Tale #88: Mama's Boy (Picture)

Tale #88: Mama's Boy (Content Tags: Slice-of-life, broad strokes story, wet and messy accidents, training pants, diapers, humiliation, light mental regression) There's something truly unique about the relationship between a mother and son; for someone it is the first relationship dynamic that they ever form, of caretaker and charge. In a typical family unit, the mother is seen as the compassionate nurturer, and in absence of a father, is also the lone defender. Most boys remain attached to their mom until they're primed for a desire to be independent, which usually happens during the tail-end of elementary school. Some boys take longer to feel the need for independence and some mothers coddle longer than they should, but usually the dynamic is healthy. Between Cooper and his own mother, things had become decidedly *less* healthy. Cooper had recently turned ten, and while he still loved his mother very much, he'd begun to feel a distinct need to distance himself in order to grow. All of his friends already talked about their parents as wardens instead of guardians, and Cooper had come to realize how far behind he was in contrast to his peers. He hadn't said anything about how he felt, but he'd instead begun to become more disagreeable and less willing to spend time with her. He wasn't trying to be rude about it, but he'd at least seen that he needed to be stern about his wants on the whole thing. Cooper might have been ready to cut the umbilical cord, but his mother wasn't there yet. She'd already accepted that her older son was past needing her, and she didn't have the same propensity for coddling her daughter, who wasn't too much older than the boy, but Cooper was the youngest and once he was 'grown', then her nest would be empty. Cooper hadn't just been the baby of the family, but he was also the child that had most been a mama's boy in his youth. He'd been the one excited to run errands with his mommy and who liked to hug; he'd been the 'little angel' and now he was growing up too fast. But then, something fortuitous happened: Cooper started wetting the bed again. After a couple years of total dormancy, the juvenile affliction had resurfaced, as if to tell Cooper that he wasn't as big as he thought he was. She'd remembered seeing that scrunched face, just barely holding back tears, as he had come out of his room in soggy pajamas to whimper what had occurred. It'd been like looking in a portal to the past, and while she'd felt bad for her son, it'd also sparked that maternal flame from the small embers it'd been reduced to, into a raging inferno. Her son couldn't be too old for her if he was still wetting the bed! That was something that a *little boy* did, not a *young man*. It'd happened a couple of more times and then stopped, and without overthinking it, the woman had found herself starting to offer her youngest son more to drink in the evenings. Once it started back up, she realized that she might have instigated it and felt guilty for her potential culpability, but she justified to herself that a boy who *wasn't* a bedwetter would be able to handle some extra chocolate milk at night without piddling himself. She even stopped offering him drinks, though she didn't do anything to stop him getting any on his own, and the accidents continued. After three wet mornings in a week, she'd pulled him aside and explained the problem of laundry, and that it wasn't sustainable at this rate. She also mentioned the odor and the damage it was doing to his sleep (and mattress!), which led to the forgone conclusion that she was going to buy him some 'protective briefs'. It was a fancy title for what amounted to Pull-Ups for bigger kids. She'd settled on some Underjams, though she'd spent probably too much time looking at similar sized garments that had actual tapes on them. She had already had a hard enough time convincing Cooper that the Pull-Ups would be sensible, so she could hardly imagine the fit he'd have if she bought him something that was like an actual diaper. The bedwetting would resume, though now there at least was something to mitigate the mess of the aftermath and keep everything contained to one soggy disposable, instead of soaking sheets, blankets, pajamas, and the mattress. During the period of adjustment, Cooper came across as more sensitive and less like he was trying to assert his independence. He didn't need her help changing or cleaning up, but she did talk to him daily about whether or not he had an accident overnight, and she bought a calendar for him to track his dry nights versus his wet ones. Cooper was bashful when it came to talking about his nighttime problem, and mortified whenever the woman would make her inquiries in front of his siblings, who had already been teasing him over them. With the bedwetting in full swing, the woman thought that accidents would simply remain a nighttime issue, up until the day that she was proven wrong. Cooper couldn't explain to her why it'd happened, but he'd wound up with wet shorts one day when returning home from the park. Her first assumption had been that he'd simply been holding it too long and this had been the natural consequence of his hubris, but then it happened again and then a third time. She considered taking him to a urologist to see what the issue was, but she knew how much he hated going to the doctor's office; when it happened a fourth time, she overrode his objections and made an appointment to go see someone, while also having him begin to wear the Underjams during the day as well. She was now spending nearly the same amount of time discussing potty problems with him as she had when he was still three. Cooper peed himself at the doctor's office too. When it came time to discuss the matter with the urologist, he had to fess up that he'd piddled himself in the waiting room; when she insisted he pull his shorts down so that she could see, it became obvious that this hadn't been an errant tinkle, but a total soaking. Unfortunately, the urologist couldn't find anything in their preliminary examination of Cooper. He seemed like a fairly normal ten year old boy, besides being a bit physically underdeveloped for his age, but that didn't seem to be the source of the issue. The doctor suggested that it might be psychological, or perhaps even the rumblings of a growth spurt that wasn't going accordingly. He could only suggest to otherwise stay the course on daytime protection and see if things resolved on their own. His mother held off on seeing a child psychologist over the accidents; she didn't fully trust the science of it, and perhaps she was afraid that the cliches of an 'overbearing mother' would come forward and center. Instead, she told Cooper that they'd wait and see how his potty accidents went. They went downhill. Every morning became soggy, and he was peeing his pants nearly every day, which was evident by the calendar he kept above his bed. His mother became more and more involved, acting like he was a toddler that still needed plenty of reminders to use the potty, and that he needed someone to check whether or not his Pull-Up was wet. Her language became more saccharine and Cooper's demeanor became more submissive to the process. It was like having her little boy back again! Though not under the best circumstances. She'd taken him out to run errands with her, which was something he'd used to love before he'd gotten older, when the next big accident would happen. They'd gotten lunch, dropped off mail at the post office, and then she had mentioned that she wanted to get him more clothes for school; she took him to a big-box store, since she also wanted to browse some other things and get some groceries. Cooper complained, but she placated him in a similar way to how she used to when he was a tot, only now her bribe was a new video game instead of a new matchbox car. She'd spend a while looking at different clothes and not really taking Cooper's own preferences into account. The boy would usually be a lot more independent in selecting his own clothes to buy, but he meekly let his mother take the reigns once more, and she jumped right into it. He had gone into the dressing room to start trying stuff on and had at least drawn the line at her coming in with him, though she did pretty blatantly ask how his Pull-Up was holding up beforehand. Cooper had found the whole situation to be mortifying thus far, and he hated having to step out to let his mom examine how he looked in the new clothes. He'd gone back in to try on another pair of clothes when it's happened; he'd wholeheartedly trusted what felt like a small fart, but it hadn't been just gas that had come out. For the first time since Kindergarten, Cooper had pooped in his pants, or more accurately, his Underjams. He felt like he wanted to cry, as the hot mush oozed out into his disposable undies like a miniature mudslide. Cooper didn't tell her that it had happened. How could he? He'd already been peeing himself to the point of having to wear protection day and night, and he couldn't bear to add 'pantspooper' to his list of juvenile offenses, it was simply too embarrassing! He could only hope that she didn't smell what he'd done, and that he didn't come across like he was trying to hide something. He failed on both those counts. She could immediately tell that something wasn't right when her son came out to show her his ensemble, and when she came over to put her finger in his waistband to see how the shorts fit, she caught a whiff of something unexpected; she wanted to give him the benefit of the doubt that it'd been gas, but between his guilty face and the lingering smell, she had to ask the question: "Sweetie...Did you poop in your Pull-Up?" That single question had started the waterworks for the humiliated kiddo, and it had also set the stage for the precipitous decline that his independence would take. One poopy pair of Underjams would become the bedrock of his second foray into early childhood. For one, the Underjams themselves had to be reconsidered, and after Cooper had sprung an occasional leak at night too, it'd become more apparent that they wouldn't be up to the task of containing his potty accidents. She didn't get rid of them all at once, but she did start by replacing his nighttime routine with something that included tapes and a greater absorbency; she'd allow him to retain the Pull-Ups during the day for a while, though she did warn that they really weren't intended for heavy use. Getting him back into diapers at night also gave her an excuse to purchase him new pajamas, which looked more appropriate for a three year old than a ten year old. His arguments were a lot easier to brush off now too, because he folded under her scrutiny more quickly than ever before. It was like he knew how infantile he'd become, and he didn't have the personal fortitude to defend his sense of maturity. The snowball went down and down, accelerating as it grew larger. What had started as mild bedwetting had evolved into having a completely unreliable bladder, and the stress of that had contributed to his slackened bowel control that had begun to emerge as an issue. Being treated like a little kid again didn't help things either it seemed, since his BM accidents just so happened to occur under the duress of being treated shamefully young. It was a self-driving feedback loop that couldn't be stopped, at least not without professional help, and his mother had continued to ignore that as a possibility. Thus, Cooper would go on to soil himself a few more times, with a blowout signifying that his time with Pull-Ups had come to a close. That conclusion had been reached while they were again out running errands. She'd needed to pick up some things from the grocery store, and with his older siblings indisposed, she couldn't feel right about letting him stay home alone. He was definitely at the age where he *could*, but after coming to view him as so much younger than he was, she could no longer sign off on it. She'd been comparing prices on the different disposable briefs that were there, and she'd asked him bluntly about whether he wanted to stay with Underjams during the day or to switch to Goodnites. She hadn't really been paying attention to who else was around, but apparently some other little boys had been with their own mother and had started laughing at what they'd walked into. She'd hardly ever seen her son get that red in the face, and she felt a little bad for embarrassing him, but her question soon became moot when a very wet sound came from the back of his shorts. The boys on the aisle laughed even harder before they were tugged away by their apologetic mother, and Cooper just stood there paralyzed. "Cooper, did you do an oopsie in your pants?" She'd gently asked, since that was exactly what it'd sounded like and what it was beginning to smell like too. "..N-no, d-don't ask that kinda stuff in public!" The boy stammered, finding the will to stand up for his own fragile pride. She hadn't exactly believed him, and she had zero tolerance for fibbing, so she furrowed her brow at the boy. Putting both his Underjams and some more of his nighttime diapers in the shopping cart, she gave him a little warning. "If you *did*, then you better let me know before we check out, or else I'm going to be very upset with you." Cooper still kept his lips sealed and awkwardly waddled along throughout the rest of their shopping trip, looking miserable and humiliated. What he didn't know, was that his Underjams simply weren't rated for toddling around full of soft poop. By the time that they'd gotten into line, his khaki shorts were picking up some unsightly stains across their white fabric, primarily at the thighs and the backside. His mother hadn't seen the stains, since she'd been walking ahead of her son, but Cooper could at least feel that something wasn't quite right down there. It took a stranger, which was an elderly woman, to speak up and comment that the boy had messed himself. The old woman's tone made it apparent that she was disappointed to see a boy as old as him having an accident, and when she saw the diapers in the cart, it'd made her shake her head even more. Much to Cooper's horror, his mother told the cashier that she wouldn't need the Underjams after all. Cooper wasn't spared the shame of walking out with clearly pooed pants, but he was at least spared the angry lecture about lying until they got to the car. She made it clear that she wasn't upset over his accident, but that she wouldn't tolerate lying about them, and that after his little blowout, that it was obviously time to switch over to real diapers for the foreseeable future. She changed him in the backseat of the car, and just as she mentioned, she put him into a real diaper instead of one of the Underjams that was stowed in the vehicle. It'd been the first time since his original run in diapers that he'd been changed by someone else, and the embarrassment had all but broken his spirit, especially when the drive home had him with his diaper fully out in the open. With Cooper fully relegated back to diapers, his accidents would become more frequent; eventually to the point that there were days where his butt didn't even grace a toilet. His wardrobe continued to see more alterations too, to accommodate his diaper dependency, and that involved garbs that were decidedly far under his age range. Shortalls, rompers, and onesies were legitimate options for him to wear; even his more normal clothes had eventually been replaced by shirts and shorts that had cute prints more befitting of a preschooler. It happened gradually enough, like his accidents had, that he couldn't mount an effective effort to stop it from happening. Privileges and responsibilities regressed suitably as well, and so did his treatment from the rest of his family, and then his own mannerisms. Over six months later, with his eleventh birthday on the horizon, Cooper was clad in a dinosaur-printed onesie that accentuated his puffy bottom, with a pacifier in his mouth and some crayons in his hand; a sippy cup of juice was nearby and the TV was set to Blue's Clues. His siblings were both at school, so he had the rule of the roost, for how little that now meant. He'd become homeschooled early on, since his mother knew how terrible other kids would be about his lack of maturity. His mother wasn't great at actually doing the schooling part though, so many days involved him just playing carefree with toys or watching cartoons; his mental capacity had seemed to begin to regress as well as a result. Cooper's legs stiffened and he let out a muffled grunt from behind his drooly pacifier; his pottytraining was a distant memory at this point, and he hardly gave it a second thought when he felt like he needed to go. The back of his onesie bulged out, while his cheeks got rosy with exertion, and soon the smell of poop began to tickle at his nostrils. He didn't pay the odor, or the warm sticky feeling pressed tautly against his rump, any mind. Whenever it was time for lunch, his mommy would check his diaper and get him changed, so there was no reason to be proactive about it. Cooper was a mama's boy again, and he was no longer fighting it, but instead vacantly embracing it. His mother had wanted more time with having a 'baby' boy, and she'd absolutely gotten it, more than she could have ever imagined. Eventually this would be a problem that needed to be dealt with, but she was in no hurry, and it didn't seem like Cooper was either.