Has someone ever watched you go to the bathroom? Unless you’re a career criminal, the answer is probably no. There’s nothing quite as unsettling as a pair of peering eyes on you while you do your duty. It’s way more awkward than when you’re in a public restroom and you get stage fright and are unable to go or if the door won’t latch and someone briefly walks in on you. Mummyhood has meant goodbye to modesty in more ways than one, and this is one of those ways.

My hubby and I have never been one of those really open couples who uses the bathroom in tandem (surprising since we’ve only ever had one bathroom wherever we’ve lived). Call me old-fashioned but I like to keep some sort of mystery alive because after child-birth there really isn’t anything left to wonder about.

So when my daughter is in one of her clingy moods and Mummy needs to use the facilities, there’s no other option than to bring her along. In the few times that I’ve had to subject her to my restroom trips, she sits in her swing just as happy as can be. Only once did I have to actually wear her in the baby sling causing me to wonder if it qualified as child abuse?! To make your child sit in the bathroom while you use the toilet seems like some sort of punishment. Am I doing unnecessary trauma to her little psyche? Isn’t it better than leaving her screaming and alone in the other room making her feel abandoned? Or am I doing worse damage to where she’ll have flashbacks when she’s older to a horrifying memory of her mother sitting on the commode? Who knows. Soon she’ll learn that everyone poops (just like the book) and at one time in your life you might have an audience for it.