It’s relative

Toilet training in a day?

The concept was alluring. Social pressure in the 1970s bulldozed parents into toilet training their children early, despite the assurance that few children went to kindergarten in diapers. Understandably, first-time parents felt the brunt most acutely.

Parents who boasted that their kids were using the toilet by 18 months appeared to be more adept at setting the child on the fixture every two hours. For me, trained implied the child could get to the toilet, pull down their pants, and do their duty independently.

Or seven years

(I’m not sure what that meant for my sister who shouted “Mommy, come wipe me” until she was . . . who knows? What did the other campers think when that cry reverberated from the public bathroom at the lake? Sorry, Sis. It was pretty funny.)

Determined

The one day system boasted a simple, painless, and fun way to get your child out of diapers. The idea was to spend one entire day together “training” the doll which would naturally entice the child to do the same. Armed with the potty, juice, M&M’s, and a doll that wet, I went to work on ED.

Unfortunately, ED was more interested in the doll’s construction and how it peed than in her own anatomy. She was perfectly happy to run around in a wet diaper.

Oh well

How many hours can a parent and child isolate together in a bathroom? ED who wanted to dismantle the doll was frustrated, and I was bored. I think we gave it two hours with occasional stabs throughout the day.

The process kick-started (or kicked-start?) potty training for ED. By the time SD came along, I put off any intensive efforts resulting in her self-training at around the age of three. Thirteen years later C-boy was of age.

It’s relative

I recalled these memories this week past as we congratulated Blue Boy on obtaining his driver’s license.

Here’s the thing. When C-boy was the age of toilet training, the girls were learning to drive. Somehow, teaching a teen to control a deadly vehicle in the Chicago suburbs seemed more worthy of attention than potty training a three-year-old.

To be honest, I recall little about it and will spare him the embarrassment of transcribing what I do remember. As far as I know, he no longer wears a diaper at 33. And no one has had a fatal accident.

It’s all relative. We made the right choice.