Bless my mom’s heart, every time I write something about what she might daintily refer to as “bathroom issues” I imagine a little piece of her soul dies. My mom is super classy. I am not. So I feel free to talk to you about what you’re doing in the bathroom and how I think you might be doing it wrong. You’re welcome. (And I think my super classy mom would agree with me, although she’d never say it out loud.)
Ladies, stop taking your kids in the bathroom with you. And for goodness sake, stop feeling guilty about locking them out. You are a human being. It is okay for you to have three minutes of alone time to do your human business. And even if you weren’t a human, even if you were the neighbor’s dog I see from my kitchen window, even HE is trying to do his business in private.
How are we going to tell our kids that their private parts are private and then we allow them to interrupt us in the bathroom? How are we telling them that boundaries and personal space are important and then when it comes to the most basic human function we appear to have no boundaries of our own?
When we act like it’s not possible for our kids to handle their own lives for the five minutes it takes us to handle our bathroom needs, we are disempowering them. We are teaching them impatience by acting like it isn’t possible for them to wait while someone else is busy. We are telling them we don’t have needs and aren’t actual people when we fail to teach them to respect our private bathroom time.
There is some prep work involved in using the bathroom alone. If you’re going to head to the bathroom, make sure the kids are safely engaged in some kind of activity. The moments they are screaming for your affection, playing outside (before it would be age appropriate for them to be unsupervised), or trying to make their own lunch are not great times for leaving them alone so you can go to the bathroom. If my kids are thoroughly engaged in doing something entirely safe, I may just slip off to the bathroom. If they are doing something where they occasionally need my help, I’m going to tell them, “I need to use the bathroom. I’ll be back in a minute.” so they don’t come yelling for me when they want something. If you have a Little Bitty, I fully support setting them in the crib so you know they’re safe (even just safe from the aggressive love of big siblings while you aren’t there to supervise). And also- be sure your front door is locked. My kids have never tried to leave the house while I was in the bathroom, but they have tried to let neighbor kids inside.
Now this option isn’t for everyone, but I have been known to run to the bathroom. Literally. Like, sprinting. This gives me a bit of a head start if someone decides they need something while I’m in there. I know, not super classy. But I’d rather occupy the kids in the farthest corner of the house away from the bathroom, sprint, and then get two minutes alone than take a casual stroll to the bathroom and be immediately interrupted.
Now here’s the big key: LOCK THE DOOR. It’s as easy as it sounds (as long as you have a lock). They cannot burst in on you if the door is shut and locked. A locked door tells them they are not invited in. They can knock and you can let them know it will be a minute and you’ll be right out. If they yell questions to you while you’re in the bathroom you just repeat after me, “I don’t answer questions from the toilet.” Eventually they figure it out. If there is a lot of commotion outside the door then you can go with, “Is this an emergency?” Obviously to our children ALL THINGS are emergencies, so you have to filter through their response and answer with, “I will be out in a minute to help you deal with it.”
And remember, when you get out it’s okay to thank them for good behavior while you were in the bathroom. I might say, “Hey! Thanks for letting me have a quiet minute to use the bathroom! Everyone needs their privacy in the bathroom, even moms.”
Moms, we have SO MANY expectations placed on us. We’re never supposed to let our kids be unsupervised. We’re supposed to meet their every need the minute they express it. But here’s my thought– I want my kids to grow up to be the kind of adults that have healthy attitudes about self-care. I want them to respect the needs of others and have a well developed sense of self-respect, too. I teach that by modeling it. And I model it by (at a bare minimum) prioritizing my bathroom privacy.
If you’ve read all this and feel like, “I love having my kids in the bathroom with me! So fun!” I’m not going to argue about it. You do you. And for the record– when we have had to create attachments with kids who came from trauma, all bets were off on stuff like this until they knew they could trust us. . . so yes, I HAVE used the bathroom while wearing a baby in an ergo. I have skills. And I have had kids follow me into the bathroom during Potty-Training Season to model for them, but that is brief and happens before they’re old enough to repeat at family gatherings exactly what they saw. . . So it’s not that I’m always anti family bathroom time (and we didn’t even discuss public restrooms which come with their own weirdness) I’m just wanting to reach through to that mom who is feeling like she never gets a minute alone and the guilt of even locking her kids out of the bathroom feels overwhelming. It’s going to be okay. There are Good Moms who are firm on this boundary and we do it in love. And our kids know that. So give it a try not just because it’s good for you, but because it might just be good for your kids, too.