When I am a Tiger Mother
Most of the time I don't identify myself as any kind of Zoo-animal mother--tiger, panda, tapir, whatever. My parenting style and my aspirations for my children cannot be easily characterized that way. I am really pretty sure that I am far from Tiger Motherdom. That is, except for a few particular things. Like Potty Training. That is when I become a Tiger Mother.
I don't care if my kids reach the toilet-capable milestone by a particular age, but once it's time, it's time. We might have a few days, or even a week, alternating underwear and diapers. After that I lay down the law. Diapers are banished and underwear are the only option. The, ahem, business goes in toilets, not on the floors, not on the sidewalk, not anywhere outside. This is, of course, not the way things are normally done out here in much of China, and especially Changping.
Ever since we moved to Changping, and Brigid was not even six months old yet, her diapers were a source of constant commentary. One afternoon in the spring of 2009, walking in the park with Brigid in the stroller, we came across a few other mothers of similarly-aged babies. We exchanged the usual cooings. One mother asked to pick up Brigid, so I held her diaperless six-month-old while she reached for my baby. Once Brigid was perched on the other mother's arm, the woman laughed with surprise. She was not used to holding a baby wearing clothing or anything over its bottom. Her friends joined in amusement over this obvious difference.
As the next two and a half years proceeded, the diaper thing played out in different ways. Sometimes it was just a comment, an observation. Why is your little baby wearing real pants? Oh, diapers. As the temperatures soared in the summer months, other mothers and grandmothers lectured me on the dangers of diaper-wearing in such heat. She should not be wearing a diaper. She should not be wearing anything in this weather. And then, in the last year since she turned two-years-old, I've been tsked-tsked. She's two and a half years old and still wearing diapers? There have been times this fall when I have not left the house, or avoided a particular playground, because I really did not feel like hearing it.
Brigid's journey to toilet training was an all-year event. In January she was a little interested but that quickly faded. Then she was interested again at my sister's house this summer because her cousin had a potty. I did not pressure her either time, wanting to wait until we were back in our own apartment to focus on it. Then, a month shy of her third birthday we went for it.
I have many American friends who have told me how much easier they found potty training in China than back home in the US. There is a generally relaxed attitude here towards children not making it to the toilet. If a child has to pee, they just go where they are. There's no yelling, no screaming, no eye-rolling like you would encounter most places in the United States. For some of my American friends, there's a relief knowing that if your child has misjudged the urgency of their need, it is not that big of a deal.
However, this is when I become the Tiger Mother. For my kids, this is unacceptable except in extreme emergencies. We return to the US twice a year, and I need my children's restroom habits to be suited to that world. My life is easier if we stick to this plan.
Just a month ago, we determined hoped that Brigid was ready for full-time underwear in the apartment after some sporadic success. I reviewed with her how this was going to work. When I asked her what she should do if she had "the feeling," she squatted, hovering over the floor, just as we have seen so many other kids do. With some reminders and the promise of rewards, she fortunately never did this when the time came.
Further progress brought more freedom of movement. I was nervous about the first trip to the playground, but I was certainly happy that there was no tell-tale diaper sticking out of her waistband. No one noticed. That was a welcome change, too.
Toilet training is so far my least favorite part of parenting. I don't like how rigid it makes me. The Tiger Mother, though, gets results.
Comments
However, I had one rigid acquaintance, with whom I would have liked to be friends because she was a philosophy graduate student and I was lonely for intellectual discussion, who dropped me when her children reported that my 2 3/4 year old peed on the floor. My reflection was that her children had been toilet trained by their French daycare, starting at 18 months. They spent 9 or 10 hours a day there, and from her description it sounded as if hourly trips to the toilet were the main activity. I didn't feel she, who had never spent all day with her own kids or toilet trained them herself, ought to be telling me, at that point already the mother of 5 toilet trained children that 'there's only one way to toilet train.'
Nevertheless, I regretted the loss of conversation on other subjects.
Susan Peterson