02/20/24 - A kid going away to university had to drop out because he couldn’t poop in a public bathroom.
“Just saw this in a comment section yesterday: “The most ridiculous story I’ve ever heard was a kid going away to university had to drop out because he couldn’t poop in a public bathroom. I guess he’s always had a problem with unfamiliar bathrooms growing up, and when he goes on holiday, he’d hold his poop in for 4-5 days until he got home XD”
A lot of commenters were confused, like, “Why couldn’t he just rent an apartment and poop there? Why withdraw?”
And that reminded me, I actually know a very similar story.
This family was pretty wealthy—mostly, the grandpa was well off. Back in the day and age when nobody knew what a bidet was, this family owned one. So their daughter never learned how to wipe her butt—there was no need. Just wash yourself out with the bidet when you’re done.
When she started going to kindergarten, the teachers found out she didn’t know how to wipe her own butt, so they told her parents to teach her.
And the parents were like, “We don’t really have to, do we?” After all, she only poops once a day, so she can just do it at home. Washing yourself is a lot cleaner than wiping anyways. So they never taught her.
Same deal in primary school, since it was also close to home. She could still just hold her poop in. But problems were already starting to surface at this stage: since she’s never been to a public bathroom before, she couldn’t handle the environment, the hygiene level (or lack thereof), the smell, anything. She didn’t even want to pee outside, and would rather hold it in.
Sometimes, as soon as she gets out of school, she’d run all the way home to pee. The parents used to joke about this to us.
This family goes on holiday too, and when they do, the mom still wipes the daughter’s ass for her.
Sixth grade, they had a summer camp program that lasted three days, where parents weren’t allowed to come along. The girl wanted to attend, swore that she could hold her poop in for three days. But the parents figured that didn’t sound very healthy, so they didn’t let her go. The parents also tell this story like a joke.
When I heard, I was like, “You gotta teach her though. This shouldn’t be too hard of a skill to grasp.”
And the parents are like, “Yeah, you’d think it was instinctive, right? Like, you can just pick it up when you need it in a split second.”
And I was like, “But she needs it right now though.”
Not like I had a say in how to raise her though.
The real problem came when it was time for middle school
In primary school, at least the facilities were colourful and cute and whimsical. Middle school is all about studying. The bathrooms are just bathrooms. They’re nowhere near as clean as the public bathrooms you might find in a department store. And this girl couldn’t stand even the hygiene level of a department store bathroom.
I mean, in my peasant eyes, it looked perfectly fine. But I guess for someone who’s never used a public bathroom before, it must be horrific or something. She not only refused to poop outside of her house, she refused to pee too. To prevent herself from having to pee, the only thing she could do was not drink water.
But she’s in puberty now. If she’s not drinking water, she’ll get flare ups bad, and her face would get absolutely covered in acne. And sometimes, she wouldn’t be able to hold it in, and you still have to wipe yourself after peeing, and she just didn’t know how. So, unfortunately, she got an UTI. And her parents had to take her, screaming and crying, to the hospital.
Look at what resulted from just not knowing how to wipe your own butt.
That’s when the parents finally started taking it seriously, and told her, “This can’t continue anymore. You’ve got to learn how to use public bathrooms.”
And the girl was like, “Why? I’m perfectly happy the way I am.”
“This got you sick.”
“What, you’re saying I’ll never get sick if I started going to bathrooms outside?”
You know how teenagers are like. How stubborn they can get. The parents really didn’t know what to do—they figured it’d be simple to learn how to wipe your own butt, but they never expected that she wouldn’t want to learn.
Primary school is very different from middle school. Your school day isn’t too long in primary school. You can still hold it in. But middle school’s classes are a lot more intense. If other people need to go, they can just quickly hop to the bathroom and be done. But she has to hold it in all the time. And she’s putting all her energy and focus on not peeing herself—how the hell can she focus on studying?
If she really can’t hold it in and is forced to go pee, her underwear is usually half-wet by this point. And of course, she’s going to be embarrassed, worried if other people can smell it on her.
So she started crying at home about how she didn’t want to go to school.
Her family is stressed out too, trying to persuade her like, “Going to the bathroom is a perfectly normal venture—you can’t put your life on hold because of pee.”
But kids these days might be shy and awkward outside, but they’re sure good at telling off their parents.
So after a ton of tantrums, the girl stomped her feet and announced, “I’m not gonna go! I’m not gonna go!”
And it’s not like the parents can beat her.
Now she’s in high school. I have no idea how she’s gonna go to college. Or if she even needs to go to college?
Of course, it might be possible that by the time she’s college-age, she might just have an epiphany, tackle this task, conquer her own hang ups, and learn how to wipe her own butt.
Honestly, a grown adult shouldn’t always be improving.
This story is not the most extreme example I have of “spoiling your child”, but it’s definitely in the top three so far.”
Comments say, “My son is 12-years-old, and I used to helicopter him real hard. Now, I’m starting to let go more and more. I still worry, but I know I’ve gotta. A couple of days ago, he crashed his bicycle riding it around, and broke his collarbone. He’s getting surgery done today. I’m finally able to cry now. He’s gonna have to leave us one day too T_T”
“I think that when you’re raising a kid, you’ve got to think about “how to make yourself comfortable as a parent” too, and not just focus on making your kid comfortable.”
“I still don’t know what a bidet is.”
Under the hashtag #11 month old baby suffocates after crying into his face mask, a blogger writes, “When a child is too little to take off his own mask, how can you know if he’s uncomfortable? If you can’t tell when he’s uncomfortable, why would you think it was okay to make him wear a mask?
It’s just like when nutritionists give advice for how to feed kids hard-boiled eggs. You can’t boil them for too long—just 7 minutes so the egg yolk can harden a little. If you let it go for too long, the yolk will get too sticky and the kiddo is too young to know how to drink water to help it go down. They’ll instinctively feel like they’re choking on it, and will refuse to eat eggs again. The same reason why a lot of kids don’t like to eat veggies—because they have to chew on it for too long and some of it doesn’t get chewed up well. When half of the leaf is in their throat and half of it is in their mouth, it will block off their airway and make them feel like they’re about to “die”. Their body will remember that experience and start hating leafy greens. So when making baby food, it’s important to make it minced and soft. Be careful with your children’s lives!”
Comments say, “What awful news! For any 11 month baby, I’m sure wearing a mask would be hard to breathe through and super uncomfortable, not to mention when it’s wet from crying! What irresponsible parents!”
“Forget little babies. One time, I almost choked on some chives. I was swallowing half of it, but the other half was still caught on my teeth. It was fucking awful. You need to be super, super careful with babies!”
“Maybe some young people have no idea, but before Zhifubao [Chines PayPal] was a thing, if you wanted to wire 100 RMB, the processing fee was 4 RMB. For 500 RMB, the processing fee was 12 RMB. For 1000 RMB, the processing fee was 22 RMB.
If you’re wiring it out of state, even if it’s to the same bank, you’d have to pay 80 RMB to wire 7000 RMB. Apparently, there’s no ceiling on processing fees.
So no matter what anyone else says about Mr. Ma [Ma Yun, founder of Zhifubao], I respect him as a man. No capitalists these days would dare to say, “If the banks won’t change, then I’ll change the banks!” anymore. Such deafening, resounding ambition!
Every successful merchant, or perhaps capitalist, have a mix of praise and blame laid on them. But for Ma Yun, at least, he had more progressive parts to him than conservative parts. That’s enough for me.”
Comments say, “My dad spent the holidays at my place, and when he pulled 2000 RMB in cash from the bank, they took 50 RMB in processing fees. This was in the 2010s, and it’s from the his retirement account. Same bank, same state, different city. My dad was upset for a long time.”
“What’s it got to do with Ma Yun? If the government mandated that Zhifubao has to charge a processing fee, would Ma Yun dare to refuse?”
“This is a pretty simple matter, honestly. The old batch of people with power have become a little too entrenched, and he needed to raise some new blood up to fight them. But he had to prevent this new blood from getting too powerful and becoming the same problem. This has been repeating in our history for thousands of years.”
A Shanghai teacher got in trouble lately for cheating on her husband with one of her students. Under the hashtag #Why do we ban sexual contact between teacher and student, a blogger writes, “Right now, as far as I see, this female teacher is definitely a victim too. The student and the husband are victims too.
Legally speaking, this teacher isn’t in any trouble at all. So long as no force or intimidation or bribery was involved, that is. I’ve wrote PSAs before about age of consent, and a lot of people tried to argue with me then, but no matter how mad they get, it won’t change the laws. Forget 16-year-old boys, even if he was 14 or 15, so long as he consented, he has the right to have sex with anyone he wants. So, she’s not in legal trouble at all.
She’s the victim of having many of her rights violated too, including her privacy, the right to her image, etc, etc. There’s a lot of people following this case out of voyeurism.
As far as her professionalism as a teacher, yeah, she’s definitely in trouble there. But honestly, this sort of thing isn’t rare at all in nature, or in society. It’s spring, the season of love and life. If her husband wants to stay together, they can stay together. If not, they can get divorced. The only reason this case is still seeing this much attention after so many days is just because there’s a lot of bystanders getting excited over the scandal.”
Comments say, “You don’t get in legal trouble for having sex with a minor?”
“Have you not seen the rules for holding a teaching license?”
“Wow, what a fucking blog. I hope this will happen to you too. Let’s see if you can write up all this calm analysis then. Not only was she unprofessional as fuck, as a wife and a human being, this is a pretty big violation of basic morals too. If she’s a victim too, then what the hell is her husband? Just a blade of grass? [The cuckold hat is green in China, so meadows and other green-themed things are used as a code for cuckoldry a lot.] He just needs to deal with it and get a peaceful divorce? If he can do that, then he’s not a normal person by far either!”
“Found this in my son’s school uniform. Should I do something about it?
What is up with kids these days? Are they starting to date in middle school? Ever since he got in middle school, my son’s been showering every day, even though I used to have to chase him down and force him to shower and he’d go three or four days without washing his hair. Now he showers in the morning and at night, and is constantly looking in the mirror and brushing his hair. He never used to care about fashion either, and just wore whatever I gave him, and now he refuses to put on anything he doesn’t like, but he’ll wear clothes he likes for a month straight. He likes buying shoes, playing basketball, hoodies, and jeans. Are you kids the same way?”
[She attaches a photo of a small palm-sized card with a pretty girl on it.]
Comments say, “Aunty, the person on this photo is a K-Pop idol. He’s not dating anyone. And also, you might not want to hear this, but based on your description and his palm card, your son might be gay.”
“Wow, posting that photo online when you had no idea it was a celebrity.”
“I can’t imagine how this aunty has the balls to imagine her son would get to date someone this pretty.”
“Thank God it’s Jang Won-young, and everyone knows she’s a celebrity. If this was just a middle school girl and she posted her photo on the internet…”