On The Perils Of Oversharing

I worry about oversharing a lot as I’m writing this column. Whether or not I’ll come to regret something I’ve written here in this strange new forum that allows for so much less second-thought or editing than I became accustomed to in magazine work. You may have noticed I don’t put my kid’s name in my posts. I hope to not be selling him out with this stuff, or really, doing anything that might make him uncomfortable later on. Embarrassing myself is one thing. Embarrassing him would be another.

I may be erring on the side of caution. Last night, actress Julie Bowen, who plays the mom on the very funny ABC sitcom Modern Family, went on George Lopez and talked about her experiences as a mother of three.

A lot people are up in arms over the double-breastfeeding shot. I’m more taken aback by the story she told about her three-year-old Oliver pooping in the woods recently, and how she had to wipe his bottom with a package of Goldfish crackers. Is Bowen sentencing her firstborn to a future of traumatic snack periods in school?

Probably not. And I don’t mean to be a prig or a scold. I’m a big believer in different strokes for different folks. And this is really not such a huge deal. But, man, when I was say, I don’t know, eight?—if my friends and I learned such a story about one of our classmates, we would have called him “Goldfish Butt” or “Cracker Crack” or “Pepperidge Farts” or something until he cried for sure.