Short Takes: Books With Diaper & Wetting Content

[D_Rainger]

In The Clear, by Anne Laurel Carter.

What's it like to contract polio when you are an active seven-year-old? Pauline tells you. Written in bifid style, two stories are told concurrently. Pauline now (1959-60), and Pauline then (1953-5). As she endures the hospital and life in an iron lung, Pauline decides that it is safer to be mute, so she ceases to speak. Pauline is in pain, she is lonely, the nurses are tired and sometimes sadistic. Even the treatments and brace she has to wear seem like fiendish tortures.

Pauline longs for home and her secret wish is to play hockey with her dad in their backyard rink. Both then and now, Pauline has a protector, her Tante (aunt) Marie. But, can Tante Marie make Pauline's dreams come true?

Pauline is very frank about the effects of the paralysis she and the other children suffer. She talks about bedpans, changing bed clothing, and clean clothes. The kids laugh about wetting their pants and beds, but it is no joke. Pauline explains that kids with polio can't help having accidents. Most nurses just change the sheets and clean up the misfortune. One nurse they called "Witch Wilson" punishes the children. One morning Pauline's friend Bernardo has a smelly problem. Nurse Wilson thinks it is an act of disobedience, so she rolls him into a closet at the end of the ward without changing him or giving him any breakfast. She does not let him out until after lunch. The real showdown comes when a new little girl arrives in the ward. She is completely paralyzed and is scared. The first morning she has messed her bed and Witch Wilson is on duty. Nurse Wilson locks the crying girl, bed and all into the closet. But, this time Tante Marie walks in on them and finds out what has been going on. Heads Roll!

-R D

[D_Rainger]

I Had Seen Castles, by Cynthia Rylant.

John is a young man caught between patriotism, idealism, and his pacifist girlfriend. As World War II is heating up, all his friends join the military to find glory and be heroes. At least that's what John thinks. Then he meets Ginny and falls in love. But Ginny shows him a different side of war, one he hasn't thought of: propaganda, destruction, and death. Will he be led by his sense of duty or his love for Ginny? If you read this book, you may never believe in war again.

To see John off, Ginny comes over with a bottle of vodka. They get rip-roaring drunk. Ginny laughs so hard she wets her panties and has to put on a pair of John's underwear, which sends them off into new hysterics.

–D R

[D_Rainger]

Fly Away Home, starring Jeff Daniels, and Anna Paquin.

13-year-old Amy is involved in an auto accident that claims the life of her mother. She goes to live with her estranged artist father in Canada. She is a disaffected youth skiping school and finds a clutch of goose eggs and hatches them herself. If they are to survive she has to help them "fly away home" to a place for them to winter.

I think there was supposed to be a little more to one of the scenes that wound up on the cutting room floor. When Amy first arrives in Canada and she enters her room for the first time there is an ornate porcelain toilet sitting on the floor among other things. Amy's dad says he will clean all the stuff out of there soon. Later Amy's Uncle David shows up to help her father finish a commission for a museum. Amy is sleeping as the scene begins and suddenly her eyes pop open, she looks troubled, and she literally "springs" out of bed. She races down the stairs in a tee shirt and a short skirt and flings her backpack in the direction of the couch. Unknown to her, Uncle David is sleeping there and she awakens him from a nightmare. He does a comic fumble with the backpack, mumbles a bit and says, "you got to be Amy." All this time Amy is standing quite uncomfortably, shifting back and forth and looking out the door. Amy's dad appears and introduces Uncle David. Just then the bus horn sounds and Amy's dad tries to hurry her outside. Amy squats and squirms and says, "Dad wait, you're not listening to me, dad I've got to....." She is doing an obvious pee dance. We must assume she gets hustled off to the bus without ever getting to go to the bathroom. A transitional scene shows Amy at school being bored with a teacher droning on about Canadian history. The next scene shows Amy running up the driveway from the bus and running into her dad and his friend Susan. Susan asks how her day was and Amy says "Quite awful, thank you."

This sequence seems rather choppy to me. I wonder if something was cut? In my imagination, I see Amy in desperation on the bus. Perhaps she makes it all the way to school and rushes to the bathroom, barely making it to the toilet before she pees. Perhaps she has an accident on the bus, wetting her panties and having a river of urine going back and forth under the seats as the bus goes up and down the hills. Whatever the case, the directors chose to cut the scene right after we see Amy in distress. I would like to find out what Amy really found ‘quite awful, thank you.’

This is one of my favorite films. It is beautifully made, the actors quite good. I like simple, heartfelt movies with a happy ending.

-D R

[D_Rainger]

I’ll Sing You One-O, by Nan Gregory.

Gemma was abandoned by her mother when she was very young. When her foster family is being broken up, the authorities discover she has a real family, an aunt and uncle and a twin brother! But Gemma doesn’t seem to fit in, and her new family doesn’t seem understand her. Gemma decides she needs an angel. Her quest to earn one is by turns hilarious and heartbreaking. In the end, she must confront her past in order to move into the future.

The first night with her new family, Gemma has a scary reoccurring nightmare. She wakes up screaming in a tangle of wet sheets. She gets put in the bath while her aunt changes her sheets. Gemma feels awfully embarrassed to wet the bed because she is 12 years old. When she is put back under the covers she hears the “crickle-crackle” of plastic and realizes they have put some kind of “baby sheet” on her bed in case she wets again. Gemma is furious and pulls everything off, but is too tired to make the bed up again. She wakes up in the morning wrapped up in a blanket with her head on the windowsill.

-D R

[D_Rainger]

A Girl Named Sooner, by Suzanne Clauser.

Sooner was born before her mother was married, that's why she's a "sooner" baby. Now that her mother is gone she's been living with Old Mam, a mean spirited moon-shiner. Between working hard and getting switched, Sooner finds time to commune with nature and tame wild animals as her friends. She finds some comfort living for a time with the do-gooder town veterinarian and his emotionally challenged wife, but soon she's back with Old Mam. Will Sooner ever find a place she can just be herself?

Sooner finds a calf caught in one of Mam's traps, she releases it and binds its wounds with a piece of her own dress. The moment Sooner starts to think about getting switched by Old Mam for ruining her dress she has to make water. After squatting, Sooner pulls her drawers up tight between her legs to catch the last drips.

Old Mam hatches a plot to get money out of the county for taking care of Sooner. She takes Sooner into town and tells the sheriff she got a "forrester chile" (foster child). The sheriff takes Sooner into protective custody, which infuriates Old Mam. Sooner gets scared and as always has to make water. As Old Mam and the sheriff argue, the need inside Sooner gets worse. When old Mam tells Sooner to run back to the wagon, Sooner stands without moving, "tightening her legs together, holding in for fear of shaming herself." The sheriff bodily removes Old Mam from the premises, leaving Sooner with crossed legs holding in "what was now a terrible need." The sheriff comes back inside and sees Sooner with her legs crossed and shifting her weight. "You got to go that bad?" he asks her. The sheriff shows Sooner where to go, but she has never used an inside bathroom before and doesn't know how it works.

This book was made into a TV movie in 1975. Susan Deer starred as Sooner. Lee Remick, Cloris Leachman, Richard Crenna, Don Murray, and Anne Francis were also in it. I have seen stills from the show.

-D R

[D_Rainger]

Heaven Looks A Lot Like the Mall, a novel by Wendy Moss.

Is Tessa really dead? Plus-size Tessa is hit in the head while playing dodgeball. She wakes up in the mall, but no one seems to notice her except a boy with a drill bit in his head. He gives her a paper bag filled with things she bought over the years in the mall’s stores. Tessa travels through her childhood reliving the triumphs and tragedies surrounding each article.

When Tessa is in 4th grade she doesn’t like her teacher. To get even she cuts out pictures of her teacher’s head and pastes them onto nude bodies she cut out of her brother’s Playboy magazine. She puts the pictures in an envelope on her teacher’s desk. Tessa wants to see the expression on her teacher’s face, but because she forgot to go to the bathroom that morning, she can’t wait. When she gets back, the envelope is in the garbage.

In sophomore year Tessa is put in a study group with two jocks and a cheerleader. They start telling personal things and Tessa tells them that one time she tried to pee standing up to see what it felt like.

Tessa goes to the junior prom in a knock-out dress. She gets a little tipsy on the spiked punch. Disaster takes over when she trips on a power cord and shuts down the dance. She really needs to use the bathroom but feels she must escape. On the way to the hotel room her date has gotten, she runs into more trouble. By the time she gets there she says she doesn’t have to go to the bathroom any more.

[D_Rainger]

Wrong-Way Ragsdale, by Charles Hammer.

This story is a comedy of errors. When 13 year old Emmett Ragsdale and his piggish 8-year-old sister Essie accidentally "steal" a 1947 Taylorcraft BC 12-D; they fly off in the tracks of Emmett's namesake Wrongway Corrigan. In chapter 10 they are lost and flying over water. The power of suggestion is too much for Essie and she says, "Emmett, I got to go." Several tense minutes follow with Essie jiggling her feet until Emmett finds a coffee can for her to pee in. At first she is too shy to go, but after a while Emmett gets her to relieve herself. Emmett says he changed her diaper lots when she was little. He "saw more of Essie" then than he ever wants to see again! Later, Emmett himself is "busting" to go to the bathroom and goes in the can while Essie holds the controls. Still later, they have to use the can to cook in after surviving a forced landing.

–D R

[D_Rainger]

Addie Pray, by Joe David Brown.

This book was the inspiration for the movie “Paper Moon.” It was re-titled after the success of the picture. Long Boy might be Addie’s father but the two of them form a bond as close as family as they travel around the south doing “business.” They try every con game imaginable and sometimes get into some pretty close scrapes. Addie is wise beyond her years and usually pulls them through, until they try the biggest scam of them all.

Addie always gets excited when they are involved in a con or are in a tight spot. She gets so wound up that she says she has to calm down or she’ll wet her pants. This happens several times during the book. Addie also comments about Trixie Delight, a shady lady they pick up. Addie says she has a bladder “the size of a peanut.”

-D R

[D_Rainger]

Accidental Lilly, by Sally Warner, illustrated by Jacqueline Rogers.

This first-person narrative is entirely about bedwetting. 6-year-old Lilly wets the bed after her single parent mom moves the family to Philadelphia. She is sensitive and defensive about it although her brother tries to help her and her mom is understanding. She learns that another child at school wets the bed too. She tries different approaches to control her bedwetting. Finally, Lilly is invited to a slumber party and decides to borrow a sleeping bag and take her chances. There is no mention of nighttime protection in this book. It is humorous and well written. The illustrations are good. There are several other "Lilly" books that I have not read.

–D R

[D_Rainger]

Someone Called Eva, a novel by Joan M. Wolf

Based on factual events that happened during World War II in the town of Lidice, Czech Republic.

Milada is forcibly taken from her family to be a part of Hitler’s New World. Her blonde hair and blue eyes make her the perfect “Aryan” type. They even change her name. Will the new “Eva” remember the old “Milada?”

In the re-education center where she is taken Milada tries to tell her teacher her real name. She is slapped hard across the face and told “Nein! E-va!” Heidi, a younger girl, is struggling to learn German. She lapses into Polish in class one day. The furious teacher lifts her by the arm, pulls up her skirt, and yanks down her underwear. She hits Heidi five times on her bare bottom with a ruler then throws her to the floor. The child scrambles to get her clothes back on.

Heidi continues to have problems fitting in. She wets the bed several times. Finally, one morning during inspection, the Fräulein in charge has had enough. Heidi has wet her bed yet again. She is sent to another camp for “additional training.” Heidi’s sister Elsa is despondent and refuses to get out of bed. She is beaten with a leather belt. Finally she is sent for “additional training” too.

Stories such as these are difficult to read because they are based on events that really happened. Of the 6 million Jews that were put to death in the Nazi concentration camps a full 1 million were children. Anne Frank was just one of countless children whose story was just as grim. Those days are rapidly being lost to new horrors. Why do we keep repeating these mistakes over and over?

-D R

[D_Rainger]

Sickened – The Memoir of a Munchausen by Proxy Childhood, by Julie Gregory

Julie’s mother imagines that Julie is sick (Munchausen by Proxy Syndrome). She is put through a myriad of tests and given medication she doesn’t need. No one believes what Julie says. When Julie grows up and finds out just how sick her mother is, she must take action to protect another child who is caught up in her mother’s bizarre fantasy.

Julie describes in part many of the tests and procedures she undergoes as a child. The narrative is interspersed with actual hospital records.

Julie wets her bed for a time when she is young and is afraid this will be disclosed to her doctors. It never is. Instead, her mother believes she has a bad heart. During one visit Julie is asked to produce a urine specimen. She is unable to do it. Later, in retribution, Julie’s mother has her catheterized and injected with dye to determine the cause. At twelve years of age, Julie describes having her chest shaved so electrode patches can be stuck to her to record her heart activity. Another time her pubic area is shaved before a heart catheterization. Julie also tells of beatings by her father, and even her experience in a wet T-shirt contest.

Munchausen by Proxy is possibly the most complex and misunderstood form of child abuse today. It is often lethal. The formal definition is the falsification or induction of physical and/or emotional illness by a caretaker of a dependent person. In most cases, the perpetrator is a mother and the victim is her own child.

Julie has a fine web site: www.juliegregory.com

-D R

[D_Rainger]

The Big House, by Carolyn Coman, illustrated by Rob Shepperson.

An eclectic story written with tongue in cheek. Ray and Ivy’s father and mother are sent up the river for embezzlement and Ray and Ivy are sent to the "big house" to live with crotchety old Marietta and Lionel the very ones who testified against their parents. As the story is told, the mystery unfolds. Ivy and Ray collect evidence and eventually crack the case and get their parents set free. You’ll never guess who the real criminal is.

Five-year-old Ray wets his bed the first night they are in the big house. Ivy knows just what to do and strips off the sheets and bundles them up, but the housemaid finds out and has a fit. She blabs to Marietta who calls it an “unfortunate accident.” Marietta says something will have to be done if it continues. When the children go out to play, Ray’s sheets are hanging on the clothesline for all to see. The next night Ivy sleeps with Ray in his bed and he wets again. This time he is banished to a room next to the laundry room. Marietta calls it “a simple necessity if there is to be the daily laundering of messed sheets.”

Ray goes for many nights without wetting, but when the threat of boarding school looms, he has an accident. Ivy says there is no hope of a cover up, because there is a “stain like a map in the middle of his soaked sheets.” Marietta responds by hiring a company called “High and Dry” to come and install a bedwetting alarm, “to nip things in the bud,” and “to finally put an end to these accidents,” Marietta says.

-D R

[D_Rainger]

The Sisterhood of the Traveling Pants, starring Amber Tamblyn, America Ferrera, Blake Lively, and Alexis Bledel.

A teen chick-flick based on the immensely popular book series by Ann Brashares (yes, that’s right). Friends since birth, the girls have their growing pains over summer vacation. To help them along each one in turn wears a mysterious pair of thrift shop jeans that miraculously fits them all. True to the formula, each one has her troubles, but grows and blossoms into someone new and better.

The show stealer is Jenna Boyd who plays a little girl stricken with leukemia. She befriends Amber Tamblyn’s character “Tibby” and teaches her a thing or two.

Bailey (Jenna Boyd) is shopping at “Wallman’s" and passes out. Tibby is working around the corner and comes to investigate. She sees Bailey lying on the floor. Bailey has wet herself. Bailey’s legs are splayed and there is a big dark stain at her crotch running down the inside of her pants to her knees. There are also some closer shots. The wetting scene is true to the book. It is obviously staged, but must have taken some courage on the part of young Boyd to pull it off. Remember that she is the one that did the desperation scene in “The Missing” that was cut. She is a convincing actress.

-D R

[D_Rainger]

The Man Who Fell To Earth, (1976) Nicolas Roeg’s cult masterpiece starring David Bowie, Rip Torn, Candy Clarke, and Buck Henry.

Tommy Newton is an alien. Not just from another country, but from another world. Newton’s wife and children are dying from lack of water on their home planet. He has traveled to earth to save their lives, but becomes marooned. Newton’s relationships with his girlfriend, his business partner, and a radical professor are Bowie at his best.

When Newton reveals that he is an alien to his girlfriend Mary-Lou, she is hysterical. She stands against the wall in a short pink nightie and the camera zooms in on her waist. Her pink panties are peeking out and a pale yellow stream of urine begins to run down the inside of her leg. The scene immediately shifts to the bedroom.

This picture was made in the days when an “R” rated movie was really R-rated. There is quite a bit of nudity including frontal shots. The peeing scene is one of the very first I can find in a mainstream film. If you find this movie interesting, try Roeg’s “Walkabout” (1971) with Jenny Agutter and David Gulpilil.

-D R

[Pull-ups man]

Someone Called Eva, a novel by Joan M. Wolf

Based on factual events that happened during World War II in the town of Lidice, Czech Republic.

Milada is forcibly taken from her family to be a part of Hitler’s New World. Her blonde hair and blue eyes make her the perfect “Aryan” type. They even change her name. Will the new “Eva” remember the old “Milada?”

In the re-education center where she is taken Milada tries to tell her teacher her real name. She is slapped hard across the face and told “Nein! E-va!” Heidi, a younger girl, is struggling to learn German. She lapses into Polish in class one day. The furious teacher lifts her by the arm, pulls up her skirt, and yanks down her underwear. She hits Heidi five times on her bare bottom with a ruler then throws her to the floor. The child scrambles to get her clothes back on.

Heidi continues to have problems fitting in. She wets the bed several times. Finally, one morning during inspection, the Fräulein in charge has had enough. Heidi has wet her bed yet again. She is sent to another camp for “additional training.” Heidi’s sister Elsa is despondent and refuses to get out of bed. She is beaten with a leather belt. Finally she is sent for “additional training” too.

Stories such as these are difficult to read because they are based on events that really happened. Of the 6 million Jews that were put to death in the Nazi concentration camps a full 1 million were children. Anne Frank was just one of countless children whose story was just as grim. Those days are rapidly being lost to new horrors. Why do we keep repeating these mistakes over and over?

-D R

COOOOOOLLLL!!!! well now youve really made me happy! I mean to discover something like this is just so marvelouse... Ive gotta read it as soon as i can...

thanks D_Rainger

[D_Rainger]

Starring Sally J. Freedman As Herself, by Judy Blume.

In this story that mirrors the author's own childhood, Sally moves temporarily to Miami Beach with her mother , grandmother, and her brother who is recovering from a kidney infection. She misses her father and her friends. Things are not always easy for her in the post World War II 1940's. By writing to her father, with the help of her friends, and with a big dose of her own imagination, she makes her way through a difficult time.

Fifth-grader Sally has bathroom troubles when she goes to school in Florida. On the first day she finds out none of the stalls in the restroom have doors on them. Sally makes up her mind to never use the bathroom at school. By lunch time Sally has to go pretty bad. After school, Sally runs all the way home because she has to go "in the worst way." She races up the stairs past her mother and grandmother, but by then it is too late. Her legs are already wet and as she sits down on the toilet she begins to cry.

In another chapter, Sally gets stung by a Portuguese Man O' War and her mother takes her home in a borrowed baby stroller. Sally is mortified and hopes none of her friends see her. She keeps her eyes closed all the way home.

-D R

[Repaid1]

COOOOOOLLLL!!!! well now youve really made me happy! I mean to discover something like this is just so marvelouse... Ive gotta read it as soon as i can...

thanks D_Rainger

Seriously?? you are kidding right. I know this is a AB sight..but what did you at your age find this so fasinating..given the content?? please enlighten us.. I must have missunderstood.

[D_Rainger]

The Great Gilly Hopkins, by Katherine Paterson.

It is reassuring to see that this award-winning book mentions bed wetting in a straight forward manner. Galadriel "Gilly" Hopkins is the daughter of a gone away flower child. She has been bounced around from one foster home to another and she has learned how to work the system. Gilly has made a reputation as a liar, fighter, and genius. Gilly never lets her emotions toward others get in the way until now. She lives with Mamie Trotter and another foster child, the little fragile boy W.E. and blind Mr. Randolph from next door. Maybe this time Gilly wants to stay. Maybe she isn't so tough after all.

Gilly is honest as she recollects the people she lived with, "The Newman family, who couldn't keep a five-year-old who wet her bed." Gilly adds, "Well, I'm eleven now, folks, and in case you haven't heard, I don't wet my bed anymore." Later, when W.E. is sick with the flu he comes down stairs while Gilly is entertaining her estranged grandmother. Gilly sees that W.E.'s long johns are wet all down the front. "I wet," W.E. says. Gilly sighs, "I know. When you're sick you just can't help it." Gilly gets clean underwear for him and changes his bed. Gilly describes him as 'a crazy, heart-ripping little guy who went "pow" (he's learning to fight) and still wet his stupid bed.'

[Pull-ups man]

Seriously?? you are kidding right. I know this is a AB sight..but what did you at your age find this so fasinating..given the content?? please enlighten us.. I must have missunderstood.

I havent read it yet tho.... its more about the setting in which the book is placed... c my parents lived in the former Czechoslovakia and I find it really interesting that such a book was written. I have to start looking for it the local stores...

[D_Rainger]

I havent read it yet tho.... its more about the setting in which the book is placed... c my parents lived in the former Czechoslovakia and I find it really interesting that such a book was written. I have to start looking for it the local stores...

I found this copy at my local library.

-D R

[D_Rainger]

Looking for Normal, by Betty Monthei.

This adult story is found in the juvenile fiction section. Annie and Ted’s Dad kills their mother and then commits suicide. The children go to live with their Grandma and Grandpa. Each one struggles with the gravity of the circumstances. Grandpa spends too much time away from home. Grandma begins to drink and spirals out of control until she physically abuses Annie, breaking her arm and putting her in the hospital. Very slowly with the help of counseling, a new family begins to emerge.

During one horrible fight Annie tries to protect her mother from her father. She throws herself at her mother and clings to her while Annie’s father tries to hit them. She is so scared that she wets herself while sitting in her mother’s lap. Amazingly, after Annie’s father leaves they are able to laugh about it. Later they take a bath together.

It occurs to me that the world we live in has grown cold. I find it an indicator of how much gentleness has been lost in society today when this is considered a child’s book. Do we protect our children or do we allow them even at a tender age to encounter base emotion?

-D R

[D_Rainger]

Little House on the Prairie, the long-running TV Series starring Michael Landon, Karen Grassel, Melissa Sue Anderson, and Melissa Gilbert.

A departure from the original series of books by Laura Ingalls Wilder, the TV series was widely popular, ranking in the top 30 shows for 8 of 9 years. It is still in syndication and most if not all the episodes are available on DVD. It ran in various forms until 1984.

It is a well-established fact that Michael Landon had a bed-wetting problem in his youth. He wrote and directed a movie titled “The Loneliest Runner,” (1976) about a teen-age bed-wetter humiliated by his mother. In the “Little House” series, use of the outhouse is frequently seen, and mention of bed-wetting occurs in several episodes. Landon tried to weave his own experience into the programs.

Season 5 (1978-79) seems to be especially filled with wetting content. In the very first episode, Carrie (played by identical twins Lindsay and Sidney Greenbush) is seen coming from the outhouse to climb into the back of the wagon. Later while waiting for Pa and Ma in Winoka, Carrie tells Laura that she needs to go to the bathroom. Laura tells her to wait. This happens several times. Finally, Pa tells Laura to take Carrie to the bathroom and Ma tells them that there is a water closet on the second floor. Laura gets distracted and leaves Carrie on the stoop of the hotel. When she returns, Carrie has wet herself and the camera pans down to a large watery spot on the front step. Laura whisks Carrie away. There is also a scene about bed-wetting while Charles is staying away from home in another episode.

D R

[messyman]

I don't remember which books in particular but a lot of Stephen Kind books make reference to pants wetting and in some make mention of adult diapers.

It, Rage, The Long Walk and a couple of the Dark Tower books come to mind.

[Pull-ups man]

Ive just finished reading George Orwells book 1984 and there are some diapers references in it as well. I can go through it and post the particular lines here if somebodys inretested...?

[messyman]

J-Pod by Douglas Coupland. There is a brief passage where they discuss a character's past and possibly present bed wetting.