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It's time for him to learn how to use a bidet.
By Megan Quinn — Written on Feb 10, 2023
A man wanted to teach his son a lesson about personal hygiene by installing a bidet in the bathroom.
When that didn’t work, he threatened to embarrass the teen by telling his friends of his gross habits.
Now the dad is wondering if he is taking things too far.
The dad told his son that if he does not do a better job of wiping then he will inform his friends about his ‘dirty’ underwear.
Sharing his story to the subreddit thread, r/AmITheA–hole, the father raised concern about his 14-year-old son not wiping properly after he uses the restroom.
He recently made the discovery after he began doing the family’s laundry and came across a pair of his son’s underwear.
“I gagged and almost puked from his underwear,” he revealed.
“If he were three and not fully potty trained I might understand how they end up like this. But he is a healthy young man. He should not be leaving his a- this unwiped.”
The father spoke to his son about the matter, and he promised to make more of an effort to make himself clean.
However, after continuing to notice stains on his son’s underwear while doing laundry, the man decided to install a bidet in the bathroom to allow him to wash properly.
Unfortunately, his plan backfired and his son started going commando, with his jeans now getting soiled instead.
The father told the teenager that he may have to take him to see a doctor regarding the matter to discord if the issue is physical or psychological.
“I also said that the next time his friends were over I was going to ask them if they left their underwear in the same condition,” he added.
The man claimed that he never intended to actually do this but wanted to teach his son a lesson.
His son did not take that news well.
“He said I was being an a–hole and he called his mom to tell her what I was doing,” the father wrote.
The teen’s mother does not see the issue and wants her son’s father to “deal with it.”
“I don't think that's a great plan. If this kid never learns to wipe his a– he will be bereft of a sexual partner without a poop fetish,” the man shared.
Although his son eventually began to use the bidet, he described the sensation as “gross” and “weird.”
“I said it was grosser and weirder for a 14-year-old to crap his pants every day,” the father wrote.
Redditors sided with the father — but experts would likely disagree.
“14 is a little late in life to be learning how to clean your butt after using the toilet. Your wife is doing him no favors by allowing and coddling this behavior,” one user commented.
“I'm surprised his friends haven't started calling him out for always smelling like poop,” another user wrote.
“To add to this he probably does not wash himself properly when showering either, this needs to be addressed URGENTLY,” another user pointed out.
Alfie Kohn, author of "Unconditional Parenting: Moving From Rewards and Punishments to Love and Reason," told the Huffington Post in 2012 humiliation as punishment can cause the opposite of the intended result.
He says that a child will learn that “my parent isn’t a caring ally whom I can trust but an enforcer I should try to avoid.”
“When you have a problem with what someone else has done, you should just use power to make the other person do what you want, and the reason not to steal (or lie or hurt people) isn’t because of how it affects others but because of the consequence you, yourself, will face if you’re caught.”
Other users encouraged the man to take his son to a doctor in case there was a problem.
“You should also want to take him to the doctor just to be sure there isn't something wrong that he's too embarrassed to tell you about,” one user suggested.
Others believed that the teen maybe did not know how to wipe himself properly and urged his father to teach him to spare him humiliation in the future.
“Ask him if he even knows how to actually wipe. Maybe you need to show him how to properly do it. If he's 14 and can't manage it maybe he wasn't taught the correct way,” one user wrote. “You also need to tell him eventually, if it's not happening already.”
In the meantime, the boy should consider buying some new, clean underwear before his father follows through with his threat.
Megan Quinn is a writer at YourTango who covers entertainment and news, self, love, and relationships.