Boys Dig Bathroom Behaviors

It is a well-known fact that boys relish anything having to do with bodily functions. A toot can elicit a good five minutes' worth of laughter. An outstanding production in the toilet has to be announced for all the brothers to come view and marvel at its size and shape. When playing outside gets boring, you can bet that a swig from a bottle and a mock vomit scene for passing cars will liven things up.

Thus, I was not surprised when my boys began to clamor at a new commercial featuring bathroom behavior. However, it was surprising to hear the Barbie theme in the background. I mean, no mother of a self-respecting boy wants her sons to be chiming in with "Barbie girls." Enter the commercial for Barbie's Potty Training Pups. What?

Yes, the Barbie franchise is now pushing puppies who actually pee and poop. Here is the product description from an Amazon listing:

"Barbie is having a fun-filled day with her new puppies! After she feeds water to each of her 3 puppies, they “go potty” to reveal a surprise on the newspaper – it changes color to yellow and brown! Each of the puppies goes potty in a different way: the boy dog potties when you lift his leg and the girl dog squats to potty when you press her back. The third puppy just needs a squeeze on the tummy to go potty and reveal a surprise. And when Barbie feeds the puppies, they're ready to go again! Includes 3 puppies, Barbie doll, 2 pieces of color-change newspaper, dog bed, assorted collars and toys for the pups."

But my question is why? Girls don't really dig those bathroom behaviors like boys do. I can understand the appeal of the puppies. Young girls often fall for the cuddly charm of puppies and ponies. But why must they potty?

I've never actually potty trained a puppy, but I did endure the process with two boys (my first son trained himself, amazingly). Although most of the time, I feel like all that is behind me, there are still days ... or should I say nights ... when I am back in the trenches.

YS begs and begs to be put to bed in big boy pants. Some nights that works out just fine. But, he's a very solid sleeper and some nights he wakes in tears with a soaked bed. Those are not the moments where I think to myself, "I think I'd like to play at this all day long."

Apparently, I'm not alone in my skepticism. I noted this opinion shared by Mary Tara on E-pinions:

"The newspapers are made of plastic (with what looks to be fashion ads on them) and when they get wet they turn yellow and brown meaning that the dogs have gone #1 and #2 on them. Sounds like loads of fun right? ... The peeing puppy process is one that we are familiar with since we already have Barbie, Taffy & Puppies.... In this set, all of the dogs are said to pee but none of them actually do as they are supposed to.... I do like that the "papers" in this set are plastic and re-usable unlike the cardboard squares that came with our other set that were not well thought out. However, whoever thought that it would be fun to see the paper turn brown or yellow has too much time on their hands. That is just plain gross!"

My boys think it is grand to watch the paper turn brown or yellow. They call me into the room every single time this commercial comes on.

Maybe a man (or a boy in a grown up body) was on that creative committee and thought it would be fun. If not, then maybe the makers of Barbie were just trying to give little girls a dose of reality (after all, all the world must deal with bathroom behaviors, whether they revel in them or not). Indeed, one of their similar products is called the "Barbie Reality Clean Up Pup Playset." I'm guessing if they were really interested in portraying reality to little girls their doll would look more like this image my sister-in-law forwarded to me:



Still, even if the bathroom behaviors of puppies is thrilling for my boys, they are not asking for the Barbie doll to go on their birthday lists. For that to happen, I think Mattel would have to come up with a Ken doll, complete with a skateboard and quarter pipe, where Ken can experience horrible injuries in his risky endeavors and ooze blood onto plastic pavement pieces which turn bright red. Hopefully, they will stick with the same process they perfected with these insane potty training pups, so the mess will just evaporate.

Of course, that's not very realistic either. When my boys take to the skateboards (if the snow ever melts and spring ever gets here), their injuries are not going to evaporate. Oh well, I guess the motivation for play is to prepare a kid for real life. And speaking of real life, I'd better go scoop some of that non-evaporating brown stuff off the front of my yard before spring comes and my boys step in it and track it all over the house.