to not like the expression 'clean' meaning toilet-trained...

[longgrasswhispers]

I really don't like it. If someone tells me that their child is 'clean', meaning that they're toilet-trained, I think it has negative connotations. So if the child isn't toilet-trained, is he/she therefore 'dirty'?

It reminds me of medieval times when menstruating women were 'unclean' and lepers had to go around shouting that they were 'unclean'.

I just don't like it. I would never want a child to think that anything about him/herself was not clean....

Yuk. AIBU?

Urgh, YANBU. I've never heard of anyone refering to their child as being 'clean' if they were potty trained but it's pretty horrible as obviously the reverse is that untrained children are 'dirty'. I wonder if they refer to their children as 'dirty' while they are trying to potty train them?

Is it a common phrase where you live? I've never heard it before. Hope I never do TBH!

Funnily enough, I saw it on here recently!!

YANBU

I've never heard that before, but if I did I wouldn't like it either. I always thought potty trained children were reffered to as 'dry'.

I see what you mean, but I hadn't really given it much thought tbh. I just agreed sometimes if people said it to me, and it was quick to answer- "yes, he's dry, but not clean", rather than, "well, he does his wees in the toilet, but he still needs a nappy for doing a poo".

But I certainly never said it to DS no, and he doesn't have any toilet issues! I don't really like the phrase toilet-trained either, sounds like a performing monkey!

I used it today(never before honest!!), not so nice....consider my wrist slapped. Although children with nappies full of poo are dirty.

well pooing in your pants and leaving it sticking to your buttocks is the opposite of clean isn't it

it's a standard developmental thing that we all did at the start of our lives, and many of us will do again at the end

it's not a big deal surely to define it as unclean

what next? will we not be allowed to call dirty fingernails dirty? will they be well-used or similar euphemism.

that said I've never heard anyone refer to a child as clean before

It comes from "wet nappy" (weed in, needs changing) and "dirty nappy" (pood in, needs changing)

If you are weeing in the toilet instead, you are dry by day. If you are pooing in the toilet by day, you are clean. So dry and clean.

Then there's the whole "dry at night" thing. People dont tend to say clean at night because our circadian rhythms tend to mean that we dont poo in the middle of the night under normal circumstances...

I just think it sounds weird, I've never heard anyone in RL say 'DD is clean now'. We just say dry or potty trained.

Well, I've recently used the phrase 'clean and dry' to refer to a child who neither soils nor wets themselves. Or is 'soils' offensive to?

So, surely you cant say dry either then. because the opposite is wet which is negative.

Really, you are over thinking it.

My grandson's other granny told him he was dirty before he was toilet trained.