A lesson in Social Decorum
The return to school after the half term holidays has meant that on the occasional morning I get a chance to sit down and drink my tea whilst it is still hot, a luxury every mother cherishes.
As I sipped my tea and browsed through my phone one morning, (checking my social media updates to keep myself in the ‘loop’) I came across a post from a lady describing how she treated herself to a nice dinner out, sitting in harmony waiting for her meal to be served when a lady next to her pulled a potty out and promptly placed her little cherub on it… in the middle of the restaurant.
Seriously!
I am not a lover of number twos, not from my own children and certainly not from another child. I was absolutely horrified that a mother would deem it suitable for a young child to use a potty in the middle of an eating establishment.
Are we all going potty? Surely we would prefer to keep intake and output separate? Would it not be acceptable to ask a parent to bring child and potty to the toilet facilities? After all, they are equipped to deal with these matters; they, for instance, are kitted out with a modern flush, soap and running water.
Has parental belief of entitlement gone so far that we consider it our children’s right to use the potty anywhere? Has social decorum gone completely out the window?
I would like to say that it may just be my ‘British stiff upper lip’ getting the better of me, but I am not British by birth, in fact I was born and brought up in Scandinavia where people are described as being much more liberal. But even this takes the biscuit in my mind.
I count myself one of the lucky ones. I had a fairly easy time with my daughter – she basically potty trained herself. I did not have to endure weeks spent hiding from society, never had to worry about pull up nappies or carrying a plastic potty around in my change bag. My daughter (thankfully) was dry at 18 months.
Although I never “trained” her, I do believe that I must have been an amazing, intuitive mother whose child picked up silent signals. In short, we were both toileting geniuses.
Then I had my son… It seems you can’t be so lucky two children in a row!
He is now 30 months old and unless I spend every waking hour by his side, asking him if he needs the toilet every 10 minutes, our house would literally be drowning in pee.
I have admitted defeat and realised that I’m not some signal sending toilet training genius after all. I will confess that it hurt my pride somewhat to admit that I am clueless when it comes to teaching my kids how to use the potty.
As my son is now considered a “late starter”, I find myself in a world of endless advice on how to toilet train.
Speaking to the older generation was pretty pointless and not at all helpful, according to my mother and mother-in-law (the supposed fountains of all knowledge) we were all potty trained by 1 and of course we read the thesaurus as our bedtime story by the time we were 2.
Thanks ladies – that is, of course, super helpful and not at all confidence shattering!
I am pretty sure that we were “early starters” due to the fact that back then our tiny baby backsides were encased in cloth nappies rather than disposables. If I was faced with the concept of hand washing 8 nappies a day, I am pretty sure I would have gotten my backside in gear earlier.
So am I just lazy?
When asking parents who had children pre 80’s, it really does seem to me as though they did potty train earlier and more successfully 30-40 years ago. Surely children’s anatomies have not changed? To me it seems more likely that mothers today have more to balance with work and endless after school activities.
Interestingly enough there are now people who call themselves potty training experts. They charge a considerable amount of money to potty train your child. Watching one of these “experts” debating this very issue on TV made me feel absolutely horrified. Have we lost so much of our biological instinct that we now even doubt out ability to teach our children to use a toilet?
But then again, a toilet is not biological – neither is a nappy. Maybe there are better ways?
Have you heard of the elimination communication method? Some parents use it on their children from birth. This method simply means that as a parent you do little else but watch out for signals that your infant or child needs the toilet. When signals are spotted you dash to the toilet, hover the little baby over the toilet and 1…2…3… baby is done. No nappies!
It seems magical, doesn’t it?
Albeit this is more likely how we worked it before nappies, it was probably more suited to a lifestyle where we were completely child-led. Today, we have bills to pay and more responsibilities that take our attention away from the home.
Nevertheless, if someone can train their infant to use the toilet, surely I could convince my 30 month old to successfully use the potty?
So back to what go me started on this ramble in the first place:
Basically, if a mother is able to interpret her infant’s toileting signals quickly enough to pull out a potty in the middle of a restaurant, surely the same mother of said 3 year old could place her family within reach of the toilet. A bit of planning should really mean no more than a 30 second dash to the toilet. An effort that I think would be appreciated by fellow diners.
Or is it just me? Would you be offended if someone placed his or her child on a potty next to where you were eating your meal?
(Note from The Editor: Not only is Sofie a regular columnist for The Glass House, she also runs her own ‘gentle parenting’ blog. Pop over to thegentlemumblog.com to read more of her musings.)
