Excuse me

What Do You Mean Your Parents Still Wipe Your Butt?

You’re almost old enough to get a job

I am a lucky woman. As the much older sister of six siblings, I have watched my nieces, nephews, and cousins grow up. Even better, I am considered the cool aunt because, as a writer, I will listen to their adventure stories without judgment.

My niece was coming to town for business. Unfortunately, her babysitter caught COVID the day before she left. She needed to bring her 4.5-year-old son with her. She asked if I could care for her child while she spent 4 hours a day attending the conference. I told her sure and offered her my home to stay in while she was in town. I should have known something was up when she insisted on staying at a local hotel.

When she dropped the boy off, she had a large suitcase stuffed with things he needed. The child was polite and intelligent. My niece had gone grocery shopping. There was organic food she wanted me to be to cook for him. “Please don’t feed him things out of your refrigerator,” she said.

He came with a special blanket he needed to lie on with a unique pillow. “Don’t let him use the items in your house,” she said. “He is allergic to everything.” We discussed her using ‘gentle parenting’ to raise her son.

“Gentle parenting focuses on fostering the qualities you want in your child by being compassionate and enforcing consistent boundaries. Unlike some more lenient parenting methods, gentle parenting also encourages discipline, but in an age-appropriate way.” — VeryWellFamily.com, Renee Plant, What is Gentle Parenting?

I told her I would do my very best to follow her gentle parenting rules for the four-to-six-hour hours a day her son was with me. I did not want to traumatize him in an unapproved fashion. When she left, the boy fell to the ground and started kicking, screaming, and pounding his fists on the carpet.

Since she did not want anyone to yell at him or interfere with his tantrums, I left him kicking and screaming in the front room and made myself a cup of tea in the kitchen. I sat in front of our picture window where I could still hear him and watch the birds in the trees. It was not required I witness his behavior. I just needed to monitor him to make sure he was alright.

He got up, moved to the room I was in, picked a spot, and laid down to continue kicking and screaming. Ok, then. I put on my noise-canceling headphones, turned on my iPad, and started watching one of my shows. My spouse found a reason to be outside. Both my cats walked over and watched him.

After ten minutes, the boy stopped, walked over, and lay down in front of me. He asked me the cat’s names, and I told him. I handed him his special blanket. He curled up on it. One cat, the curious shiny black one, came over to investigate. The cat distracted the child until mealtime.

He ate his food then picked up his plate and took it to the kitchen sink. He washed and dried his hands and came back to play a game with me, which he won.

Things went ok until he went to use the restroom. After he finished his business, he asked me to come in to wipe the poo out of his butt. Really? I asked him why he could not do it. He said he did not need to because his mom or dad always did it for him.

This gentle parenting was tricky. I told him I would wipe his butt today, but I was going to ask his mom if I could show him how to wipe himself. The kid was honest. He told me: don’t ask. He enjoyed having people wipe his butt. I thought, alrighty then, “This is a problem. You dress yourself, feed yourself, ask for what you want, clean up behind yourself when you eat. You are almost old enough to get a job. You need to wipe you own butt.”

When his mom came to pick him up, I asked as mildly as I could why she was still wiping her child’s ass. She told me he did not do it to her satisfaction. Interesting. I asked if I could try to teach him to do it himself. She admitted it was time and told me I could try. The look in her eye told me something was going on that she was not telling me.

The next day at poo time, I told him I was coming to show him something. I showed him how to wipe his butt himself. He said he understood. I left the bathroom. Big mistake. He was in there so long that I went back.

The boy was standing by the toilet. Both cats were watching him. The toilet was overflowing, creating small streams complete with toilet paper and poo islands approaching the bathroom door. The bathroom rugs were soaked. As I watched in astonishment, he took a huge wad of paper and touched it gently to his backside.

A small brown dot was on the toilet paper. He looked at the paper, then threw the entire wad into the toilet with the other floating wades of paper. His butt hole was not close to where he was wiping. He would never be clean. There would be a flood, a toilet that was not functional, a nasty butt, and no toilet paper. I wiped his butt for him.

Out I went onto the internet to get some help. A video on TikTok caught my attention. After lunch, we had a lesson. I melted milk chocolate and got a small funnel. The child and I sat together at the counter. I took the liquid chocolate and poured it into the funnel; he watched the chocolate flow into the cereal bowl I used.

Look, I said, pretend the small end of the funnel is your butt. The chocolate is poo. He liked that idea. What would happen if I touched the funnel with the toilet paper? I touched the funnel. The chocolate dripped out. I touched it again. Chocolate continued to drip out slowly. It never gets clean, I told him.

Then I showed him that if I squeezed the last chocolate out of the funnel, then took a piece of toilet paper and wiped all around the rim, the chocolate stopped dripping. Look, the chocolate was gone. I let him pour the chocolate into the funnel and wipe it off to his heart’s content, which went on for a while. Then we made hot chocolate and watched television.

The next time he went to the bathroom, I asked him to wipe his butt like he wiped the funnel. Success! Except, he called me to the bathroom to squeeze chocolate sauce into his mouth while he was on the toilet, which I did. Hey, gentle parenting here! I inspected the butt, and it was immaculate. The child cleaned every bit of poo off with only two wads of paper.

When his mother came to get him, I kept my mouth shut. I did not mention the toilet, poo, chocolate, or funnels. She did not ask, and I did not tell. They were headed home. I hugged each of them and told them goodbye.

I did my job of gentle parenting well. I don’t want to think about what will happen when he goes to the toilet at home and asks for the chocolate sauce while he sits on the toilet. With her beliefs about parenting, I hope she gives him the chocolate and reaps the benefits of him wiping his butt.

I don’t think kindergarten teachers will perform butt wipes, but I don’t know that for sure. I’m confident his mom will find a way to accommodate his needs. It is all good. I can’t wait to hear what happens next. This is another family to watch.

My thanks to Gary Chapin for the fine editing job.

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