I was going to say it’s neither.
It was necessary. The kid had to pee and maybe they’ve been having a horrible time potty training him. I know I’ve seen many stories on these boards of children 3 1/2 and older who are not potty trained. If he’s been wetting his pants all this time and then had the presence of mind to pee in a parking lot instead, that may have looked like a small success to his parent. I cannot believe she encourages him to choose parking lots over toilets.
Uh, you meant “discreet,” right?
I’d say “inappropriate.” We have three little boys and they’ve never had to pee in so public a fashion, even in an emergency. Find a bathroom, find a tree, hide behind a bush somewhere, but for chrissakes don’t permit the kid to let fly in the middle of a parking lot.
I dunno. My childless instinct is ‘ewww’. My logical response picks up on those saying that this may still be part of training a kid into normal toilet usage.
My main thought, however, is coloured by a very distinctive memory. A kid on the high street in town was screaming away. Father was ignoring, as best he could. Eventually she ran up to him, he picked her up, and somehow positioned her over a drain in the road, just in time for an almightly attack of explosive diarrhoea.
My first thought was ‘ewww’. As were several other thoughts. Eventually, however, a thought made its way through thinking that he did well to get the timing of that right!
Consider also that for little boys, learning to pee by themselves is a pretty big deal: they’ve gotta learn to recognise when their bladders are full, get their pants down, hold their willy, let fly, and then get their pants back up without soaking themselves; it’s easy for adults to forget just how many micro-steps need to be mastered before a boy can just go for a slash, and they’re often damn proud when they can pee unassisted. Kids do need praise and encouragement for getting it right, and this could just have been one of those times.
I gotta go with the cultural angle, as well: North Americans do seem a good deal more prudish about such behaviours, and any suggestion of nudity, even {or pehaps especially} in children does seem to be stigmatised - on a slight tangent, I’ve had American guests who’ve been taken aback by the level of child nudity on public beaches here in NZ, whereas here - well, if you’re four, why not run around bareass naked and splash in the sea? Go to Japan sometime and observe the amount of public peeing, and no-one bats an eye.
:smack: Yes, thank you. I think I will discreetly wander off now. :smack:
I’ve only potty-trained four kids – not a large sample – but this is how it works: they’re trained to pee in toilets.
My kids would no more have peed outdoors or in public than they would have – I don’t know what, asked for broccoli for dessert.
The first time we camped, we had a hell of a time convincing the 4-year-old that it was okay to go behind the bushes and pee. It was the same with all of them. Peeing is private, done in a toilet, after which you flush and wash your hands.
If a little boy is comfortable peeing in public, it’s probably because he’s been allowed to do it before, and that’s probably because it was accepted as natural.
Thanks all for your responses (even the poster who said I was a jerk 
)
It was not some unforgivable offense that will rob me of a night’s rest; just something that sruck me strange and I thought would make a good topic here.
For the record, he looked as if he was in his glory; hands on hose just laughing and a sprayin’ away.
And though I appreciate and have considered the explanations and viewpoints of everyone that contributed, I sill think it was a case of a child not having been giving proper boundaries. What, sometimes a wee one (pun intended) just * has * to go? So, if he whipped it out on aisle four in the store it would be excusable? He doesn’t know the boundaries of where it’s acceptable to relieve himnself? Isn’t that the very purpose of potty “training”?
I guess I just got the feeling that this is how he’s been raised; piss anywhere you want to, sonny. On a par with touch what you want, take what you want and have a tantrum anywhere you want. Not his fault, but no less annoying.
Now I’m off to chase those neighbor cretins off my lawn. . .
My first instinct would be “ew”, but after some consideration I suppose he could be having a hard time potty training and the spectacle could actually represent some success on his part. Maybe, maybe not. The more important question is, was he standing in the middle of the parking lot where he could get run over, or backed over, or run into by an opening car door, or hit by an unobservant jerk with a shopping cart? Because that would be far worse than the peeing thing, in my opinion.
Thanks all for your responses (even the poster who said I was a jerk )
It was not some unforgivable offense that will rob me of a night’s rest; just something that sruck me strange and I thought would make a good topic here.
For the record, he looked as if he was in his glory; hands on hose just laughing and a sprayin’ away.
And though I appreciate and have considered the explanations and viewpoints of everyone that contributed, I still think it was a case of a child not having been given proper boundaries. What, sometimes a wee one (pun intended) just * has * to go? So, if he whipped it out on aisle four in the store it would be excusable? He doesn’t know the boundaries of where it’s acceptable to relieve himself? Isn’t that very purpose of potty “training”?
I guess I just got the feeling that this is how he’s been raised; piss anywhere you want to, sonny. On a par with touch what you want, take what you want and have a tantrum anywhere you want. Not his fault, but no less annoying.
Now I’m off to chase those neighbor’s cretins off my lawn. . .
Inappropriate. She could have found some place where people wouldn’t be stepping in it for him to pee if it was that urgent.
Even more inappropriate: A few years back in NYC it was a snowy day and myself, Anitavacation, and probably some other dopers were heading to some group activity or other. The ground was covered in snow, as it was January. We round a corner and there, standing on the sidewalk, is an Asian couple. A few feet away is their small child, maybe age four. Bending over at the waist, pants around his ankles, SHOOTING AN ARCING STREAM OF DIARRHEA onto the snowy sidewalk. There were restaurants across the street which probably would have let him use the restroom. Honestly, I think it would be better if he really couldn’t hold it to just have him crap his pants, then go clean it up somewhere privately. That way it’s your problem, not everybody on the damned street’s problem.
I’m sorry, but I find that ludicrous. I’m guessing you don’t have kids? It wouldn’t be appropriate for a grown man to suck on my nipple in public either (to my husband’s everlasting chagrin). I agree that changing a diaper in a dining room is disgusting and atrocious behavior, but the analogy is just . . . wrong.
Anyway, yes, four year olds can be just potty training and have little control (says the woman who just changed her 3 year, 11 month old). If you’re outdoors, and it’s truly a question of a puddle on the ground and wet pants, or a puddle on the ground and dry pants, I’d go for the latter, though discreetly as possible. But yeah, sometimes kids do crazy, unpredictable things, and sometimes adults laugh when they’re embarrassed by it.
I also recall my friend’s story about the time her plumbing broke, and she took her son on the back patio to whiz. Of course, you can guess what happened the next day at daycare! The teachers probably thought he was being raised by wolves.
Ach! Th’ poor wee bairn…!
I’d be more sympathetic to the kid with diarrhea. That’s much harder to control, even as an adult. Letting him poop in his clothes and cleaning it up later? Unless he’s in a diaper, that means his Underoos and pants will be so fouled, he’ll have to go half-naked or wear wet clothes until he gets home. Awful situation, and I’m glad I’ve never been there!
Oh man, the things you remember when you read the Dope. I was driving my kids home from somewhere and we were a long haul from anywhere with a toilet. My daughter needed to go, then she badly needed to go, then oh daddy I need to peeeeeeeeeeeee nowwwwwwwwwwwwww. She was well beyond 'big girl panties" ( disposable training underpants ) and wearing regular panties.
Well, I mean hell. I pulled over, angled the car so traffic coming up behind us didn’t see us and got out. She looked around in a panic. I knelt down, told her to lock her hands around my neck and I lifted her up, pulled her pants down and held her knees forward, baring her tiny butt. Pee she did, didn’t get wet but for a few drips. Handed her a baby wipe ( what parent, having kids, doesn’t keep baby wipes in the car forever?? ) and we got going.
Nobody saw nuttin. She was… 3? One does what one must, and my judgement said, " make sure she’s unseen/ unexposed to the world, keep her clean and dry so she’s not sitting in soaked panties".
-shrug-
I never went out of my way to let son or daughter pee in public, I must say. That was a real emergency. Normally, they had to wait, or we would get them to a bathroom.
Cartooniverse
We were at the family picnic one year and my niece had to go. She was a very proper and modest little kid. She had to go and the facilities at the forest preserve were unacceptable. I took her behind a tree so we could pee. She was hesitant at first, knowing it wasn’t the right thing to do in most circumstances, but afterwards she just thought she was the most wicked, daring little kid around. I don’t know if she ever suggested it to her mother again, but I can certainly see where circumstances could make for confusion in a little kid’s mind. Would a parking lot whiz be acceptable for a 5 or 6 year old? I don’t think so. But for a 3 or 4 year old, if it was an emergency (and we’ll never know), I wouldn’t think twice about it.
Definitely culturally relative. In Poland I quite often saw children up to about 4 of either sex urinating in public parks; most commonly, these public urinators were still of diaperable age. The were almost invariably being watched by an adult; in fact the littlest ones were sometimes assisted by their guardian. They would go in a somewhat out of the way place, but I wouldn’t say they were especially discrete, either. It was consistent with a “wherever it would be OK for a dog to do it” rule. I’m sure it would have been quite unacceptable for an older child or an adult to do the same. I never saw anyone sober urinate on pavement of any kind.
Another vote for culturally relative. You said grandma was speaking Spanish, and IIRC public urination by little boys is much more common in some of the Spanish-speaking countries in S. America.
I don’t mind a bush or a tree, but I’m not a fan of children peeing on concrete.
I’ve always been of the opinion that any activity which could conceivably cause Typhoid Fever is not, by its very nature, cute.
Different people are offended by different things, obviously. In this case, it may even have been cultural; what’s acceptable in some parts of the world isn’t acceptable in other parts of the same world. It’s possible that, if Grandma had been horrified, the little guy would have looked a little more innocent in your eyes, and your sympathy with Grandma may have made the episode more humorous to you. I think it was more Grandma’s approval that offended you; you may not have had a chance to process the cultural context.
No, you are definitely not a bitch – you questioned your own reaction, and that automatically makes you a good person.
Why, thank you for the benefit of the doubt And you are correct; just from the comfort the boy showed in his actions I could tell he didn’t know any better. Something about her looking to me to approve an action that I found squicky just kind of rubbed me the wrong way.