About Distracted Daddy
Distracted Daddy is a working father with a two-year-old daughter, a focused wife and a flatulent pug. When he’s not distracted he blogs about poop, parenting and other things at distracteddaddy.com.
Privacy and Toddlers Don't Mix
the fatherlode: privacy canada
(Feb.09.12)
When you join Facebook you gain the ability to poke people but it comes at the cost of your privacy. It’s unsettling at first. Handing over vast swaths of your privacy to an egomaniac who enjoys wearing comfortable hoodies. But you slowly get used to it. In many ways, it’s a lot like having a toddler.
Your idea of privacy is never the same after the toddler years.
For many, the bathroom is the last refuge of private time. It’s a quiet secluded environment where you can be alone with your thoughts and perhaps a magazine. (Perhaps not a magazine if you’re in the shower.)
Then your toddler begins to walk and wonders where you’ve gone.
Cut to the horror movie scenario. You’re trapped in the bathroom. There’s a wild animal on the other side banging and wailing against the door. Your peaceful potty moment has become a nightmare. You rush your business and emerge to comfort the toddler beast. Turns out she just missed you. Your heart goes mushy. Your bladder is thankful that she doesn’t know how to open doors.
Then one day like the Velociraptors in Jurassic Park, she evolves. She learns to open doors. I remember that day vividly. There I was sitting in the bathroom prone and vulnerable as I saw the door handle slowly turn. Then the door burst open and like a screeching dinosaur the toddler entered the room.
Clever girl.
Suddenly the bathroom has an open-door policy and our parental privacy diminishes. It’s not uncommon to have showers interrupted by my inquisitive toddler asking why I’m lathering, rinsing and repeating.
Parenting is not for shy bladders. Especially if you’re parenting solo and when it’s not naptime when nature calls. Then you have to leave the door ajar and chat with the toddler while you answer nature’s message.
It’s embarrassing for you but not for your toddler. Like college kids, toddlers have no sense of shame. She thinks talking to Daddy while Daddy sits on the potty is a normal occurrence.
Of course, should I expect my daughter to give us any privacy when we’ve given her none in return?
Since her birth we’ve invaded every waking moment of her life and the sleeping moments too.
When she sleeps we monitor her with an aptly named baby monitor. It’s the parental equivalent of wiretapping. She’s asleep upstairs and unbeknownst to her my wife and I are downstairs monitoring her babbles on the wire like we’re McNulty and Kima.
And then there’s potty training where you purposely invite the toddler into the bathroom to show her how it’s done. You congratulate her when she tries and you tell her everybody poops. Even Mommy and Daddy.
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