The arm fart story

Potty talk is something that never seems to go out of style in our house.  I doubt it ever will, although I have banned it (mostly) from the dinner table.  There are limits.  On the other hand, my husband and I have been known to participate ourselves.  It’s a family affair, and - if you can’t beat them, join them.  We’re definitely not immune to a bit of juvenile humor.  Children are fascinated with “potty talk” – that catchall term encompassing functions related to digestion or those that occur around the toilet.  In our own family, the fascination comes and goes.  But from toddlerhood through the teen years, it always surfaces to some extent.   Arm farts, on the other hand, are a thing of a past.  How I had needlessly worried it would not be so! 

Several years so, when our boys were seven and nine, their favorite activity was using the combination of one armpit and the opposite hand to make flatulence-like noises.  If your children are not too sheltered, then you already know that this is commonly referred to as an “arm fart.”  Not only did we hear a lot of arm farts back in those days, we talked about them a lot too.  Even our then four year-old daughter talked extensively about “awm fawts.”  Naturally, she took up the practice herself.

How did my children become obsessed with arm farts?  Did they pick it up on the playground or in the neighborhood?  Or did they just know - by some childhood instinct - to do this?  I suspect it’s the latter.  Noise-making in general, arm farts in particular, are not new diversions to the world of children.  What I do know, is that my own two boys became so immersed in the world of arm farts, that they started doing it completely subconsciously and almost constantly.  They could control themselves when absolutely necessary, for example - at church and at Grandma’s house.  Outside of those boundaries, they were flatulence noise-making machines.  This quickly became extremely annoying for me and for my husband.  We felt that for the rest of our lives, there would be a background noise of fart sounds.  Would this be our family’s soundtrack?

The pinnacle of our “arm fart” phase came when, one sunny morning, the children woke up and were very excited to tell me something.  My older son proudly announced that his younger brother could “arm fart” the Darth Vader theme music from Star Wars.  And could he ever!  There was my tender seven year-old.  The previous night must have been warm, because I can picture him on the couch wearing just his pajama shorts.  His blond hair was disheveled from the night, and his eyes were still not fully awake.  He looked so innocent and so sweet.  And then, he did it.  Quite perfectly.  He performed Darth Vader’s theme music with nothing more than his left hand and his right arm pit.  It was an impressive and entertaining performance.  I clapped and laughed.  Maybe that wasn’t the right thing to do, if I really wanted my kids to stop making fart noises.  But somewhere in my mind – although it seemed so unlikely in the midst of it all – somewhere I knew that my children wouldn’t be filling their days with arm farts forever.

All three of my children had given up their pacifiers, had become potty-trained and left behind their diapers, and had achieved other milestones that at the time seemed so unlikely.  So I decided that, yes, arm farts too would pass.  And now I can’t really remember when it did stop.  It went on for a few more months after that, at least.  I don’t miss it, but I can see – in retrospect – that it was a phase that lasted several months at most.  Also, I know that kids do things that are a lot more annoying than arm farts.  Especially now that my kids are in or entering the teen years.  On any given day, I’d choose to be serenaded by a repertoire of arm fart songs rather than listen to backtalk or tolerate excessive moodiness.  Clearly, the arm fart songs would be much funnier and infinitely more entertaining.  Yet, regardless of the unwanted behavior, I do try to remember…  This too shall pass.