Potty training is a significant milestone in a child's early development, but it can also be an incredibly stressful and challenging time for both children and their caregivers.
A mom-of-four has found the practice particularly trying and has even taken the extra step to defend sending her child in diapers to school.
A mom defended sending her four-year-old daughter to school in diapers in response to a politician who said potty training only took "weeks"
Image credits: Danny Lawson - PA Images)
Shona Sibary expressed her frustration over British Conservative Party Member of Parliament (MP) Miriam Cates, who had previously insinuated that the potty training process could be completed in just a matter of “weeks” with sufficient commitment.
Talking at the Alliance For Responsible Citizenship conference, the MP said: “Consider the rising number of young children who start schooling in the UK still wearing nappies... potty training can take weeks of dedication to the task.
“This is increasingly impossible when our GDP-obsessed economic system demands that even mothers of small children leave their infants in daycare to return to the workplace.”
Shona Sibary wrote an opinion piece criticizing Britain's economic system and the hardships of balancing work life with parenting
Image credits: Shona Sibary
In response to the politician’s comments, Shona wrote on behalf of other mothers in the Daily Mail: “I can only imagine their fury, matched with mine this week, that MP Miriam Cates now blames us - an army of exhausted mums trying their best - for the rise in children starting school in nappies.”
“Of all the weeks to lay this particular guilt trip at our door - just after a relentlessly rainy half-term, with the spectre of Christmas looming,” the irritated mom added.
She continued: “And to pour even more fuel on the fire she seemed to focus her ire on working mothers as if dads play no part in the parenting equation.”
"Was this my fault for focusing on work and not spending my days encouraging her to sit on a potty?” Shona wrote
Image credits: energepic.com (not the actual photo)
Shona went on to denounce Miriam’s claims that it only takes a mere couple of weeks to potty train a toddler, as her country struggles with a “GDP-obsessed economic system that demands that even mothers of small children leave their infants in daycare to return to the workplace.”
“My blood boiled,” the mom recalled. “But I must admit to agreeing with part of her remarks.”
The West Sussex resident went on to admit that toilet training was not only difficult but also “incredibly tedious.”
She said: “By the time I'd had my fourth child, Dolly, I was so over this particular parenting challenge that I (look away now, Miriam) almost raced back to work to avoid it.
“Happily, much of the task then fell to our useless au pair, whose modus operandi seemed to be to allow Dolly to run around the garden all day wearing nothing from the waist down, letting her pee all over the rhododendrons.”
The mom-of-four said her youngest was sent to school in nappies as a result of being “a late August baby”
Image credits: Shona Sibary
Shona explained that as a result of her youngest daughter being “a late August baby”, her daughter started school just one week after turning four and would therefore “still wear nappies at the time”.
“Was this my fault for focusing on work and not spending my days encouraging her to sit on a potty?” the fuming mom wrote. “Guilty as charged, I'm afraid. But that was my choice.”
The busy mom admitted that she realized she needed childcare to help her work effectively, as well as outsourcing “some of the more boring bits of parenting.”
“I'm utterly convinced that as two working parents with demanding careers during our children's early years, we would be divorced by now had it not been for getting outside help,” Shona wrote.
She explained that for many mothers school offers relief because it allows parents to go on with their jobs with “far less hassle and expense”.
Shona defended "an army of exhausted mums trying their best"
Image credits: Chloé Fusillier (not the actual photo)
Shona might’ve had a point regarding the length expectancy of potty training.
UC Davis Health states that most children complete the developmental milestone by 36 months.
According to the academic health center, the average length it takes toddlers to learn the process is about six months.
Moreover, it states that girls learn faster, usually completing toilet training two to three months before boys do.
Meanwhile, firstborn children also tend to take longer to learn than their younger siblings, who pick up cues from the older kids.
Some people thought Shona's approach was "lazy"
