Louise Thompson’s remarks about children starting school still in nappies triggered a significant backlash from mothers — especially those whose children have medical needs, developmental delays, or disabilities.
The core problem is that numerous parents felt her comments obliterated the complicated truths behind delayed toileting and unfairly blamed mothers for “lazy parenting.”
On her He Said, She Said podcast, Thompson laughed while discussing statistics showing that one in four children in England start school before being fully potty trained. She suggested parents might be “too distracted,” “taking the easy route,” or “not dedicating the time.” Her fiancé, Ryan Libbey, added that some parents are “career‑hungry,” suggesting ambition leads to neglect.
A clip of the discussion was subsequently removed, and Thompson gave an apology — but numerous parents said it was insufficient.
Parents across social media described her comments as dismissive of children with SEND, including autism, ADHD, developmental delays, sensory processing issues, and medical conditions that directly affect toileting. Ignorant of NHS delays because many families wait years for assessments, continence support, or occupational therapy.
Stigmatising, such as implying poor parenting when the reality is often medical, neurological, or trauma-related.
Emotionally harmful – parents describe how they feel judged, shamed, and erased. One mother said, ‘Imagine seeing your child struggle and being told you took the easy route.’
Experts highlighted that toileting delays are not a simple matter of parental effort. For numerous families, toileting is a complicated developmental milestone, not a moral failing.
So, why does this story resonate with so many mums? Because it wasn’t just about nappies, it was about judgment, ignorance and the erasure of lived experience, especially for mothers of disabled and neurodivergent children.
Parents said the laughter was the most painful part. It signalled ridicule rather than understanding, it reinforced stigma that already isolates families, and it ignored the emotional labour of caring for a child with additional needs.
One SEND parent summed it up, ‘Children with special needs deserve dignity, understanding, and compassion, not public ridicule.’
The thing is, not all children are the same. Some children with special needs can be potty trained quite easily; others cannot, and it takes a little longer, which is extremely stressful for the parent. The more frustrated the parent becomes, the more frustrated the child becomes, but we shouldn’t underestimate these children, because some of them can be extremely intelligent.
Regardless of who Louise Thompson was referring to regarding toilet training, these influencer podcasters need to do extensive research before addressing this problem.
My own son has autism, and I did manage to get him out of nappies by the age of three years old, and if someone had said something like this to me, it wouldn’t have hurt my feelings. I would have just thought, ‘They really don’t have a clue,’ and then I would have carried on my day.
Do parents intentionally not potty train their children? No, parents don’t ‘deliberately’ avoid potty training their children, but some children cannot toilet train on a specific timeline, and some families encounter obstacles that outsiders don’t see.
The notion that parents are choosing not to toilet train is a myth, usually rooted in a misunderstanding of child development, SEND needs, and the realities of modern family life.
Forcing potty training is one of the quickest ways to create long‑term toileting problems, especially for SEND children, because if you push before a child is developmentally ready, you don’t speed things up; you slow them down.
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