sick, tell me that you're sick and you'll get sympathy and best wishes. But please, don't tell me in gross detail about your excremental suffering. 

I think most people feel this way. We all poo, but no one really needs to know about it. Why then is it socially-acceptable the moment you have a baby to discuss their shit in such massive detail? 

On Saturday, we were joined by a couple who have an 8 week old baby. The little tyke had just had a poo before they joined us. It was fairly solid, about 2cm in length and an adult-finger in width. It was dark brown. It was his first defecation for the day. Overnight he filled two diapers with liquid shit. That was light brown. Some of it went up his back and ran down his legs. It was when she started talking about sucking snot out of her son's nose, that I completely switched off from the conversation and fell asleep. I woke up when the adults are allowed to talk again. 

I can understand that knowing the contents of your child's nappy is very important. To you. Whether he has, or has not, shat pure gold or strings of spagetti is not of any consequence to me - other than putting me off the lunch that I was inevitably enjoying up until this topic domination. 

I realise this will sound very unsympathetic to the plight of parents. I really do understand that your baby becomes your world - and this is how it should damn-well be. If you're not putting your child as number one (and therefore top talking point), then you probably shouldn't be a parent in the first place. But this is also one of the multitude of reasons why I don't want kids. I don't want to be that person that repulses and/or bores non-family members about their offspring's puke, snot and poop. I don't want to be that panicking parent, rushing my toddler to the ER because he has a streak of suspicious-looking maroon running through his turd, only to learn that he has developed a taste for multi-coloured wax crayons. 


The only people who are interested in a particular baby's kak-updates are family members and very close friends. No one else cares, unless it makes for a funny anecdote, and those don't happen as often as some parents might like to think. Statistical updates on the diameter of anyone's shit never used to be appropriate dinner conversation, so I don't see why it should be when you have kids. 

I know it's unavoidable topic in the parental mine-field. Friends have chosen to breed - and they will mention diaper changes, or poo consistency. But it's not ALL they talk about, and that's why we're still friends. I really don't mind hearing a bit about your kid's poo. I know it's important to you and I want to hear how things are going. We all dominate conversations with things that are important to us. But you know what's not cool? Letting me know about every nappy-change. 

I think the only way to avoid becoming that person who can talk, non-stop, for an hour about nothing but their child's poop, is to not have kids.