Eulogy for a poop joke

Thalia came home last week informing us that Poop is now a bad word. Or so say her preschool teachers.

RIP the poop joke. Its passing is sad and untimely, but not altogether unexpected.

What can I say, we had a good run while we can, what with Thalia’s President Poopyhead baby shirt, and Nate teaching her songs in which he substitutes the word Poop for pretty much anything. We try are trying not to be sad, but instead to honor its memory and to be grateful for the time we did have together.

Nate is certainly in the denial phase, as he continues to defy reason and invoke Poop’s name. I’m hoping he’ll come around soon for the good of the family.

The most difficult part of this, however, may be the imminent departure from our lives of Poop’s cousins, Fart and Butt, who no doubt are soon to follow. (It always happens in threes, right?) Sage may be the one to take this news the hardest, she being fond of telling strangers on the street that Butt is her favorite word. Fortunately, toddlers are resilient. I have confidence that, in time, she will come to forget Butt and learn to love again.

And now, you are welcome to mediate silently for one minute.

{30 Comments}

30 thoughts on “Eulogy for a poop joke”

  1. Oh, you made that photo? For a minute I thought there was a Cake Wrecks for tombstones.

    RIP Poop. I thought we were safe from its banishment, being weird homeschoolers and all, but now D is in preschool. Sad.

  2. Yeah, we often tell our daughter that one person's bad word is the punchline to another person's joke. Just don't say it at school. ha!

  3. Wait a minute. Can you just not joke about poop? Is using it correctly in context all right? I hope so. 'Cause if not…what do you say when you have to poop?

  4. My son is going to be very upset. He calls his sister poopy head at least 10x a day..or shortens it to Poopy Lexi. Whatever will he do now?

  5. A poignant post indeed. There truly is nothing funnier than poop. So sad.

    It *is* funny what the kids consider the BAD WORDS. The other day on the playground a 2nd grader came up to me and complained, “Daria said the “SH” word to me!!” I cringed, then meekly asked, “What is the SH word?”. “SHUT UP!”. Ah, to be so innocent.

  6. A few years ago (before my oldest was a talker), we engaged a poop joke or two. Until one day my neice (who was a whopping 9 at the time) informed us imperiously that poop humor was not allowed in their home.

    We were chastised.

    For about a week. But there's something about a word being taboo that makes it all the funnier.

    (Yes, I'm a mom of boys…)

    – Julia

  7. Um…maybe you should show the teachers the “Elmo Uses the Potty” video. It's very good and full of Poo Poo (and pee pee) and lots of other great words like Wee Wee and Woo Woo! Poop is clearly just a contraction of Poo Poo. -Monica

  8. I view this completely different – I have already had talks with my son about what is appropriate to say in different places – say, poop jokes or certain words in front of my grandma or at his school. I have explained it as being considerate of his audience. He is starting to get it – that he can say “butt” in front of me, but not in front of his teacher. I don't think it is disingenuous to be teaching this. Or rather, I see it as a life skill. As someone with an extreme crass sense of humor, I had to learn long ago to keep my mouth shut in certain situations! -)

  9. Truly sad. My daughter wrote her college essay on that most infamous of words – “poop”. To think…some yet unborn child will never know the wonders of that word. Perhaps we can start a secret poop society in order to keep the spirit alive for future generations.

  10. The word “poop” is also not allowed in my children's Montessori school. Which means they say it at home constantly, instead. 😉

  11. Really?! A bad word? Maybe it's in the context? Lucas announces the deed with, “I need to go poop!” pretty much every day. So help me GOD if he has to say he needs to “move his bowels” instead. I'll die.

  12. WHAT?! *sigh* I'm kind of devastated. Poop has been a constant in our lives for many years now, and I'm not sure we can live without it.

  13. Okay – the year my son was in kindergarten, his favorite saying was, “poopy-vagina-penis-head”. I swear. You can't make this stuff up, you know.

    Imagine the phone call I got that day…and the next, and the next. It took him awhile to decide the responses he got weren't worth missing recess.

    Ahhh well. That's what I get for teaching him the appropriate names for body parts.

  14. My 3 year old says poop about 30 times a day. Why do they get to decide it's a bad word?! I thought the tombstone was from Cake Wrecks, too 🙂

    It's been than saying the “s” word, right?

    It's hard for children to say “fecal matter.”

  15. So unfair! We use the word constantly when potty training our toddlers, praising them for telling us when the have to do it, giving them treats, doing the pop poo dance and they hit preschool and it's taboo. (sigh). Thanks for the heads up. I better start training my tongue now. Heehee 😛

  16. OK, so I get fart and butt. Those are actually verboten words in our house. But poop? Really? Coming from someone who feels that she's too strict with no allowing the word butt in her house, that seems too far. We say poopies around these parts ALL day long. I guess that's out now. *sigh*

  17. Heather, I'd imagine the ban is less in the context of “I have to make a poop” and more in the context of “Hey Poop Head! Yeah, you!”

  18. Fart is the word that died in our family lately. We use that word all the time, but my niece informed us that we're doing a disservice to our fellow countrymen and making their ears explode by saying it. So now we're not allowed.

    I want to know when fart became a bad word. I think I missed that memo when I was a kid.

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