I can’t even.

I don’t want to be one of those “parenting experts” who claim to know everything (because I don’t) and tell other mothers what to do (that’s obnoxious), but I’m going to go ahead and do it anyway. If you have a twelve-year-old who will not wipe his own bottom, you’re doing it very, very wrong. I will even go as far as to say if you have a 6-year-old who is not wiping his own bum, you should hand in your parenting card and consider putting your kid up for adoption to people who will not allow this to continue. This is why Rome crumbled. Romulus Augustulus was sitting on a marble toilet shouting for someone to wipe his magnificus dolium because he couldn’t spare his thumbs (which were too busy playing Farmville on his iPhone) when a dirty barbarian rushed in and lopped off his head. This is where we are headed, people.

In a must-read-to-believe article over at SheKnows, the downfall of Western civilization has clearly begun, starting with twelve-year-olds who refuse to wipe their own dupas and the mothers who allow this:

Don’t stress if you’re still wiping your child’s bottom when they’re 6, 8, 10 or 12…Because all kids are different and some of them simply don’t want to wipe their own butts for a long time. Maybe they’re lazy. Maybe they just can’t do it properly. Or maybe Mom is too soft. Whatever. Surely, so long as someone is wiping the butt, it’s all good — no?

No. Do stress. Please, feel some stress if you are wiping your twelve-year-old’s behind! (Obviously, this does not apply to special needs children.) If you have a healthy child who is between the ages of 6 and 12 there should never be a time other than a particularly bad stomach flu where you should be doing this. The next thing you know, you’ll be going with him to interviews and berating his new boss for not giving him an office with a view. Please stop doing this. If your child is too “lazy” to wipe his butt, you let him get a painful rash. He’ll start wiping correctly after that. I bet it would only take once. These are called “natural consequences,” which are far more motivating than any punishment a parent can devise. Just let some girl he likes tell him he smells and he will suddenly become a champion wiper.

There is no excuse for a twelve-year-old to not wipe his own butt. And there is even less excuse for any mother who is doing it. If this is you, you are going to be responsible for the downfall of mankind. Congratulations!

I know what some of you are thinking. “Twelve is absurd but six is still little.” And I agree. But ask yourself, can your six-year-old operate a glowing handheld device and shoot aliens with incredible dexterity and build cities out of pixels? I assure you, that same child can also wipe his butt (and operate any household machine like the dishwasher or washing machine). When the government decided 27-year-olds were still children so they could stay on Daddy’s insurance, I thought we had gone off the rails. But now mommies are wiping their tweens’ butts. Where does this end?

Barbarians chopping off our heads. That’s where.