A mom who lives in a “close-knit neighborhood” has been accused of excluding one of the neighborhood kids from sleepovers, beach outings, and other activities. To her, the reason is pretty simple: The 9-year-old child is not potty trained. The mom believes that helping another child wipe after he uses the bathroom is not her responsibility, but some people seem to think she’s being insensitive.
The child needs an adult’s help when he uses the bathroom.
In a post on Reddit, the mom explained that the kids in her neighborhood are close. Per People, they “all play together, go to the same school, and bounce between our homes for meals, sleepovers, and activities.” It’s “a great dynamic” – with caveats.
One 9-year-old child in the neighborhood “still needs an adult to wipe him after he poops.” According to the mom, other parents in the neighborhood have apparently been helping the child, but she refuses to do so.
She said another parent complained about it.
The mom described feeling “shocked” when another parent “vented that they had been wiping this kid.” In her opinion, “it’s absolutely unreasonable to expect me to step in for that kind of care.” However, she’s heard that other people in the community are not impressed by the way she’s been acting.
“I hear that people are saying I’ve been excluding him,” she wrote. The mom admitted that she doesn’t include the child when his parents won’t be present. “I don’t think that’s my responsibility, so I don’t include him in activities that take us far from his mom,” she explained in her post.
She’s not trying to be judgmental.
In her post, the mom tried to make it clear that she didn’t want “to judge his development.” Her criticism is all about the expectations the child’s parents seem to have. To her, wiping for the child is not “a normal expectation to place on anyone outside of his parents,” she wrote.
People sided with the mom.
Many Redditors agreed that the child’s parents are expecting too much. Some people were concerned about the risks and the child’s well-being, with one person writing about being “appalled that the parents are putting this child in the position of having a non parent wipe him.”
A second person wrote about being “horrified that other parents are willing to do it.”
Another person shared a similar view, writing, “This is WAY outside the normal expectations for care when leaving your child with someone. The only times I’ve ever been asked to help with bathroom time is when the child was 3-4 or under. You have parents venting about this, which shows they know this is not something that should be being asked of them.”
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