I am part mother, part bloodhound. I have a sniffer that can detect foul deeds and misplaced lunch meat in the car as fast as I can smell my neighbour’s baking or whether someone is using my orange zest shower lotion from behind a locked bathroom door, without my permission. Nothing gets past my nose.
It has recently come to my attention that several of my parenting pals engage in a rather bizarre trend that, initially, I assumed only I would be so daft as to perform. I now refer to that shared practice as “the sniff test.”
The sniff test is the use of one’s sense of smell to determine the cleanliness of one’s offspring. It is every bit as unpleasant as it sounds because, let’s face it, if you are sniffing your children, you already know they are days past contact with soap. Yet, we stand next to the offending child and breathe in the stench.
I believe that sense of smell is part of our primeval nature, the evolutionary shift that occurs at the onset of parenthood. As a parental right of passage, the sniff test is the benchmark of reaching an all-time low in your dignity, but gives you major points in parenting etiquette, so to speak. It is the act that reminds you that your carefree days of backpacking across Europe or tree planting in the Canadian wilderness have been replaced with domestic responsibilities and socially mandated hygiene practices.
Mothers are given a subtle introduction to this during the nine months of hormonal joy known as pregnancy. We immediately smell things like never before. For men, whose natural acceptance of foul odours seems alarmingly complacent, the odours produced by their children are more offending than they ever imagined.
Before parents know it, they are sniffing the bottoms of their wee children to see if a diaper change is required. We swore we would never resort to such tactics, but there isn’t one of us who hasn’t flipped junior upside down to complete a sniff test before walking into the in-laws house after a long car ride. You have to check. We sniff for offence and sniff for defense. Either way, it’s degrading and absolutely essential.
When children enter the pre-pubescent stage, the sniff test begins all over again, on a different, yet no less horrifying scale. It starts with the innocent act of sniffing laundry. If the gym socks aren’t standing up all by themselves, someone has to verify that junior isn’t just chucking his clean clothes back in the laundry to avoid the debilitating act of actually putting his clean laundry away in the expensive bedroom furniture provided to him.
Then there is the issue of personal odour. Any kid who plays a sport and refuses to use deodorant or a to take a shower should be forced to sleep with their equipment under their bed for a week. No, under their pillow. The sniff test is also an effective shame tactic to be used against your parenting partner and caregiver, as if to say, “You didn’t give the kids a bath this week?” Pass the blame.
Cleanliness is a fight to the finish.
But once your clean children are off to bed, I believe parents should reward their wounded sniffers with a fine glass of merlot. Inhale deeply. Smell hard. You deserve it. I know I do.