By Samantha Wassel of Between the Monkey Bars
Do you feel like you spend a ridiculous amount of your day wiping the asses of your offspring? Maybe you spend hours holding down the flailing legs of an infant as you literally baby-wipe the shit out of her.
Or perhaps it’s an incompetent four-year-old who’s got you on call, ready to run to the bathroom at a moment’s notice when he sounds the familiar alarm of “MOM COME WIPE MY BUTT.”
As parents, we’ve all been there: We’ve all faced the filthy image that presents itself when we instruct our children to bend over and touch their toes so we can clean the poop smears from those baby-soft cheeks.
But, as one mom recently discovered, some of us might actually be destined for a career in cleanup doody. (See what we did there?)
Fanny Padder, a stay-at-home mom in Asslanta, GA, says she recently took an online career aptitude test through her local community college’s website that revealed her as “best suited to remove fecal remnants from the buttocks and anal crevices of young humans.”
“Are you fucking kidding me?” she said when we asked how she felt about the results. “I mean, I assumed that test would place me in something childcare-related. But I was thinking more like Daycare Worker. Or Elementary School Teacher. Or, fuck, even Creepy Ass Birthday Party Clown. But Butt Wiper? Seriously?”
Padder said that her only comfort is knowing she’s living up to her professional potential.
“I always wondered if I was wasting my college education by being a stay-at-home mom. I think a lot of us have those kinds of doubts. But I guess now that I know what I’m supposed to be doing with my life, I can actually put my English degree to good use. Like, by wiping my kid’s butt with it.”
Although Padder says she’s currently resigned herself to a life of shitty, unpaid labor based on the recent test results, she does have concerns about what the future might hold.
“What does a butt wiper do when her kids get older?” she asked, a note of distress underlying her trying-to-be-casual tone. “I MEAN, TELL ME THE DAY DOES COME WHEN THEY CAN WIPE THEIR OWN ASSES.
“No, like, really. Tell me. I need to actually fucking hear it.”
While we did our best to assure Padder that her three children—ages 4, 2, and 7 months—will one day develop the skills necessary to wipe themselves, it did little to assuage her fears.
“But what if I’m too good at it?” she asked. “What if that’s the problem? That stupid test is fucking with my mind. Maybe I’m enabling them. Maybe I need to let them sit in their own filth for a while. But then what will I do with my life? I’ll have no purpose.”
When we checked in with Padder’s husband a week after the interview, he informed us that, despite his wife’s concerns, she has continued wiping the butts of their children on a regular basis.
“Well, she knows I’m not going to do it,” he said with a shrug. “I told her I could never wipe an ass the way she does.”
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About the Author
Samantha Wassel is a sarcastic and slightly unhinged SAHM to three energetic boys and three lazy AF cats. She enjoys running, writing, kettlebelling, reading, nerding out, and eating exorbitant amounts of goat cheese and Peanut Butter Halo Top ice cream (but not together, because barf). You can find more of her work at Between the Monkey Bars