If every third word that comes out of JP’s mouth is a variant of poop–“poopie pants,” “poopy face,” “you’re a poop,” “poop-head,” “she’s a poop,” “I’m gonna poop on you,” etc.–can that be considered verified evidence that he has entered the anal phase, and if so, is this a good thing?
I’m sure most of my DadWagon following–those of you who don’t come to the site just for Matt and Nathan–must certainly be Freudians, right? So you guys oughta know. Frankly, I don’t really have a clue about what the anal phase is, other than it has something to do with Austrian doctors, spiritual malaise, and environmentally-correct toilet paper. Here’s a definition I found online:
ANAL OR ANAL-SADISTIC PHASE: The second phase of early childhood psychosexual development, according to Freud, when pleasure is oriented to the anal orifice and defecation (roughly 2-4 years of age). This phase is split between active and passive impulses: the impulse to mastery on the one hand, which can easily become cruelty; the impulse to scopophilia (love of gazing), on the other hand. According to Freud, the child’s pleasure in defecation is connected to his or her pleasure in creating something of his or her own, a pleasure that for women is later transferred to child-bearing.
“Anal-sadistic”? “Psychosexual”? No, no, no. That’s not my kid. My boy knows nothing of this scopophilia (I leave that to my downstairs neighbor). He just thinks the word “poop” is funny. And I kinda agree…it’s just a phase, right?…he’ll stop soon, no?…or if not soon, at least he’ll let up at the grocery store, ’cause those checkout girls don’t think it’s so cute anymore…and neither does the teller at that bank…I mean, she’s not really a poop-head even if she did screw up my withdrawal.
Definitely a phase. He should be out of it by the time he’s 20.
My sons do this as well. It gets pretty annoying and I have tried lots of things to try and teach them that using it out of context is not acceptable. As soon as I turn the corner I hear ‘poop’, followed by laughter. I have also told them to think of other things to say instead of ‘poop’. And yet it seems to just be getting worse.