More On Motherhood

Hi Everyone,

So, my five-year-old (he says he’s five-and-a-half) calls me into the bathroom, as he does every day, to wipe him. He is a clean freak. So, this time I ask him, “Who wipes you at school?” He tells me he does it himself at school.  I said, “then why don’t you do it yourself at home?” He said, “Because you do it better.”

My other one, a teenager this year, is sickened by it all. He says, “Make him wipe himself.”  I nip the family drama in the bud by telling the older more perfect one, the teen, to mind his own business.  He keeps it up so I remind him he’s not that good at it either. I’m the omniscient one; I do the laundry. 

So I have a five-year-old who admits he’s a lousy wiper and a teen who’s a lousy wiper in denial. It occurs to me I might be doing something wrong because my kids can’t wipe. I have an emergency on my hands. I call my mother to ask her opinion. She’s raised six kids (four girls, two boys) all of whom I assume can wipe like the pro’s.

I asked my mom, “When do boys learn to wipe?” She said, “When they’re about twenty-six.”  I said, “I might have to get my own place, then. I can’t wait that long.” And I certainly can’t wipe that long. 

Then I remember a mom I used to know who’s nine-year-old still had accidents. She’d sit down with tears in her eyes. “David shit in his pants again. I just can’t take it anymore.  I had to ride in the car with him and the shit in his pants all the way home.” 

To that mom I say thank you. Thank you, thank you, and thank you for having it worse than me. Personally, I couldn’t do it.  From one mother to another, there’s always some poor mother who has it worse than you do. Be grateful.

This has been Margaret Smith from the bottom.