So I’m walking through the parking lot of my local grocery store when all of a sudden I happen upon this fountain in human boy form. I’d say he was 3 1/2 to 4 years old. After I got over my intial surprise I looked around to see where his guardian was and after about a minute of full stream straight ahead (actually more like straight in the air, Prince Albert style) a woman who I assume was his grandmother approaches, laughing and clapping. She looks at me as if to say “isn’t he cute?”, but she was speaking Spanish so, as I don’t know how to say “that’s pretty fucking rude, lady” en Espanol, I just shook my head and glared at her.
Was I just being a bitch? Is it really cute for a child who, in my opinion is old enough to know better, to be peeing in the middle of a public place? I don’t really blame the kid, as his behavior has obviously not been discouraged. Even if this was the first time he ever did such a thing, is it appropriate for granny to laugh, thereby condoning it?
I’d give it a pass, little 1’s don’t realize when they have to go, and the need is quite urgent when it strikes. Some might piss their pants if they can’t go otherwise, so the laughing and clapping may have been more like ‘good for not pissing yourself’.
Even most adults have found themselves in a situation where they must_relieve_themselves_NOW! without a societally accepted receptical available and made due with what they could. The normal response of a person wandering in view would be either look away, realizing that this must be a desperate situation, or yell a dire waring not to hit the 3rd rail with the urine stream if situations require.
It’s not cute. It’s one thing to have a bathroom emergency with a toddler, in the middle of a parking lot is not the place to take him. I would have sympathy for a mom whose kid ran off and did it on his own, I have seen toddlers a little too enthusiastic and proud of their bathroom abilities that like to pee in public. I admit I find it funny when a potty-training child is so proud of their new ability they want to show off (toddler reasoning: mom is so proud when I do this…I bet everyone else would be too!) but if my child did this I would be embarassed and certainly not encourage it.
Really? Most adults have found themselves in situations where they “must relieve themselves now”? I’ve not met(nor been ) a single one of them, save maybe in my drunken teenage days when you’d have to stop the car so some lightweight could go pee behind a tree. Not to argue with you, since I did ask after all, I just find your outlook interesting.
Sometimes a kid (or an adult) has to go. They should at least be taught to be as indiscreet as possible. So, bad Grandma, bad Grandma!
Adding in: WOOKINPANUB, on long road trips, I have had to pull over a few times to urinate on the side of the road. One time a nice older couple stopped to see if I was having car problems. I was embarrassed but I think they understood when I said, I just needed to stop and walk off a cramp. At least the husband looked like he understood.
In my younger and more drunken days, I did pee in a dark parking lot outside a bar.
Which is why I prefer my dog to children. At least he knows when it is appropriate to relieve himself and people expect me to have some control over him. Kids get a pass though.
Neither cute nor inappropriate. It’s a fact of nature that little boys have to pee sometimes, and not always within legshot of a toilet. When they gotta go, they gotta go - find a tree if necessary, but up against a secluded wall is fine. I wouldn’t go with the cheering and clapping bit, but honestly, why would anyone be offended by a child peeing?
Are there no shrubbery in parking lots anymore? No sewer grates to aim at? Just pissed a puddle for someone in a wheelchair or stroller to splash through? Bad grannie!
OTOH, I saw a 4 year old piss down a storm-pipe on the Great Wall of China. That cracked my shit up. I amuse easily.
I agree. Cute AND inappropriate. Even when we’re camping, you don’t just drop trow and pee anywhere - you go off to a tree, or a rock, or behind a bush or at least away from people and turn your back to the crowd. We with girly bits seem to seek a little more privacy, but even the guys aren’t making fountains in the middle of the fire circle.
If it’s an emergency, he should be taught to be discrete. I’m not going to go all wailing and gnashing of teeth here - maybe this was the first time, and Grandma’s going to take him home with a note that he needs a lesson in private peeing from Dad. After all, we can’t anticipate every possible scenario in which our children are going to need instructions (“Please, don’t eat the daisies.”), so I wouldn’t be too hard on either the kid or Grandma. But in the long run, yes, I agree, he needs to learn better.
In the middle of a parking lot? EW! My nephew is 4 and he certainly knows better than peeing in public. (And it’s not like he’s super gifted or something. Don’t let my brother know I said that. :D)
Just to give granny the benefit of the doubt, maybe she was embarrassed, as ratatoskK said.
Inappropriate. This store didn’t have a bathroom? Grandma couldn’t have taken the kid someplace where the next passerby wouldn’t smell it and/or step in it? Four years old is not potty-training time. Most kids that age could hold it long enough to reach the bathroom, and those that couldn’t should be taught some discretion.
If the boy was at a tree or any other place where it would be acceptable for a dog to relieve themselves, then I would say its okay, but he was just making a puddle in the lanes, then yes, I don’t think its on the list of kiddy behaviour others should have to put up with. If he doesn’t know how to hold it until grandma can find a toilet or corner for him, then he should still be in training pants. As for how to react to it, well, that’s another question, just because someone is rude doesn’t always mean we can point it out. I wouldn’t have been laughing, thougn.
As the mother of a 3.5 year old boy, I would say not cute, but not entirely inappropriate. My son sometimes just has to go and he’s not quite big enough to have a lot of bladder control. Also, he doesn’t always get that there’s a toilet available almost everywhere we go. A couple times at playgroups (held at parks), he’s found a tree and dropped trou’. I explained to him that if he needs to go, let me know and we’ll find a toilet. Well, the next playgroup we went to, I looked over and he was soaked. I asked him why he went in his pants and he said, “There isn’t a potty here.” (We were playing in someone’s backyard.) He didn’t see a bathroom and knew he wasn’t supposed to just go on a tree, so he used kid logic.
I certainly wouldn’t laugh and clap, but it’s not something to get worked up over, either.
One time it was cute, though. I was sitting in the car outside some shops waiting for my husband to use an ATM. Two brothers, one about 8 and one about 3, came out of a bike shop. They were so cute and it totally harkened back to days when kids just sort of wandered around their towns on a Saturday afternoon, exploring and having fun. The little one was tagging along and stopped at a parking meter, dropped his pants, peed, got dressed and went running after his big brother again. It made me smile.
Also possibly a tad of c) culturally relative. When I lived in Belgium, the men, in particular, were like out of control loose firehoses spraying this way and that with no shame. Gotta go? Find a shady spot in an underpass or under a bridge (not to mention those bizzaro temporary urinals they stick up on the plazas in Amsterdam on the weekends and Ghent during the Feesten!). So when I’d run into some guy teaching his kid to whizz on a bush, it would hardly register. My only problem with it-- the bridges reek. And it makes me jealous-- many an evening with a long walk home, too much beer imbibed, and darned girl-parts.
I submit it to the Grandpa Test.
If it’s not cute for grandpa to do it under identical circumstances, it’s not cute.
Toddling around the carnival in just a diaper?
Scampering around the house nude and giggling between the bathtub and bed?
Getting a diaper change in the middle of the restaurant?
If it doesn’t pass the Grandpa Test, it just won’t do.
That said, yes emergencies happen and it is kind to be sympathetic. But peeing is not a spectator sport and no one wants to walk through random parking lot urine or see the penis of any random stranger of any age. I don’t think the OP is a jerk at all.