This picture doesn’t have much to do with this blog, except that I like it, it features a bathroom, and it could direct you to my book Where Tigers Belch. On top of that I was born in the Chinese Year of the Tiger.
“I laughed so hard I wet my pants.”
Well, that’s allowed. It must have been a good joke. But any other time, it’s embarrassing.
And nobody wants to be wet.
Most parents are patient in training their child to pee in the prescribed place, and not to soil their underwear. Yet somehow it became shameful to have an accident. I remember a poor little girl in my second grade who, standing at the front of the room, wet her pants, and as she was dressed in the required skirt, the entire class saw the water splatter. What frightened that little girl so badly it scared her bladder? The teacher was a nun, and we students couldn’t imagine a nun ever going to the bathroom. Every child in the room was happy it had not happened to them. I bet every child of that class remembers it to this day.
Then you wonder how the rocket launch of a baby going through the birth canal can leave all the cables intact. You know, before birth control, women were having 10 -12 maybe more babies. Babies were “Gifts from God,” but a fertile couple who had many children, were considered poor and uneducated. (And kept poor because of all the mouths they had to feed.) The pressures we put on women—like the rape/incest, no abortion/the two wrongs don’t make a right attitude.
I read that Eleanor Roosevelt, being Catholic, used staying
away from her husband as a means to avoid another pregnancy. In the first decade of their marriage, Eleanor was pregnant five times, four within the first four years. She had six children. It took a heavy toll physically and emotionally. When one of their children died in infancy, Eleanor fell into such deep mourning that she later wrote of feeling a bitterness toward her husband for a time.
My dear dentist boss sent a dozen roses to his mother on his birthday as thanks for not stopping after 10 babies, for he was the 11th. And his mother was a little woman. I’m not saying that any person born should not be here. I’m into choices.
But I was talking about incontinence—that is, lack of bladder control.
Why am I talking about incontinence? Well, it’s on my mind. And I am reading the book the Bath Room Key by Kathryn Kassai (A Physical Therapist) and Kim Perelli—that is information on strengthening the pelvic floor. If we can talk about religion, politics, traumas, fears, how to become better people, or how to become enlightened, a good How- to book would be How-To avoid Wet Pants. Plus we can learn not to laugh or ridicule a person who has a wetting accident; first, you scare them, and then you laugh at them. Ridicule is one of the most feared punishments.
In tribal times, ridicule often became ostracization. A person kicked out of the tribe, essentially became lion fodder. Same with wild horses. Their worst fear is being pushed out of the herd. And that is why they can become herd-bound. It’s instinctual.
Isn’t it amazing that animals, especially dogs, can train their bladders to wait until the door opens for them to go outside?
Dogs of working people usually manage being indoors for eight hours. And a cat can hold it until he reaches the potty box.
Why is human lack of bladder control such a widespread problem? Although I have learned that it always has been to some degree, just hidden. Some African cultures send a woman to her own hut when she becomes incontinent because she has an odor. (Lack of water for cleanliness?)
It is predicted that in China, for this year 2025, adult diapers will outsell baby diapers.
Incontinence isn’t only a woman’s problem. Although men are more apt to tell their doctors they have a bladder problem sooner than women. Women, on average, hide incontinence for 8 years before telling their doctors. Women struggle with pads, waking numerous times in the night, frequent trips to the bathroom, mapping out where store bathrooms are, fearing or avoiding some social activities like dancing. Geesh, before babies, I could flip on a trampoline and ride a horse’s trot.
And then there was a boy in my peripheral family who was repeatedly struck with a belt or a rubber hose to beat the bed-wetting out of him. Don’t do that. Children aren’t wetting the bed out of laziness or disrespect. Shame and punishment don’t work. They can’t help it.
And gently teach your puppy. Don’t hit a puppy for accidents; show him outside. It takes learning to get the idea. And we can train our bladders to wait for a convenient time. (Well, some of us can.)
I’ve been reading The Bathroom Key by Kathryn Kassai (Physical therapist) and Kim Perelli, and I will put some information from it on my other website. https://goddesses50andbeyond.blogspot.com/
Bio-feedback might be a way to go. I will look into it. Probably, your doctor will tell you, “Do Kegels, Do Kegels,” until you are blue in the face. After my vision training experience where we exercise, do the drills, and be faithful to our routines, still, until we FEEL what is happening, we don’t make the mind/body connection.
More to come on this.