Potty training is a process every parent has to go through. It’s definitely not always easy breezy. Regardless of the challenges, you have to do it, and you have to do it before your kid gets to be school age. Because if there’s one relatively hard and fast rule about school, it’s that they need to go on their own.
So it’s no surprise that one mom was shocked to learn that a kid in her son’s class can’t wipe his own butt. As a result, she has banned the child from playdates at her home until he can.
The mom was blindsided by the playdate.
In the Am I Overreacting Reddit forum, the mom shared that her 6-year-old son brought a newer classmate over at pickup, and asked if they could have a playdate. The mom didn’t know the boy or his family well, and she’s not used to having unfamiliar kids over for playdates.
“Before I could actually get a yes or a no out, the boys mum comes over and says she’ll come and pick him up at 7,” the mom explained.
She was surprised by what happened next.
An hour into the playdate, the little boy called out after going to the bathroom. He said he had pooped and “needs me to wipe.”
“Honestly I was taken back because my own son knows how to do this and I wasn’t made aware by the boys mum that he didn’t know how to wipe yet,” she wrote. She also said she “felt uncomfortable” with it since she is a stranger to the kid, and she would feel the same way if this was her kid at someone else’s house.
“I tried to talk him through it with the door closed which took a while but finally it all seemed fine and he came out,” she said.
She was shocked by the other mom’s reaction.
When the other mom came to pick up her son, the mom knew that she had to address what happened. “I explained the situation to her as nice as possible and said that respectfully until her son knows how to wipe himself he shouldn’t be going to play dates and that until then he can no longer come over,” she said. The mom left quickly with her child.
“Later on I got a message from her saying I was wrong to not have helped as now he had poo all over his backside which is why I should have ‘helped’ I explained again that I wasn’t comfortable doing that with someone else’s child especially when I wasn’t notified about it beforehand. She called me petty and cruel for leaving him like that and said I was massively overreacting.”
Apparently, this wasn’t the first time something like this has happened.
In an edit to the post, the mom explained that another mom in the class later asked her how the playdate went. The OP didn’t give many details, but the other mom shared her experiences with the same kid.
“She’d told me that before half term the same boy had been to their home and had the exact same issue I did,” the woman explained.
The other mom said that her son helped the little boy with wiping, and that everything was fine. But clearly it’s an issue the mom of the kid who can’t wipe his own butt, knew about and chose not to share.
Everyone took her side.
“You are absolutely correct in feeling that you should not wipe another person’s child,” one comment reads. “What a horribly uncomfortable situation you were placed in, mostly due to the mom’s inability to communicate her sons’ needs.”
“I’m so curious – how does he get through the school day?” another person asked. “Most schools require their students to be toilet trained before they can attend. Do the teachers have to wipe his butt and are they okay with this? I’m also shocked that the child’s Mom is okay with all kinds of other people touch her kid like that.”
Someone else wrote: “Totally fair to have boundaries, especially with someone else’s kid. You tried to help, but it’s understandable to wait until he’s more independent before having him over again.”
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