Potty training gets messy. But I wouldn’t pay anyone else to do it | Fran Taylor

A couple from Surrey are finding themselves the subject of public scrutiny after they placed an advert on a childcare website seeking a professional to potty train their three-year-old child for £50 an hour plus a “handsome bonus”.

Thus far, a bit weird – but not off the scale. The professional potty trainer has, after all, been a thing in America for some time. Read on, however, and it becomes truly bizarre and somewhat disturbing.

In something akin to an intensive-driving course, the couple want the whole thing done and dusted in time for the mother-in-law to pop round for sherry on Christmas Eve, and suggest that two hours a day over five days might do the trick, showing a basic lack of understanding about how small children or human bladders and bowels work.

I’m all for live and let live, let he who is without sin cast the first stone and all that, but the advert made my eyes widen in disbelief.

Perhaps it’s the arbitrary deadline set to please a relative, or maybe it’s the references to the family dog Rex (possibly known as Rexy-Wexy) which give the distinct impression that he comes somewhat higher in the pecking order than the unnamed three-year-old daughter. Maybe it’s the daughter being labelled as “somewhat difficult and doesn’t respond well to authority”. Isn’t that all three-year-olds?

The advert states that the poster and her husband work “full time, demanding” jobs and therefore simply don’t have the time required to undertake potty training with their only child, who day-to-day is under the care of a housekeeper, not equipped to take on (or perhaps not paid enough for) the role of potty-training mentor.

As a mother of two, I completely understand that working full time and parenting is a very tough gig indeed. Even when, like me, you have the flexibility provided by being a freelancer, there are so many pressures from all angles that you can’t possibly give 100% to your work and 100% to your children at all times. You should take all the shortcuts you can for your own sanity, and if you’re going to outsource a parenting job, why not make it the messiest and most unglamorous of them all?

With potty training round two on the horizon, I can imagine the lure of paying someone else to tackle the task on your behalf. Unless you’re one of those people who claims you potty trained your child in 17 minutes and they never had a single accident (in which case I believe the advert is still live, if you’d like to apply) you will come out the other side with stories that will make child-free friends gasp in disgust and/or sympathy.

I have suffered the burning humiliation from having to dash into a Wetherspoon’s toilet with a child under my arm who is shouting loudly that their poo is coming out RIGHT NOW, and demanding their reward sweetie. I have felt that sinking feeling upon consigning a favourite pair of shoes to the bin, covered in unspeakable substances after a swerving into a layby for a roadside emergency wee. I have scrubbed surfaces, and clothes, and apologised, and cried into wine in frustration.

But, when it comes down to it, I believe that teaching a child to use a toilet is a job for a parent or familiar and trusted caregiver. Even if I could afford to hand my son over to a stranger, waving a cheque smugly in the knowledge that I won’t be the one cleaning up poo, I probably wouldn’t. Apart from anything else, after four years of parenting I’m basically immune to bodily fluids now.

Actually, given the fact that I do indeed have some experience in this area (maybe not 10 years’ worth, but everyone lies on their CV, right?) I am sorely tempted to put in an application. It’s Christmas and all that and £50 an hour isn’t too shabby.

• Fran Taylor is the tired creator and owner of two small people. She blogs at www.whingewhingewine.co.uk