Since I first became a parent, I’ve been taking an informal survey on how old children are when they complete potty training. This has been an unintentional survey; I’ve never asked parents how long it took to potty train their children. Yet, scads of parents seem to think I want to know. The word potty can’t come up in conversation without people laying out the impressive timetables of their children’s migrations to the toilet.
Due to the unwilling nature of my research, I have never recorded the results of my survey. This could have the slight potential to erode the credibility of the findings. The only result of which I am certain is that 0.00% of respondents’ children took longer to potty train than my own.
My two potty trained children became so somewhere in the three-year-old range. The remaining child seems on pace to match that timing. When it comes to deciding where to poop, I thought I had pretty normal kids. The older two, in their own time, came around to a decision I can endorse. I have high hopes the third will eventually see the wisdom in their choices. On the other hand, I can’t honestly argue that a diaper isn’t a convenient alternative when you’re on the run.
Assuming my youngest takes approximately the same time to potty train as his brothers, he represents the third strike in my beginning hypothesis that my children are normal. It will prove beyond the margin of error that they are outliers – sluggard, ne’er-do-well poopers – the slowest children ever to be potty trained.
Further research has confirmed my fears about the futures of poorly trained children like my own. Source: Delusional Parent Magazine.
The stats don’t lie. And the stats are backed up by random, self-reported data from proud parents that happened to come up in conversation. These facts were presented to me by confident (almost beaming) individuals, through the famously unbiased memory of parenthood, who were prescient enough to ascertain that I was conducting a survey on this exact topic. That’s pretty solid, considering I didn’t even know I was conducting this survey. How can I begin to question the validity of such information?
Having not ever encountered a single survey subject whose children were slower to evolve than mine, I am left to consider the consequences of my children’s backwardness. Will these arrested beginnings hinder their futures? I fear so. None of the survey respondents who offered updates reported that their advanced pooping children are now incarcerated. And since someone has to fill the prisons, I can only conclude it will be the slow toilet adopters, of whom my children are, statistically, the slowest.
I know you’re probably thinking how brave it is of me to publicly admit these facts about my own beloved children. But now that I’ve done it, I wonder if I should have just lied about it. I can’t do that though. I wouldn’t want to be known as the first parent to embellish his children’s toilet skills.
Snoozing on the Sofa 
Parents can get downright ridiculous when it comes to their children, Scott. Unfortunately, you are just beginning to find out. The bragging, the competition, the lying, the “my child is better then your child”. *sigh* Really??? No wonder these kids grow up thinking negative towards their fellow beings. They never even had a half of a chance. Nice going, parents. Scott, YOU on the other hand are doing a fantastic job raising your boys. Do NOT doubt this. ❤
If parents weren’t ridiculous, I’d be left with only my own ridiculous children to blog about. And I need all the inspiration I can get, Amy.
❤ (((HUGS))) ❤
Socrates wasn’t potty trained until he was four. I hear Hitler potty trained himself at 10 months. I hope these facts help.
They did, until I remembered that Socrates died where? In prison.
Those were trumped up charges…who doesn’t corrupt the youth.
If it’s any consolation, Destroyer wasn’t potty trained completely until 3 and a half. Buddy will be three in to weeks, and he’ll pee on the toilet when I ask him to, but has no problem sitting in a wet or shitty diaper unless it is literally leaking out and running down his leg.
Looks like my kids will one day run for President too, according to your chart.
I’m hoping to get lucky and just have my kids get into stand up comedy and hardcore crime. Shooting for the best case scenario.
And Donald Trump is still leaving poop everywhere he goes.
Just trying to have an adult conversation about poop, and then you have to come along and soil it like this?
Well, if I knew you were going to wet your pants about it..
Just routine incontinence – nothing to be concerned about.
I think you might need a laxative for that problem.
Is there a support group for such a thing like “Parents with late poopers anon?”
If there were an anonymous support group I wouldn’t have needed to make such a public cry for help.
Ha! Well maybe you just involuntarily started one..