Help! Everyone Says My Child’s Peculiar Bathroom Habits Are Unforgivable

Each week, Prudence asks readers for their thoughts on the letters she’s received. Her reply will be available every Friday only for Slate Plus members.

Re Bloody Bathroom: Reading through the comments, it seems my kid is a disgusting slob and I’m a terrible parent. Yikes. But here’s the thing I think people are missing.

There’s a wide range of bathroom behaviors at issue in that first letter. My 15-year-old routinely leaves towels and clothes on the floor and definitely does not wash out the sink every time she brushes. She will even occasionally forget to flush (I blame the phone permanently attached to her hand). But the tampon on the floor is truly vile and has never been an issue with my kid. Suffice it to say, I think treating this entire spectrum of messiness/disgustingness as the same seems a touch dramatic.

I think my kid is a fairly typical teen (getting worked up for ADHD, so there’s that; I think it contributes). I maintain a very neat, clean household otherwise and certainly make her clean up the bathroom, but it is a constant effort that has not been improved by (1) being a good example, or (2) teaching her the value, importance, and how-to of cleaning. Do I hope she’ll learn eventually? Yes. Is she a horrible brat because she leaves towels on the floor? No. Am I a terrible parent because my teenager is not yet as tidy as I am in my 40s? God, I hope not. Was I on the messier side as a kid and did I learn how to maintain my space? Yes, yes I did.

The kid in the first letter is not irredeemable. Her mom is not necessarily a lazy parent, as the letter writer suggests (and as so many comments seem to endorse, geez!). LW1 needs to understand that there’s a lot of daylight between not washing toothpaste out of the sink twice a day and dropping a used tampon on the floor. He may not be suited to living with a preteen/teen. It takes a little bit of flexibility on cleanliness sometimes (did she really not have these behaviors at 10? Or did mom do a lot more cleaning up after a smaller child? Did the kid even live with him then?). If he wants to stay in this relationship, I think a practical solution is to draw a hard line with the truly gross stuff (no tampons on the floor! Ever! No excuses!) but work with the kid on the other stuff with positive reinforcement. Or, since the kid is not his and they don’t seem to have a great relationship, make sure mom is on board with this plan and have her implement it while LW exercises a bit of patience.

Knowing that the sink may not be washed out after every brushing, it may make sense eventually to let the kid have the other bedroom/bathroom to reduce conflict between LW and the kid. Not in the immediate aftermath of Tampon Gate, but as a longer-term solution. Three people sharing one bathroom is a lot when another available bathroom is going unused.

Great perspective. I especially agree with the letter writer taking a backseat to mom on this issue.

Re I Wish I Were Ready: This letter writer sounds a lot like my ex. He loved me. He totally wanted to marry me! Definitely wanted a family. But after two years, he wasn’t ready. Didn’t know when he would be. But he wanted to marry me! Totally!

Today, I’ve been married for over a decade and have a kid. My husband was clear from the beginning that he wanted to marry me, so we weren’t together long before the wedding. My ex just turned 54, and I’m pretty sure we’re still on that “break” he initiated to figure out his feelings. I’m sure I’ll hear from him any day now!

Congratulations on being a lifetime boyfriend! Hope it works out for you. At your rate, you’ll be getting married by the time you qualify for Medicare.

Also, you two live together and have been exclusive for over two years. You’re already spending your life with her. That you don’t see that means you are so not ready to be married to anyone.

Or maybe when he meets the right person he will suddenly be ready! Either way, my wish for his girlfriend is that she feels a sense of peace and security, and that might mean finding someone like your husband instead of the LW.

Re I Wish I Were Ready: I was where the LW is now. I really wrestled with the decision to get married, and I think this is common for people who get married later than our parents’ generation.

My girlfriend (now wife) was losing patience, and I knew I needed to make a decision—at 39. One night, my older sister gave me the best advice of my life, which I think you need to hear now. So, 24 years of marriage and three kids later, I give you her words—verbatim, which I have saved for such occasions as this:

“Listen, what you are going through is totally normal and I have had this conversation with so many of my friends, I’ve lost count. The truth is—there is no one person for you and there is no magic answer to your question. You don’t just “get” a marriage. You don’t just get a relationship. Every relationship you have, whether it’s your spouse, your kids, your parents, your family, your employer—EVERY relationship is generally about as good or as bad as you decide to make it. Sure, there are exceptions and I’m not talking about abusive or exploitative relationships, but generally speaking, real relationships take work. Every day. If you don’t feel like your relationship is good today, then you get out of bed and ask yourself: What have I done to make my relationship better today? And you keep asking yourself that every day.Here’s your problem—the theoretical possibility of something else out there, some other relationship, is ALWAYS going to seem more attractive than the mundane reality of a real relationship you have, because it is imaginary and perfect and unburdened by any of the messiness or reality of real people. Your problem is that you haven’t yet closed the door to those outside possibilities—and until you do, you won’t know. But if you close the door on those other possibilities and focus on what you have and making what you have what you want, you may find it is all that you want. You may not, but you know each other well and you’ll get to the heart of that pretty quickly.But this isn’t just your decision—it’s hers too. And you need to do that together.One other thing: I have never told you what to do because you’re stubborn and push back when people tell you what to do, but for what it’s worth, I think she’s great and really gets you, understands you and loves you for who you are—both the good and the bad. That’s the hardest thing of all to find and that’s a pretty good place to start. Work on making what you have what you want, and you’ll know the answer quickly.”

“Listen, what you are going through is totally normal and I have had this conversation with so many of my friends, I’ve lost count. The truth is—there is no one person for you and there is no magic answer to your question. You don’t just “get” a marriage. You don’t just get a relationship. Every relationship you have, whether it’s your spouse, your kids, your parents, your family, your employer—EVERY relationship is generally about as good or as bad as you decide to make it.

Sure, there are exceptions and I’m not talking about abusive or exploitative relationships, but generally speaking, real relationships take work. Every day. If you don’t feel like your relationship is good today, then you get out of bed and ask yourself: What have I done to make my relationship better today? And you keep asking yourself that every day.

Here’s your problem—the theoretical possibility of something else out there, some other relationship, is ALWAYS going to seem more attractive than the mundane reality of a real relationship you have, because it is imaginary and perfect and unburdened by any of the messiness or reality of real people. Your problem is that you haven’t yet closed the door to those outside possibilities—and until you do, you won’t know. But if you close the door on those other possibilities and focus on what you have and making what you have what you want, you may find it is all that you want. You may not, but you know each other well and you’ll get to the heart of that pretty quickly.

But this isn’t just your decision—it’s hers too. And you need to do that together.

One other thing: I have never told you what to do because you’re stubborn and push back when people tell you what to do, but for what it’s worth, I think she’s great and really gets you, understands you and loves you for who you are—both the good and the bad. That’s the hardest thing of all to find and that’s a pretty good place to start. Work on making what you have what you want, and you’ll know the answer quickly.”

So, the LW should think over the best advice I ever got. You’d be surprised what clarity a little focus can bring.

Thank you for this! I feel like we need to somehow get your message to go viral on TikTok so it can spread among the youth!

Get advice from Prudie—submit a question!

Please keep questions short (<150 words), and don‘t submit the same question to multiple columns. We are unable to edit or remove questions after publication. Use pseudonyms to maintain anonymity. Your submission may be used in other Slate advice columns and may be edited for publication.

Thanks! Your question has been submitted.

In response to Baby Is His Maybe: It’s also possible that your son knows he isn’t the father. It could be a sperm donor (or egg donor) or even a donated embryo. So many parents go this route today and don’t tell the family. Regardless, Prudie’s suggestion stands: Back off.

So true! This is definitely a possibility. And even if we knew for a fact that he was completely clueless, let me say it again: Back off!

Re Baby Is His Maybe: Genetics are funny. Inheritances are random and can lie dormant for generations before being expressed again. I would caution you against accusations of infidelity. I am biracial (half Black, half white). I have dark hair and eyes, and darker skin. My husband has blond hair and blue eyes, as do all of his parents and grandparents.

Although my oldest child has blond hair now, they were born a redhead (they lost the red hair in their first three months, and it grew back a strawberry-blond color). We assumed that my second child would look more like the first, but #2 looks like me. And then #3 was born, and they also had red hair, which they have to this day. To be clear, all three kids are 100% biological siblings with the same parentage—and they are each distinct: a blond with green eyes, a brunette with brown eyes, and a redhead with blue eyes.

As it turns out, both my husband and I have distant relatives with red hair—his great-great-grandfather and my great-grandfather. My grandmother had red hair as a child, but it gradually darkened as she grew older, in the same way that very fair-haired children often end up with darker blond hair. I’m willing to bet there are other redheaded relatives a few generations back that no one is aware of.

I’m going to forgive myself for not thinking about the genetic possibilities here because I never claimed to be a science advice writer. But you’re absolutely right.

About 15 years ago, when I was a young teenager, I told a lie that seemed harmless at the time but as an adult, I now realize that my lie could have cost total strangers their jobs.