I’m an angry elementary school teacher. Why should I change a six-year-old’s diaper just because their middle-class mothers are “too busy” to teach them how to use the toilet?

At the primary school where I work, a harried mother recently forgot to drop off her son’s spare set of clothes and diapers.

She promised she would return within an hour, but 90 minutes later there was still no sign of her.

When I called to ask where they were (by this time the poor boy had whispered to me that he had wet himself), her response was depressing but predictably negative: ‘I don’t have time! He’s in school, so it’s your problem now.’

But she’s wrong.

Changing diapers is definitely not in my job description as a teacher. Especially since the child in question was not a toddler, but a six-year-old.

You might be surprised to hear of a mother sending her son to school without first teaching him how to use the toilet. But unfortunately, this blasé attitude is not a one-off for parents.

In fact, this wishy-washy approach to child welfare is becoming the norm, especially among many affluent families.

In fact, it is so common that at my school in an affluent middle-class town in the south of England, where I teach children aged four to six, we keep a stock of spare clothes and underwear, along with nappies, wipes and lotions, in the fully equipped changing room (all from the school budget).

In fact, most of the elementary schools I have worked in required these facilities. During my eleven years of teaching, I have dealt almost daily with children aged four to seven who are still not toilet trained.

But on this occasion my teaching assistant had to go to the local supermarket to buy nappies (of the right size) for the poor child.

This six-year-old was extremely socially conscious. He was incredibly embarrassed that I had to sort him out and put a new diaper on him.

Cases like this are why I, like most teachers across the country, was shocked by Shona Sibary’s admission in Femail earlier this month that she had sent her four-year-old to school without proper toilet training and just made the most of it hoped.

Shona was responding to comments from MP Miriam Cates, who blamed overworked working mothers for the increasing number of older children still wearing diapers at school.

“I brought all four of my children to school with a spare pair of pants in their backpacks and felt guilty that none of them were truly prepared for this next big step in their lives,” Shona wrote.

She may feel guilty. But teachers like me are furious that parents are, literally, leaving us to clean up their messes.

I’m only 33, yet I’ve changed hundreds of diapers at the schools I’ve worked at. (The irony that I’m not a mother myself, but have probably had more diaper experience than some parents I encounter doesn’t escape me.)

The youngest was an understandable two-year-old doll, the oldest an aggrieved, Spider-Man-obsessed seven-year-old boy.

I honestly wanted to shake his parents for not making the time necessary to reach this crucial milestone with him.

Parenting experts suggest that between the ages of two and three, children are mature enough to learn. Yet a recent report found that 90 percent of reception teachers, like me, reported having children in their classrooms who are not toilet trained.

For those who think it is not a problem, let me tell you that it is not just a matter of changing the child’s clothes and putting on dry clothes. Different schools have individual policies, but classes are stopped on every occasion.

In some cases, teachers may need to contact parents to inform them of the incident. We must always check whether we have permission to change the child. I spend between four and five hours a week on this, while I could be teaching.

My colleagues and I find it time-consuming and tiring, but it has become the norm. It’s the rest of the class that really suffers, especially the students who need some extra attention.

These are certainly the kids who need my full attention, but they get overlooked when I look up the basics of keeping everyone in clean clothes.

This is not what I had in mind when I became a teacher. After studying psychology, I knew I wanted to work with children.

I first worked as a teaching assistant for two years and I loved it. The kids were four to five years old and I thought it was so worth it. Ready to commit, I completed the one-year Post-Graduate Certificate in Education (PGCE) course to become a teacher.

I knew the hours would be long and my pay would be far from great. But for me, teaching a new generation of children was a real privilege.

But do I still feel that same passion eleven years later? Some days I feel like I don’t have time to teach at all.

It would be easy to jump to conclusions about the home background of children who have not mastered toilet training. You might assume that children from poorer families would be hit hardest. But that is not the case.

They are often middle-class parents who are used to nannies and au pairs at their beck and call and who expect the education system to catch up with their little darlings.

Too often, such parents are doctors or nurses, who no doubt spend all day correcting their patients’ lifestyle choices while ignoring what’s happening right under their noses.

But no white-collar profession is off limits; My parents include those who work in finance or hold prestigious government positions.

I think middle-class parents are also the ones most likely to be chronically late in dropping off their children, which puts pressure on their children. These parents run from one day to the next, lurching from one “life crisis” to another.

Face-to-face conversations with such parents are also rare, because they ‘don’t have time’.

If I manage to get hold of such a parent, my message will be clear. I remind them of the life skills their children need: using a knife and fork; putting on and taking off their shoes; zipping up their jacket; and of course being toilet trained.

I try to convince them that the average child needs their mom and dad to firmly and consistently help them navigate the world outside their home.

I will persistently remind them that toilet training requires their full attention, offering tips such as praising their children at home for going to the toilet, or encouraging them to use a sticker reward system.

Many of them look at me as if I’ve told them to teach their child Mandarin (although that would probably get a more positive response), and shoot me down with “I’m too busy!”

I’ve heard it all before. But how can you be too busy to teach your child such a basic skill – a skill that, if ignored, will stunt his physical and emotional development?

And what on earth makes you think that such an important responsibility falls more on me, someone who may only be in your child’s life for a few months, than on you, the parent?

Sometimes I discuss this quietly with close friends. A friend – a mother of four – said she would consider herself a failure if any of her children went to school in diapers. Hear, hear! If only more mothers felt this way.

To those who still believe it is my “job” to deal with your child’s toilet problems, I say this: I teach a class of 30. If every child in my class showed up without proper toilet training , I would probably spend all day changing. them.

But even changing one child – your child – takes up a significant amount of my time. Time I don’t teach them, or their peers, the things I should be, like reading, spelling, or counting.

Yes, potty training is ‘boring’. But who said being a parent was a long laugh fest?

The fact that your child will be so much happier and more confident afterwards is definitely its own reward. And if that’s not enough to motivate you, ask yourself why you committed to having children in the first place.

As for me, I plan to leave the profession next year. After reading this, are you surprised?

• As told to Samantha Brick.