Why I talk with my boyfriend about poopy pants

On making a mess and wanting someone else to deal with it

This is not a picture of me, but I like the idea of looking this cool in a laundrette. Photo by a befendo on Unsplash

I want to tell you a story. It’s about poopy pants.

It happened to someone we know. It began when this man was travelling with his seven-year-old daughter on the train. It was a longish journey. Suddenly, she had a bout of diarrhea. Panic! Her dad rushed her to the train toilet. But drat! It was all too late. She’d pooped in her pants. 

Understandable. I think most of us have been there.

She went into the toilet anyway, just in case more was to come.

Again, I think we have all been there.

Upon coming out, looking queasy of face, and a little fragile, he prepared to hug her.

However, instead of a hug, she solemnly said “here” and handed him a parcel of pooey pants.

Then she wordlessly continued back to her seat, leaving him slightly bemused, in the middle of the train carriage, holding her unwanted poopy pants. The bins in the toilet and in the main seated bit were already full.

I think he was a bit like,  “Well, thanks for handing me your poopy pants, I also don’t really want them, and currently also have no idea what to do with this.” 

Gaaaahh. A parcel of poop. The responsibility. The squish. The stench. Never has a plastic bag seemed so wholesome.

Let us leave him in the aisle for a second, wondering what to do. I want to explain why this highly relatable situation for anyone who’s been a parent or child (or indeed, is in possession of a bum) is relevant in my romantic relationship. And how, as a metaphor, it has been so helpful for understanding and meeting our messier emotions with grace.

I don’t know how there is a stock photo that combines both poo and trains but hello universe, glad you see me here looking for relevant stock photos. Photo by Ian Yates on Unsplash

Sometimes, our emotions feel shitty. Sometimes we act them out. Poop them all over situations. We can’t help it. And once we’ve emotionally pooped, we don’t know what to do about it. We’d rather someone else just sort it out.

I think most of us feel a bit sheepish about that, because handing someone close to you your poopy pants is perfectly appropriate when you are seven, but it’s still a surprisingly common reaction to life events when you are 36, or 53, if we substitute poopy pants for shitty feelings or situations that we definitely caused, but we’d rather someone else fixed.

I’ve definitely been on the receiving end of someone essentially saying “I have made a big mess everywhere, there is poo all over my life and I didn’t mean to so now I’d like you, innocent bystander, to clean up my poo, make the poopiness go away! It’s smelly and embarrassing!”

We can often get a bit grizzly when adults try and hand their poopy pants to us. After all, learning how to take care of one’s own poopy pants is part of the maturation process. It’s hard enough to parent your actual children, or try and finish your own incomplete parenting, without adding to that the burden of taking on other grown-ups who also want fixing. That’s just too much poo.

Pick up your poo please Photo by Meizhi Lang on Unsplash

nd yet…

Who hasn’t wanted to be fixed? By a partner? By their therapist? By a friend they look up to? Or even by a kind boss?

Which is why I find it a bit easier to just name and be compassionate to this very understandable reaction to overwhelm. Because that’s what metaphorical poopy pants are.

It’s the really relatable experience of feeling out of control, under-resourced and stuck. Not knowing what to do, but even recognizing that feeling is too much and so instead wanting to hand those challenging feelings, circumstances or experiences over to someone other than you, and have them make it all go away. 

I feel like that sometimes. It doesn’t help to shame that.

It helps to recognise that in that moment, we are really seven year olds calling for help, and that part of us is worthy of love and care, no matter whether we are responding to our difficulties in a child-like way or not.

I didn’t think I would ever find myself saying to my partner “I want to explode my poopy pants all over the relationship right now” or even, whilst rolling about the sofa with an emotional support hot water bottle, feeling feelings from a long time ago:  “I feel like I have pooped my pants and I want you to clean it up,” but that has been what I have found myself telling my boyfriend at times.  

The joy has been laughing about it. 

Meanwhile, on the other side, when I am met with ‘it’s your job to fix how I feel!’ cry, I can be compassionate to my own inner bemused parent, standing in the train corridor feeling a bit like a child myself, being as caring as I can be, and tremendously willing, but not really wanting to take the poopy pants either. 

There’s a skill to helping support someone without taking their shit on.

Meanwhile, our mutual friend, I’m sure you want to know - what did he do with the poopy pants? Well, given the bins were full on the train, and he felt it would be too much for the other passengers to ram them in and leave them there, he wrapped them in a bag and sat with them. And then when they got off at the next stop, he dumped them in the tip by the station.