Who is responsible for toilet-training a child: Mum, Dad, the state, society—or perhaps the potty fairy? Reading a BBC investigation published earlier this month, “Why are so many four-year-olds not potty-trained before school?”, one might conclude that the answer is almost anyone except the parents.
It is a legitimate issue to examine. A teachers’ survey released earlier this year found that roughly one in four children—about 187,000 youngsters annually—start school without being toilet-trained.
The impact on teachers is considerable. Alongside teaching, caring, comforting and supporting families, they are increasingly expected to act as monitors for nappies and toilet accidents. The chief executive of children’s charity Kindred Squared says teachers across the country lose, on average, a full day of teaching time each week dealing with potty-training problems.
So why is this happening? The BBC report is emphatic about one point: parents should not be blamed. Apparently, billionaires, Brexit and austerity are more suitable targets than the mothers and fathers whose children have not yet mastered the toilet.
The people interviewed for the report appear to share that view. “It’s not the parent, it’s not being lazy,” one mother says.
Another insists, “I just genuinely don’t think it’s the parents’ fault.” A parenting expert adds that we must be careful not to rush into blaming parents, because the issue “comes down to income”.
The BBC report insists that parents should not be blamed for delayed toilet-training, suggesting that billionaires, Brexit and austerity deserve scrutiny first.
A teachers’ survey found that about one in four children are not toilet-trained when they begin school—approximately 187,000 children each year.
The implication is that struggling families cannot afford a specialist potty-training book, or are too busy, exhausted and stressed to sit their child on the toilet and offer encouragement. Some parents will, of course, face genuinely difficult circumstances when their children have complex physical or neurological needs. Beyond that, however, many of the explanations in the report sound less like reasons than excuses.
A century ago, many of the poorest families did not have indoor toilets, never mind books on potty-training or the endless guidance available on social media. Teaching a child meant sending them through cold rain and winter frost to use an outdoor lavatory.
Poverty itself does not make toilet-training impossible. If anything, families with the tightest budgets have the strongest financial incentive to leave nappies behind. For nearly nine years, I have spent at least £60 a month on them for my children, who are eight, seven, five and two. I will be more than happy when that expense finally disappears.
Enough with the evasions: some parents are too absorbed in their phones, too unwilling or too irresponsible to take on the tedious work of toilet-training.
The BBC’s reluctance to state that plainly reflects a broader anxiety about personal responsibility. For years, a well-intentioned network of campaigners and professionals has developed a vocabulary that appears designed to remove accountability—particularly from people on lower incomes.
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They are described as “vulnerable” to obesity, “at risk of” missing school or “in danger of” slipping through the cracks.
After navigating toilet-training with four children, I understand why parents can feel overwhelmed. We tried every method, but the lesson was simple: persistence eventually pays off.
In this framing, people become victims of fate and circumstance, with little control over their lives. It allows well-meaning observers to discuss social problems without confronting the uncomfortable idea that even the poorest people retain some agency over their choices and behaviour.
Offering everyone a permanent exemption from responsibility does not help them in the long term. Instead, it treats adults like children.
Once irresponsibility becomes normalised, the expectation naturally grows that the state should intervene.
The state is no longer merely the defender of the realm; it is increasingly acting as a stand-in parent. Consider supervised toothbrushing schemes in deprived areas, or free breakfast clubs introduced because some parents apparently cannot be relied upon to spread butter on toast.
Toilet-training is heading in the same direction. As many as 20 councils plan to send parents guidance on the subject next spring, apparently to ensure that residents of Rotherham, Suffolk, north Lincolnshire and other areas do not forget a basic parental responsibility.
Having run the toilet-training gauntlet four times, I get why some parents are daunted. We have used all methods, from staying indoors for days at a time to bribing with chocolate buttons (one for a number one, two for a number two).
By the fourth we plonked a potty downstairs and she just got on with it. My only take-out is that if you try, try and try again you will get there in the end.
I would suggest that schools try stick rather than carrot. They should make clear to parents – unless their son or daughter has genuine special needs – that children must be toilet trained before they are allowed through the school gates.
This is not only fair to the teachers but to the children themselves, who won’t suffer the humiliation of being unable to do what their classmates can.
The BBC may be unwilling to point out the bleeding obvious because of the dictum to ‘be kind’, but too often that translates as ‘be cowardly’ – with those let down being the children whose parents are never held to account.