POOP! I’m going to talk about POOP! It’s going to get real. Because I’m feeling like the honey badger tonight (“honey badger doesn’t give a ****!”). Yes, people have written plenty about shitting in the woods before. Few, however, will have been quite as detailed and as graphic as I intend to be. I am going to give you detailed instructions on how to hold your kids ass while they poop in a hole. Yes, yes I am. If you’re a parent hopefully this will all be funny because you’ve dealt with lots and lots of shit. If you’re not a parent, you might think you know, but “YOU HAVE NO IDEA”.
I think many people are reluctant to camp because they are afraid of pooping in the woods. That’s a shame, because it’s really not that big of a deal. Humans have been doing it for hundreds of thousands of years, after all. I’ll tell you one thing: pooping in the woods is WAY better than using the stanky fly-filled disease-ridden outhouses in campgrounds.
With three young boys spending lots of time outside, we do a lot of pooping in the woods. We once did a two-night camping trip during which Bodie pooped TWELVE times in a 36-hour period, and it was raining continuously the whole weekend.
On another memorable solo-dad’ing overnight with Bodie and Jasper, Jasper got some sort of intestinal bug and spent the entire night with diarrhea attacks every twenty minutes. ALL NIGHT LONG. EVERY TWENTY MINUTES. It remains one of my big success stories, because I exhibited some hardcore solo-dad camping skill that night. The first attack caught us both by surprise and was slightly messy, requiring a number of wet wipes and a change of clothing. Wasn’t actually too bad, on the scale of Nasty Parenting Incidents. However, the entire rest of the night we stayed clean. Totally copacetic. I dug a mini latrine in the vestibule, and placed a picnic blanket on the precipice as a porch. Each time he woke up in a panic, I rushed him into the vestibule and positioned him properly for a clean evacuation. It was quite cold also, so we definitely needed the clothes and sleeping bag to keep him warm (it would have been more convenient to be able to stay naked). He was four at the time–just old enough to have the wherewithal to wake from a full sleep to let me know each time that he needed to go (just barely). Needless to say, it was a sleepless night for me. But sleepless nights are common as a parent, and it’s a small price to pay for avoiding a diarrhea-covered boy and diarrhea-filled sleeping bag and tent. Jasper still talks about that trip, saying “dad, remember when I had diarrhea all night long?”, with a strange sort of pride I think. He actually remembers it somewhat fondly, with that rosy-retrospection sort of revisionist memory that turns some uncomfortable epic into a grand adventure—after the fact. Yes, Jasper, yes I definitely remember that day. I will ALWAYS remember that day. I will be 95 years old and have no teeth and I will be senile, and then I will say to him “Jasper, remember when you had diarrhea and pooped in the vestibule all night long while we were camping that one night when you were four?”
So I have taken the boys camping by myself through every stage of pooping ability, and I have seen plenty of shit… thereby acquiring my skill badge in outdoor parental pooping. Here are some tips:
I carry a full-sized spade shovel atop my car all the time, and definitely when we go car-camping. For one: the kids do not give you fair warning when the moment arrives. Every single time they need to poop in the woods, it’s an emergency. Like this past weekend, as I was cooking dinner and had these real thin steaks on the fire and they were ready to come off and I pick up the tongs and then – right at that moment a child runs up with: “Dad I need to poop RIGHT NOW.”
The full-sized shovel makes quick work of a proper hole. It is so far superior to the flimsy little plastic backpacking shovels, it’s hard to imagine how I made do without it for my first fifteen years of car-camping. These days, even on the adult-only trips, my shovel serves as the poop shovel for everyone, and I am frequently thanked for the added value that it provides to their morning sojourns.
As an added benefit, the shovel is AWESOME for campfire tending.
The Hole.
Nothing pisses me off more than going camping in the beautiful woods and coming upon someone’s shitty toilet paper stuck in the bushes or wadded up like a paper cow patty protruding from under a small rock. That shit is disgusting, and there is no reason for it. Human shit by itself isn’t so bad, as it degrades quickly and it’s natural and it doesn’t seem totally out of place in the woods–animals shit everywhere. Toilet paper, on the other hand, is completely and disgustingly human. You have three options:
Option 1. Bury it adequately. You need at least three inches of dirt on top of your mess. Minimum. However deep you need to dig that hole, get it done. If you lack a shovel, use a stick or a rock, it’s totally doable. Don’t get lazy and do some shallow hole that barely covers the TP, be honorable about it.
Option 2. Carry the TP out in a ziplock bag. Don’t discount the option of burying the shit, and packing out the TP. It’s really not that bad–double-ziploc bag it, label it, keep it stashed with your own private stuff, and it’s no big deal.
Option 3. If you can’t deal with your toilet paper, don’t camp in the woods. I want everyone to get out there and enjoy the advantages of camping with the family, that’s the point of this blog. But if you can’t do it without leaving your nasty TP shitting up the remote campsites that the rest of us are using too, then don’t go out there at all. It’s simply unacceptable behavior, ’nuff said. Moving on.
The Kid Assist.
Little kids can’t get it done in the woods without your help. Even after they can wipe their own butt at home, it might be another six months to a year before they can get it done by themselves out in the woods. Here’s the way: after you dig the hole and position them back up against the edge, you stand or crouch behind them and hold their butt cheeks as they crouch, acting as a toilet seat for them. For the boys, pants go all the way down to the ankles and you make them responsible for holding and pointing their penis into the hole so they don’t piss on their own feet. If they are too young to handle that responsibility, you strip off their pants and underwear etc so that there exists a clear line of site for the free-wheeling penis to pee forward without soaking the clothing. In fact, the more you strip off, the less the chances for contamination. I always take off the puffy jackets and fleeces first, even if it’s freezing, just to ensure a clear path forward and aft. It’s worth it to avoid peeing or pooping on the only warm clothes they have.
Here’s another parenting pooping tip. The kids are afraid of falling or slipping backwards into the hole. This fear is well-founded—it is definitely easy for them to fall in the hole while trying to balance in a squat and mind their penis at the same time. We don’t want them to be afraid of pooping in the woods. So, you can have them poop next to the hole. Just be sure there is sufficient clearance for a clean disconnect. Then, do the wiping, putting the toilet paper in the bottom of the hole. Then, use a stick or a rock to push the shit in, on top of the paper. Leave the stick or rock in the hole (now that it is shitty). Then cover it all up.
Don’t get lost.
Even after they are old enough to squat and wipe themselves, they will still need you to lead them to an appropriate spot and wield the shovel. Eventually, however, the day will come when they can go off all alone and take care of everything by themselves. Remind them not to get lost on their solo sojourns! When you go off all alone to do your business, you’re not thinking so much about where camp is, you’re focused on finding a nice private spot to do your business. Also, some people will walk a mile just to ensure their privacy, which is also a great way to get lost. Encourage them to go far enough, but not excessively far. Go out with them a few times and discuss the distance, so they get a feel for it. And give them the advice to stick to a straight line out and back—it’s far easier to not get lost if you walk generally straight rather than meandering.
Establish the Poop Shovel/Bag Rule.
You don’t want to wander off to go poop, only to accidentally stumble upon someone from your own camp who is already out there pooping. Nor do you want someone to come upon you. Privacy is paramount. The solution is simple: one pooper at a time. Whoever goes to poop, takes the shovel and poop bag. The poop bag is just a stuff sack with the toilet paper in it and maybe hand sanitizer. If the need strikes you and you go looking for the shovel and poop bag and it’s not there, well then you need to wait your turn. The exception of course, is when your kids are little. At some point, they – or you – will take the necessary effort to protect their privacy. Until that point, you should try to poop little kids at the same time if possible. Inevitably, you will take one out in the woods only to return and stash your gear, and resume some other important task (like drinking your lukewarm coffee) and just as you sit down, another child will insist they have to go.
A note about babies. If your kids are still in diapers, having wipes on hand is obviously quite convenient. Wipes will freeze if the temp gets low enough, even if they are in the car. One option is to stick one of the soft-sided containers in the bottom of your sleeping bag.
The secret code word.
When it’s just us, our boys are not hesitant to state their needs loud and proud. But when we are camping with friends, they can sometimes get shy about it. If it helps your kids, come up with a secret code that let’s you know what they need to do. Most kids will readily use the standard “#1″ or #2.” A friend of ours introduced our kids to the phrase “I need to go see a man about a horse,” which the boys think is hilarious. Pooping is nothing to be ashamed of, but do what you gotta do to ease any embarrassment your kids might have about it.
Last tip: keep a pump bottle of hand sanitizer readily accessible in camp. Boys are not going to wash their hands afterwards, especially with no sink and limited water supply. Surprisingly, my boys quite enjoy using the hand sanitizer and will even occasionally use it unprompted.
So that’s it, that’s my spiel on pooping in the woods.
We welcome comments and tips regarding assisting girls with doing their business. As a man and a parent of only boys, I am inexperienced with the nuances and challenges that might come with dealing with girls. Karen is of limited help as she does not like to discuss such matters in private, let alone with strangers and friends on the internet.
Well said and explained, Matt! Good for a laugh or two this morning also! 😁😁
That pretty much sums up the whole stinking thing all right!