The game is up, fellas.
We know, we know… everyone deserves a little time to themselves sometimes. But when there are household tasks to be done and feral children to feed, nobody needs to spend that long hogging the toilet seat each day.
And it is the timing that baffles many women the most.
‘When nature calls, we can’t always answer’
Twenty minutes performing your toilet is just not normal, guys — we know you are in there just killing time on your phone to avoid changing a baby or stacking the dishwasher. We’re onto you.
Most mothers cannot even imagine a world where we can pee freely, let alone focus on other bathroom tasks without a small cheerleader asking highly inappropriate questions. In other words, when nature calls, we can’t always answer. What makes the dads think they can have it any easier? The sacred act of peeing in peace is one of the first things you lose when you reproduce. Or didn’t they get the memo?
In a recently resurfaced 2018 study commissioned by Pebble Grey, results of a poll from 1,000 men found that, on average, they spend seven hours a year in the bathroom for the specific reason of taking refuge from their families.
One wife even took to Reddit to confess that she turns off the Wi-fi every time her husband goes to the toilet because she says he spends extended periods of time in there on his phone to avoid helping out with their babies.
“I’d rather let him use the bathroom first than have to put down a baby mid-task, but over the past few months, he’s been spending more time in there. He always takes his phone. He is always watching YouTube. His average session is 25 minutes in there, often longer, rarely shorter.”
It is the ultimate ruse. If we complain about this, they look dejected, horrified that we are interfering with their precious call to nature. If we question their true motives or what they are actually doing in there, we come across as monstrous wenches.
Double standards
On Reddit, the wife says she has been keeping track but that her toilet-loving spouse has ‘ditched’ her eight times in 10 days to go and ‘camp out in the bathroom and let her finish 80% of the childcare”.
And honestly, who could blame them? I’d much prefer to be sitting down watching a make-up tutorial on YouTube than shoveling mushed carrots into a locomotive two-year-old. But who made me the official zoo-keeper at feeding time? There is a time and a place and it is never 6pm in the ensuite.
A survey found that they spend seven hours a YEAR, out of sight, perched on the loo.
Let’s call this out for what it really is — an everyday entitlement perpetrated by the patriarchy without any of the same mutual respect. Inequality of the right to bodily functions. Can you even imagine the bangs on the door if we were holed up with bad cramps and the baby was bawling?
Fellow Reddit users went on to unanimously agree that the woman in question wasn’t an a**hole, with many saying the story was “all too familiar”.
The survey also found that a third of men admitted hiding out in the bathroom to get peace and quiet away from family life.
Many of them described “escaping” to the toilet as a “sanctuary” to avoid nagging partners, noisy kids or simply to be on their phones undisturbed.
So to those who indulge in the art of peaceful peeing, take note; at least reciprocate the favour. But hogging the hot seat knowing there is other more important sh*t to be done, and then blaming the delay on mother nature? Well, that just stinks.
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