I think its safe to say that, by any and all accounts, I am a lenient mother. I have been known to let my kids eat ice cream for breakfast and play with their friends before doing their homework. I only rarely make them clean up their own messes. I never make them eat whatever disgusting food I have prepared for dinner, so I have become their short order cook. And even more appalling, when we get fast food I let them open their Happy Meal toys before they have finished eating their nuggets. In short I am pretty much a push over and a slave to these children. Is it any wonder I am depressed? Really, is it?

In many ways I am mothering exactly the same way I was mothered. And I really love my mother, but did I want to be her? No, not really. But I think this is really common, people fall back on what they know or observed to do a job that has no formal training or manual. In essence my mother was my training for this job and I think I’m pretty much winning the award for Most Valuable Contributor to the Company of Motherhood, and my mom is the CEO.

My son Badger is three and a half. He is my youngest, my baby, the last of my seed here on this earth. And I think that things have somehow gone terribly wrong with him. He is the baby, and he knows it. He always says he wants to be a baby forever. He wants me to actually call him Baby Badger, instead of just Badger, and he will correct me if I fail to do so. But that by itself wouldn’t bother me so much, I mean I can call him Baby Badger at his college graduation for all I care if that’s the way he wants it, but the main thing that gets me is he will not be potty trained. WILL NOT. Every day he says he wants me to change his diapers forever. And I have had it with all the poo, people. I’m sick of smelling it and wiping it and throwing it in the trash. I need it safely deposited in the toilet and flushed away to somewhere that I don’t have to think about it ever again. For my sanity and my success as a person and a mother I need NO MORE POOPY PANTS.

I have accomplished this task before, as my other two children are potty trained. And it wasn’t easy but I did it. They didn’t put up the same kind of fight though, the blind obstinance and refusal. I have almost resigned myself to the fact that while at his college graduation I will hear myself say “Baby Badger, you’ve shit yourself and I need to change your diaper.”