Potty Training is the Worst

Once your child turns two, people stop telling you how cute your kid is and instead start asking, “When are you going to start potty training?” This is a loaded question because what I want to say is, “Why the hell is that any of your business? How about you worry about yourself and I’ll worry about my toddler’s bathroom habits!” Apparently though, this might seem offensive and rude so I usually just make some vague comment or laugh about how I’m not looking forward to it. Har dee har har, ha ha ha, move on people, there’s nothing to see here.

Nobody really wants to get into this topic of conversation because it never ends well. Either you get lots of unsolicited advice or you piss someone off by not living up to their expectations. Yes, vague acquaintance, please, let me toilet train my child according to how you think it should be done. You are either regaled with stories of how their precocious progeny was fully toilet ready at 18 months (Just…why?) followed by a ten minute explanation of how awesome their child is or you hear a horror story involving severe constipation, doctor’s visits and not being trained until they were 4 and what a complete nightmare it was. I’m never sure how I’m supposed to react to this. Am I supposed to complement/sympathize? How long do I have to stand there nodding my head and offering nondescript murmurings before I can escape this conversation unscathed?

You can’t compare two kids from the same parents, let alone two kids from different parents. It’s just not going to happen. They have different personalities, different levels of stubbornness, and a different birth order. (If you think this doesn’t matter, ask my husband how much more spoiled the fourth and final child is.) What works for one kid might not work for another. Your kid might think toilet training is awesome because he can pee standing up, but another kid might have a traumatic “butt-falling-into-the-cold-toilet-water” experience and have severe potty training PTSD. One kid might like a sticker reward, the other might like m&m’s. Just like everything else, it’s a crap shoot as to what will finally work and you just cross your fingers that you won’t get too many (more) gray hairs getting to the finish line.

But the worst part is that we seem to have time tables and schedules for these precious beings of ours. It’s like as soon as they are born we are already filling in their desk calendar. “Well, you need to eat solid food in six months and we’ll pencil you in for crawling around 8 months, but we can push that to 9 months if you’re too busy discovering how your hands work. And by the way, we will expect you to be fully toilet trained after a mere two and a half years on this planet. Three tops.”

Are you kidding me right now? I don’t even think my teenagers are fully trained, and since I am the one who cleans the bathrooms, I’m pretty sure I would be the one to know. But we expect our poor kids to get the hang of it by 3? The same kids who can’t even run without tripping and need help doing everything other than feeding themselves. (And some days even that isn’t even a sure thing.) Oh sure, that seems completely feasible. Until it’s not.

Unfortunately, the generations before us have already pre-filled those calendars with expected dates of when certain tasks should be completed. Then we label it the “normal” time. “Well, they normally start walking around a year old.” Puh-lease! Only two of my kids walked close to a year old, the other two figured out they could move faster crawling. Do you know what these guide line dates are? Ulcers for parents. The fastest way to stress a parent out, especially a first timer, is to mention that their kid isn’t on target for a milestone. Do you know what a fertile mom brain can do with this information? Panic. Worry. Stress. Search the web for support groups of parents of other kids who are clearly underachievers. Stress some more. Mistakenly go on WebMD and find twelve different ways your child could potentially be ill because of one ambiguous symptom they had one time last year. Panic some more.

See? It’s not a good cycle.

But parents are supposed to want to stop buying diapers and get their kids to stop killing landfills. People LOVE to say, “Just think, no more buying diapers!” and “How much easier will it be?” The answer to this is: It won’t be! It’s not easier. At least, not til they’re 5 and you’ve gotten the nightmare far enough behind you that you stop self-medicating with wine and chocolate. In fact, it’s probably the farthest from easy that you can get. Because this is potty training in a nutshell: Put your kid in underwear. Ask if they have to go potty 47 times an hour. Put them on the toilet once every 30 minutes because they said no the last 20 times you asked. Sit with kid for 10 minutes until you take him off the toilet. Turn around to wash hands. Turn back around to see kid has wet his pants. Strip kid, wash them up, put clean underwear and pants on. Rinse. Lather. Repeat. Potty training is a gallon of “Do you have to go potty” mixed with 2 cups of frustration and 35 gallons of water….for laundry.

 Plus, based on the number of disgusted looks in my direction, I have to ask: Is potty training only a “Mom job”? Because I would totally be okay with it. If this was 1950. Sadly, however, it is not. We are in the year 2017. There are cool things called “Dads” now, who are active participants in their child’s care and upbringing. Huh. Imagine that. So instead of saving all of your judgmental comments on why my kid is 3 years and 3 months old and not toilet ready just for me, aim some of them pointed barbs at Daddy dearest too. We split child care AND snotty child rearing comments. We’re good like that. And if you don’t like it, maybe my kid will “accidentally” pee on your floor. You can’t blame the poor kid, after all he’s just getting the hang of this thing.