Tis The Season: Christmas 2022 Part 1

You look around your childhood bedroom that you last lived in right after college. It had been decorated in the way typical of a person your age, and you’d taken some of that decor to your first apartment. The walls stayed mostly bare and the furnishings spare for years, and the room accumulated junk the way childhood bedrooms in empty nesters’ houses do. Your sister’s old room had always been kept clean after she moved out, and the furnishings were even improved; it was the official guest bedroom. Your room, though, didn’t get a good cleaning out and revamp until the grandkids started arriving.

It became the nursery and playroom for when your parents babysit their grandkids or have sleepovers or when the kids want to escape the grownups. The paint had been refreshed; the top of your old dresser has a mark from where a portable changing station once been set up; and a third of your closet is taken up by a folded-up pack-n-play. But it’s still recognizably your old room. Those are your old toys in the closet, which your nieces and nephews are fascinated by; those are some of your old clothes in the dresser; the storage tub in the closet contains some of your keepsakes; the desk holds some of your old school work; that’s your bed and your bedspread, and just like it always has, it crinkles when you sit down. It feels and sounds the same; only if you take off the fitted sheet and saw the pristine whiteness of the mattress protector would you know the old, dingy one with its overlapping yellowed rings had been replaced.

You open your top dresser drawer and take out a fresh diaper. It has been a long week of old times made new again. One thing you know – that you and your mom and your dad know – is you didn’t used to bicker with your parents so much. You wonder whether, if you’d all know what kind of week it was going to be, your partner would’ve made you stay there while they were out of town at their company’s end-of-year meetings.

That had been an argument you still felt bad about. “I don’t need to stay at my mom and dad’s while you’re gone,” you’d insisted. Or tried to insist.

“Well, I’m not asking anyone to stay over here with you, so your choices are your mom and dad’s, my mom and dad’s, or your sister’s.”

You didn’t want to stay at your in-laws’ house. Your partner’s parents are very nice, but you’re not so close to them that you want to stay with them now that you’ve been put back in diapers. It’s been more than a year, and you’ve even had your pants changed by your mother in-law, but you have no desire to have to deal with that mortification for four days.

You didn’t want to stay at your sister’s; she has enough on her plate with having young kids, and your brother in-law makes you feel judged despite never being less than kind and encouraging. You suspect he’s never, ever judged you and that you’re projecting your insecurity onto him.

But really, you didn’t want to stay with anyone. You’re perfectly capable of staying home alone and taking care of yourself. You’re not even sure how your partner came to the conclusion you couldn’t, but you weren’t surprised they didn’t discuss it with you. This sort of decision, about what your partner calls ‘your care,’ isn’t something you get to weigh in on much. Each time you get a choice – and often the choice is made for you – they give you a limited set of options to choose from: broccoli or brussels sprouts; sunscreen or long sleeves; three more bites and dessert, or no more bites and no dessert; white diaper or decorated diaper; your parents’, their parents’, or your sister’s.

“I can just stay home alone. I promise I won’t get lonely or throw any wild parties,” you assured them. Your mind did the hard work of cognitive dissonance to keep you from having to confront just how much you sounded like a teenager, if not younger.

Your partner leaned forward and kissed you on the temple. “I know, sweetie, but that’s not the only reason you can’t stay home alone.”

You confronted it head on. “I can change my own diapers.”

They gave you a skeptical look, the kind that outwardly appears as a pouty, you’re-so-precious smile but really means you’re-so-precious-but-no-you-can’t-do-that-thing-you-just-said-you-could. It reminded you of the look your mother gave you many years agowhen you tried to convince her you could go to a sleepover without a Goodnite.

“Your parents don’t mind you staying over,” your partner replied.

That wasn’t the issue. You minded staying over, and the fact your partner didn’t even spare a thought for that but jumped straight to your parents’ perspective irked. Your partner is always doing that now, thinking of what they think you need but thinking about what others want.

“I mind.”

“But your mom and dad are looking forward to having you all to themselves. You don’t want to disappoint them, do you,” your partner replied in a don’t-you-want-to-make-them-happy tone. You’ve been hearing that tone a lot since going back in diapers. When used on other people in diapers, it’s a cognitive trick to make the toddler think they’re making their own decision and doing a good deed; it’s a close cousin of will-you-be-my-big-helper to make them feel excited to do a mundane chore or even just to sit quietly where a grownup can keep an eye on them while they do an actual chore, in turn a close cousin of will-you-draw-me-a-picture-while-I … In fact, you’ve been hearing variations on all of those more and more.

“No,” you told your partner, “of course I don’t want to disappoint them, but I can still spend a lot of time with the while you’re gone.”

“Wouldn’t it be easier to just stay over?”

You’re done beating around the bush, so you say it again. “I can change my own diapers.”

Your partner closed the book they were reading and said directly, “You’ve never changed your own diapers. You’ve never even changed a baby’s diapers.” That wasn’t true exactly, back in your bedwetting days you’d changed yourself into your bedtime diapers. The privilege was a birthday present of sorts granted partway through high school, but your partner is also right. You’d put a diaper on yourself, but you’d never changed it out for a new one. Especially after, well, bedwetting is the least of your continence problems now.

“So? I’ll figure it out just like all the other grownups.”

“But why would you even want to when you can just let the adults do those dirty jobs? We’ll pack your bag together tomorrow; you can even take your iPad.”

So much of that caught your ear. ‘The adults’ as though you’re not among them; ‘even’ your iPad as though you need permission; and worst, your own words. Since when did you start referring to adults as ‘grownups’? Even more than your partner’s words, your own made you defensive.

“Because I can. I can do it myself.”

“Even if I taught you how before I left, that’s not the only reason I don’t want you home alone.”

“What even are the other reasons? You never tell me!”

Your partner cocked their head to the side, their mouth tightening to form o-no-you-are-not-allowed-to-talk-like-that-to-me expression. “You do not raise your voice at me.”

“I didn’t raise my voice,” you whined, knowing you had, even if just a little.

“Yes, you did. You have two choices right now: you can apologize, we can snuggle until bedtime, and you can go to sleep; or you can keep arguing with me, get your butt spanked, snuggle until bedtime, and go to sleep with a sore fanny. Which will it be?”

To you, it was a discussion. It had gotten heated right there at the end, but you wouldn’t call it an argument. It occurred to you when a child doesn’t acquiesce to a parent’s decision right away, it gets called talking back, and if they outright refuse, it’s defiance. And after the fact, when the parent is talking to their partner or another adult, it so often gets phrased as ‘so and so wouldn’t stop arguing with me.’ It’s never ‘so-and-so debated the merits of …’ and if it gets called a discussion, it comes with verbal air quotes: so-and-so and I had a little ‘discussion’ today. A one-sided discussion in which one party may or may not have listened to the other before handing down pretty much the same directive they would have given with no discussion.

But you didn’t want to go to sleep yet again with a hot bottom; it wasn’t worth it, you decided. Your mom changed you often enough that, while embarrassing, you were pretty much over it, and you were done with work for the year. What would you do with yourself alone for four days?

“I’m sorry,” you said.

“I know you are, and I want you to know that I understand sometimes big feelings trick you into poor choices, but I want you to keep trying for me to listen the first time. Okay?”

“Okay.”

“Gimme hug.” You hug your partner, who kisses you on top your head and rubs your back, pivoting to an upbeat, “So who’s it gonna be: my parents, your sister, or your mom and dad?”

“My mom and dad.”

“That’s my good little love. Lay down with me.”

You did, turning onto your side and drawing your knees up. Like every night, you felt their hand on the bottom of your diaper, and you know it’s either dry or dry enough because your partner doesn’t get up to get a change. Instead, they make themselves the big spoon and pull you close.

“I’m sorry I have to go away for so long.”

“It’s only four days.”

“I haven’t been away from you for a whole day in so long.”

“Before the pandemic.”

“Before you were back in diapers. But hey, ya know what?”

“What?”

“When I get back, we’re gonna have the best Christmas together. I’ll be done with work, and I’ll be all yours. And in the meantime, you’re gonna have an awesome time at grandma and grandpa’s.”

What did they just say? “What?”

“You’re gonna have an awesome time.”

“At my mom and dad’s.”

“Yeah.”

“You said my grandma and grandpa’s.”

“Did I really,” they chuckled, “that’s so funny. I don’t know where my head is at sometimes.” They found it a lot funnier than you did; they were still laughing. “They’re gonna think that’s so funny when I tell them.”

Two days later, your partner dropped you off at your parents’ on the way to the airport. It hadn’t been a good morning. You’d woken up dirty, something that never happened before your partner decided to keep you in diapers, and it put you in a bad mood. Staying with your parents put you in a bad mood. Your partner going away put you in a bad mood. You gave them a perfunctory hug and kiss goodbye. At your mom’s suggestion, you went back to bed for a little while, and when you woke up, you felt guilty about the way you’d said goodbye.

Now you were getting a diaper from your dresser to take back downstairs to your mom for a change. You asked her to change you upstairs instead of on the living room carpet, and they’d replied, “I’m not the spring chicken I used to be, baby. Could you please bring a diaper down here and save my knees a trip up and down the stairs?” She saw the look on your face. “It’s okay; plenty of diapers have been changed in living rooms. It’s not a big deal.”

“Okay; be right back,” you’d acquiesced. You feel conflicted. On the one hand, you know your parents are getting older and feel grateful – and guilty – about the work they’re doing taking care of you; your mom tries to hide it, but changing you is hard on her back. On the other hand, it’s just condescending. You know diapers get changed in the living room; that’s why there’s a basket of changing supplies in the corner of the living room, except everything in it is for your nieces and nephews. Well, everything except for the changing pad, wipes, diaper cream, and powder; those get used on whoever needs a diaper change, which is sometimes you. So, it’s really just the diapers in the basket downstairs that are for the babies and toddlers; everything gets shared. It’s just that even though you’ve been changed in the living room before, it’s still embarrassing even if no one is there but your parents, and you prefer the privacy of your bedroom.

All week had been like this. You upset and grateful and guilty for not just being grateful, which made you more upset. You arrived in a bad mood, you stayed in a bad mood, you’ve given your parents a hard time, and you just want to go home. You were supposed to go home today, but your partner’s flight was delayed, and it’s already 8:30.

You’re holding the diaper, ready to go back downstairs but thinking first about how to apologize for being such a pill. You hear the dog let out a single bark; you hear the door open; and you hear your partner’s voice: “I’m home!”