First off, I don't particularly find potty training endlessly fascinating, and while there is a place for "helpful tips" of the nongraphic sort (such as books by the toilet, facing a boy backwards for less accidents, etc), I think it's pretty much a normal part of life and not one I recall endlessly blogging about.
What I find amusing are bodily functions in general. Perhaps it is their taboo nature, I don't know. But I was fascinated with such things long long before I had children. I grew up in a family where body humor was the norm, and poop was indeed discussed at the dinner table. I'm not talking about, to use your frog dissection example, that we were analyzing the contents of the toilet verbally (which is what annoys ME about potty training parents: it comes out of all of us, so I don't need to know the frequency, consistency, or any other such details). Rather, we are bonding as a family using a common subject that we all find amusing. I remember sitting around on the patio with all my extended relatives (including my grandparents!) and finding amusing uses for my brother's remote-controlled fart machine...and we did it for a loooong time. I just checked my (childless) brother's status, and it referenced poop. Some people just find it funny.
Now I get your point, that if you find it not funny, it would be rude of us to continue (and/or rather silly of you to continue to sit there). But if everyone is amused, then what's the problem? You are basically addressing a public space-private space issue that occurs with any discussion of the internet. Many people find a lot of things TMI--among them whom you hooked up with last night, what you did while drunk, a video of your child singing. But these places (FB, LJ, etc) are places where there is little ability to screen who receives what information. The only thing that we can really do is not friend people who would be offended by our entire lives, or where their offenses would overshadow their enjoyment. Could I have a special "potty-related" friends group? Sure. But I can't screen that way on FB. In fact, one of the reasons that I will never friend one of my students (other than the professionalism aspect) is that I cannot screen my private life from them in any way. If my sister posts "Fart!" on my wall, do I want my students to read it? No way. Ditto on even more inappropriate things that could be said in a comment by friends of friends. The only way to keep my professional life separate from my private life is to not connect them via social networking sites. However, once they are connected, there's no way to screen anything out for certain groups. It's one of the downfalls of the technology. And I don't know who the onus should be on...because where does the line of being considerate of others' views end and "welcome to my thoughts as they happen" begin? If you have accepted the invite in, do you have to just suck it up on certain issues? Or are there things that are too private to even be shared "privately to just ones friends" on FB? And who makes those rules?
First, it's a good thing I like you for other reasons, because not only do I not find those things funny, I hate even seeing the words, and it is tempting to delete all the comments here. :)
You are basically addressing a public space-private space issue that occurs with any discussion of the internet.
You are correct.
(By the way, you can easily set up a "potty-related" friends group on Facebook also. You can in fact screen information on Facebook for only specific groups. I do it with everything.)
I'll be posting more about some of your questions in an entry later today, I think.
What I find amusing are bodily functions in general. Perhaps it is their taboo nature, I don't know. But I was fascinated with such things long long before I had children. I grew up in a family where body humor was the norm, and poop was indeed discussed at the dinner table. I'm not talking about, to use your frog dissection example, that we were analyzing the contents of the toilet verbally (which is what annoys ME about potty training parents: it comes out of all of us, so I don't need to know the frequency, consistency, or any other such details). Rather, we are bonding as a family using a common subject that we all find amusing. I remember sitting around on the patio with all my extended relatives (including my grandparents!) and finding amusing uses for my brother's remote-controlled fart machine...and we did it for a loooong time. I just checked my (childless) brother's status, and it referenced poop. Some people just find it funny.
Now I get your point, that if you find it not funny, it would be rude of us to continue (and/or rather silly of you to continue to sit there). But if everyone is amused, then what's the problem? You are basically addressing a public space-private space issue that occurs with any discussion of the internet. Many people find a lot of things TMI--among them whom you hooked up with last night, what you did while drunk, a video of your child singing. But these places (FB, LJ, etc) are places where there is little ability to screen who receives what information. The only thing that we can really do is not friend people who would be offended by our entire lives, or where their offenses would overshadow their enjoyment. Could I have a special "potty-related" friends group? Sure. But I can't screen that way on FB. In fact, one of the reasons that I will never friend one of my students (other than the professionalism aspect) is that I cannot screen my private life from them in any way. If my sister posts "Fart!" on my wall, do I want my students to read it? No way. Ditto on even more inappropriate things that could be said in a comment by friends of friends. The only way to keep my professional life separate from my private life is to not connect them via social networking sites. However, once they are connected, there's no way to screen anything out for certain groups. It's one of the downfalls of the technology. And I don't know who the onus should be on...because where does the line of being considerate of others' views end and "welcome to my thoughts as they happen" begin? If you have accepted the invite in, do you have to just suck it up on certain issues? Or are there things that are too private to even be shared "privately to just ones friends" on FB? And who makes those rules?
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You are basically addressing a public space-private space issue that occurs with any discussion of the internet.
You are correct.
(By the way, you can easily set up a "potty-related" friends group on Facebook also. You can in fact screen information on Facebook for only specific groups. I do it with everything.)
I'll be posting more about some of your questions in an entry later today, I think.
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