There has been a stand-off going on in my home for 42 minutes. There have been tears, pleading, begging, rationalizing, bargaining, and bribing, but it seems as though we will not be able to reach a negotiable agreement. Is it a power play? A “pissing contest”? Downright stubborness? Well knowing that we are cut from the same cloth, my guess is, all of the above. But for now, it’s been 43 minutes that my 4-year-old has been sitting on the toilet, his pajamas in a crumpled heap at his ankles, and he is staunchly refusing to wipe his own ass. 

To some, this may sound like I am gingerly tip-toeing the line between discipline and child abuse. But in the words of either my mother, or maybe it was Dr. Phil, “You have to be more stubborn than your kids.” Well, in that case, my Son has met his match! About two weeks ago, we made a deal that if he would wipe his own butt for a week, he would be able to get a new monster truck. He pulled his end of the bargain, I had my first week in six and a half years that the only butt I had to wipe was my own, and life was grand! Then as soon as he got his new truck, he wanted me to start wiping for him again. What? I thought that we had made proggress? I threatened to take the new truck away, I got him special “kid wipes” so that he would have “special” wipes, and yet here he sits for nearly an hour whining from the bathroom about how “I want YOU to wipe my booty, Mom!”

I know he’s my “baby” and that it seems just cruel to make him sit in there, on a cold toilet, and cry that he doesn’t want to do it, but who’s to say that if I give in now, that in ten more years I’ll still be cleaning my sons’ ass? I just picture him playing football, both teams are lined up on the field, and the coach yells out, “Where the hell is Fleming? This play will defeat our rival, and we will win the game! But we can’t do it without our star quarterback!” And from accross the field, echoing from a bathroom stall, will be my half-naked Son, sitting on the pot, holding a wad of toilet paper, and wailing, “Mom- I want you to do it!”