Considering my daughter’s aversion to properly using the toilet, and the pains of potty training, I thought I would get an early start on my son. My goal is to have at least one of them fully potty trained before they turn five. Ducky is two, so this should go well. Ally is almost four, and this has not gone well.

I don’t know a whole lot about male urination, except that they do it standing up. I mean, I have been in the bathroom while it has happened, but usually I would be standing at the sink or counter doing whatever it is I was doing, with a man by the toilet. Just because I was in the same room doesn’t mean I was paying close attention to the process.

I didn’t give it much thought, but figured, how hard could this be? I took my son over to the potty, got him undressed, and decided to show him how it should be done. As it turns out, I know less about male urination than I previously thought. I looked at my son’s tiny penis and was under the impression that for urine to come out, I would have to manipulate it somehow. I positioned it towards the potty, squeezed and pulled, and was met with a loud unearthly shriek. I released and tried again, pinching a bit higher this time. He pushed my hand away and started slapping and screaming at me.

Although I wasn’t paying attention when men have used the bathroom in my presence, I could have sworn there was no screaming involved. Obviously I was doing something wrong and that is now how you get urine out of a penis.

Before traumatizing my son any further and causing him to shudder at the thought of using the bathroom the rest of his life, recalling the time his mother almost castrated him, I decided to look into this a bit.

I went to Google. Not once in my life would I have guessed that I would ever look up “how do men pee?” Aside from the really bizarre things that came up, there are actual instructional videos online for this very reason. I may be the only woman who thought a penis needed to be milked like a cow, but I am not the only mother who doesn’t know how to potty train her son. Apparently you just hold it there. That’s it. Hrm… Tomorrow, if Ducky isn’t too scared, we can try this again.