Wake up and smell the poo, Madonna

If the Material Girl has really never changed a nappy, she's missing out, says Julie Myerson. It's the most sensually satisfying part of motherhood

So we hear Madonna, rock superstar and mother of two, claims (swears, boasts) she's never changed a nappy in her life. All I can say is, poor Madonna.

First, if we believe her, this has to mean she's never spent more than 10 minutes in the company of either of her kids without a nanny hovering claustrophobically by her side. But, far worse and surely infinitely more depressing, is the thought that any woman could conceive, carry and give birth to a child, yet never get to deal intimately and on a daily basis with its small, warm, helpless, excreting body. Because that's one of the best bits! And yes, I really do mean the pee, the poo - the whole, damp, pungent malarkey.

Sometimes I think not enough is made of the sensuous side of parenthood. And I don't just mean the easy bits - the sweet, honey smell of the top of your baby's head, or the overwhelming feeling that any moment you might have to take a bite out of those deliciously chubby arms, those puckered lips, those small, fat, busy wrists. I mean all of it, all the ins and all the outs.

Maybe it's that modern life, and especially urban life, protects us to such a great extent from our physical selves. We may all be messy and smelly at heart, but we grow up learning to keep ourselves decorous and clean. We may grow hair in funny places, or bleed or burp or ejaculate but, at the end of the day, we learn to keep it smooth and quiet. And, though sexual intimacy changes things somewhat - the strange, crinkly hairs in the sink, the smells, the pants on the bathroom floor - unless your partner is seriously ill or disabled, you're only ever responsible for your own body.

Then - pow! - you have a baby and it all changes. The midwife - who's been so good about clearing up all the blood - pops out of the room for a fag break and, well, you're on your own, kid. The most striking and overwhelming thing about the child in your arms - all red, scrunched face and flailing fists - is that its yours and no one else's. You, and you alone, have to handle it.

Oh, you may, in the past, have seen, touched and held other babies, but you always got to hand them back. Not any more. And suddenly there's black smelly stuff dribbling down your arm - and it's coming out of someone who - oh my God! - has come out of you.

In those last, charmed days of non-parenthood, you could hardly believe those doll-like newborn nappies you dutifully packed in your hospital bag were something you would end up opening, unfolding and using. You somehow imagined they'd been bought for show, or for Tiny Tears, or because the magazines told you to.

But no, by the time you come home you've already gingerly explored that strange, monkey-slim, purple-ish bottom with the slit-like, swollen vagina or the tiny, bobbing, punctuation mark of a penis. Heart thumping, as the child - legs and stomach puce and rigid - yelled, you've already torn off a wodge of cotton wool, dipped it in warm water and wiped the first sticky black meconial poo from those alien yet soon-to-be familiar genitals.

And you've seen the cotton wool turn greenish-black, learned to wipe from front to back, to dry the folds and creases (still to a fury of crying) and then worked out how to get the fresh nappy on the right way and do up the tape without getting lotion on the tab (in which case it won't stick and you have to chuck the whole thing away and start again).

Who would be without those years of nappy changing? Not me. And I mean all of it - even the times the pee fountained up the wall and damaged our MOMA poster, or the time the shit hit the bathroom door and we wished someone would invent a plug for the eight-week-old bottom.

No, those times were an essential, intimate part of my developing sensual and emotional relationship with (all three of) my children. I would no sooner want to be involved with my (now) 12-year-old's toilet than I would with yours, but I can honestly say I loved wiping his bottom, putting cream on the sore bits and checking the colour and consistency of his poo.

Maybe it's a Mummy thing. My partner, who changed almost as many of our kids' nappies as I did, totally disagrees: "Jesus Christ, it was just another of the boring things you have to do," he says. "You're saying it was an essential part of my relationship with them? Preposterous."

"You mean," I say, "that you'd be quite happy to be like Madonna and never have changed a nappy at all?"

"Of course I would. It's typical of you to say you find poo somehow fulfilling."

Do I mean fulfilling? It's not so much that I jumped delightedly to my feet every time a baby filled its nappy during supper or (worse) during an episode of thirtysomething. It's more like saying you're a chef and you love baking, but you're never tempted to lick out the bowl.

Oh all right then, maybe it's not quite that, maybe it's this. It's that you make a child of your very own, and you love it, you keep it safe and well and happy. And part of that love thing is that you get to smell its shit. Like our tabby who had four kittens and licked their bottoms clean and - um, well - seemed to somehow eat up their poo as well. Like the smell of your own farts which are, let's face it, always more palatable than anyone else's. Maybe it's just that dealing with our babies' dirty bottoms is one of the rare times we get to be good animals and groom one another in a basic, unsanitized way.

That, then, is what the Material Girl's depriving herself of: the chance to be an absorbed mother cat, on intimate, fart-smelling, bum-licking terms with her children. And anyway, is she really saying she's never had the fun of getting those nappy tapes done up just perfectly - neither too loose nor too tight - and then bending and planting a snaffly kiss on that portion of tummy button that protrudes above the nappy waistband and feeling the wearer shiver with delight?