NOT in the job description
Just NOT. Who makes up these ridiculous, disgusting things for mothers to do? As if there isn’t enough of an unavoidable ew-factor to parenting, we have to make stuff up???
You’re not seriously suggesting, Charmin, that I inspect my toddler’s anus for toilet paper leftovers? Because, you know, my child does not have a cute, furry butt, and the leftovers would not be speckled here and there, all white and puffy-dry. And they certainly couldn’t be removed with a whisk and dust-pan. No, what I’d be faced with — assuming I were demented enough to go searching for it (talk about buying trouble) — would be much, much less appealing. Much.
But somewhere, you know there are mothers buying into this notion… if not enough to actually do such a disgusting thing, then enough to feel guilty that they don’t.
Ugh.
This one threw me, but I know there are more. I recall the daycare parent at a centre I once worked in who expected the staff to pick her son’s nose for him, presumably because she did it herself. Have you run across any other gross and/or ridiculour expectations of mothers?