It may have been the bristles scrubbing his four little chompers, but more likely he didn’t like being pinned to the cold tile floor like some midget wrestler while a malnourished Hulk Hogan rammed a toothbrush into his face.
Toothbrushing, like having teeth at all, was something new for Dougie and it was not something he was particularly fond of. He kicked and squirmed, screaming in protest, shaking his head from side to side doing his very best to spit out the brush. I was literally fighting tooth decay.
I’d just returned from the dentist office where I learned of an impending root canal. As a responsible parent I vowed to enforce a new toothbrushing policy upon my son so that he would not have to fear the drill in 35 years. I won the battle, of course, because I’ve got him by about 140 pounds. But all I’d taught him was that brushing his teeth is something he has to do because I’m bigger; because I said so. I hadn’t won at all. He went to bed with his mouth free of plaque and I went to bed with a heart full of guilt.
The next day Dougie dragged his little ottertail paddle over to a basket of laundry, climbed into the basket and began paddling his rubbermaid canoe and a week’s worth of socks across the living room floor.
I cried.
For years, prepping myself for the task, I’ve been asking outdoorsy parents how they turned their kids into little campers.
They all have wonderful stories to tell, all different stories of course, but the secret, they say, is including a little bit of camping, skiing, biking, canoeing and hiking into everyday life. Which I guess explains why we have a tent set up in the dining room, we wear bike helmets at story time and we own the Chariot CX2 adventure stroller reviewed in this issue’s new toy box column.
For two months I’d put Dougie on my knee with his pint-sized paddle while I hummed bits and pieces of old camp songs. Since he was born he’s been coming to the river with us watching kayakers play in the rapids. he often floats around with us in our canoe.
Seeing Dougie kneeling in the laundry basket paddling across the living room solved my toothbrushing dilemma.
Everything I wanted him to learn about camping I’d made into a toy or a game and made sure he saw us smiling and having fun. Yet something as routine and important as brushing my teeth I did in the privacy of my own bathroom. Then one day I produced a toothbrush, pinned him down and rammed it into his mouth. How shocking that must have been. Putting it like that, I can see myself appearing on the next Jerry Springer show, “On today’s show, hippie dads who go macho man on their kids to fight cavities.”
Lucky for me, Dougie won’t see that episode; he’d rather be camping than watching television.
This article first appeared in the Summer 2006 issue of Canoeroots Magazine. For more great content, subscribe to Canoeroots’ print and digital editions here.
