Aa I keep pointing out, I know that. In your case the woman was rude, inconsiderate, and should have waited. If my child had a dirty diaper and I was getting off in ten minutes, I’d certainly wait, because of the smell, and why would I want to change my kid on a dirty bus seat where he might be thrown to the floor? What I have a problem with is the suggestion that if I were going to be on the bus for another hour, That I should get off, EVEN if it was the last bus of the day and I’d have to find a public phone and call and wait an hour or more for a cab I couldn’t afford, or be late for work. These are circumstances which are quite possible in this area. No mass transit bus has a bathroom, even the ones that make long trips up into the mountains for people who commute to Denver. The only bus around here that runs more than half an hour is the free shuttle on the 16th Street Mall. A few months ago, I went to my OB appointment, and when I came out I found that the bus that would take me back home would not come by for 2 more hours. I was able to take another bus and go Downtown, where my husband works, and come home with him. If he didn’t, however, I would have been stuck waiting 2 hours for the bus I needed. In Colorado Springs, there were large areas of town served by only one bus-- no getting on another bus and going somewhere else. Only the very busiest buses ran more than once an hour.
And because they say that on their webpage, then it must be true, right? I use it frequently, and find it to be none of the above. It’s better than Colorado Springs’s transit system, to be sure, but it’s still not a very good way to get around out here in this susburban sprawl.
Look, it’s China and a different culture and values as opposed to the US. We’d have to go into a very long and detailed seperate thread to discuss the issue. Long story short, people here accept it if you change a poopy diaper in the restaurant. I know 'cause I’ve done it. I’m just saying in china there’s a very high tolerance for changing diapers where it’s convenient, and definately in the US there is a very low tolerance for the same.
Hey, you’re the one who implied that people who object to strangers changing poopy diapers in public places are firmer believers in “the right of the individual trumping that of society”, not me. Bit of a loaded statement for someone who was simply making an objective cultural comparison, is all.
I’m the mother of seventeen month old baby. I take public transportation with the baby in tow a few times a month.
I would only change my child on a moving-germ-filled-no-safety-railed bus in case of emergency.
A poopy diaper is almost always a much better option than a bus in nearly constant motion.
At the very least that woman should have spread a few layers of clothing on the bus seat and curtained off the child while changing him. She also should have pulled out as many baby wipes as possible and a made a huge production of cleaning all available surfaces.
I have a friend I love dearly but she does that too. All the world is a changing table to her. On several occasions she’s actually used a restaurant booth and my living room floor. :eek:
I can’t even believe there’s a debate on this.
No, you can’t change your kid’s diaper on a bus. Get off the bus and do it somewhere else.
When, exactly, did common courtesy go out of style? We’ve gone all the way from a gentleman not even thinking of wearing a hat indoors to people thinking it’s perfectly acceptable to change a baby’s diaper on a city bus. What happened?
Unbelievable.
No shit, Sherlock.
You’re upset that we aren’t taking the situation that might exist in Ruralsville, USA into account? Well, why don’t you try accepting that the situation in Ruralsville isn’t indicative of the situation everywhere? We’re talking about New York City, for Og’s sake! Or didn’t you know that Brooklyn is part of New York City?
You obviously didn’t know that in many parts of the country, people of all income levels ride public transportation, not because they have to, but because it’s the most convenient way to get from point A to point B. And that in many of these same urban areas, taxis are readily available and reasonably priced.
You may have no other options than to change your kid on a bus, but the lady in the OP sure did. Riding down 5th Ave. in Brooklyn? There’s a place with a public bathroom on practically every block. The next bus would have been along within 10 minutes. And she wouldn’t have even had to pay another fare! The driver would have given her a transfer slip!
Oh, I forgot. It’s a BUS. And in your little world, all busses are the same. They only come once an hour. They are populated only by the “unwashed masses.” And it’s 30 below outside.
Well, the fact that these lovely urban environs such as New Jersey contain conscending jerks such as yourself makes “Ruralville USA” a lot easier to take, crappy bus system and all.
Let me look back and find where I said that buses everywhere are the same as in Colorado. Oh looky-- I didn’t. That was just you being an ass.
Let me see where I said someone shouldn’t get off the bus to change a diaper if another bus would be along in the next ten minutes? Oh looky-- I didn’t. That was just you being an ass. In fact, I said that’s exactly what I would do if that option were available to me.
Does your head explode in this manner every time someone discusses the fact that there is a world outside of NYC?
Isn’t it common practice in China to have young children walking around in public with no pants or a trap door in their pants so that they can easily just shit where they stand in public? Compared to that, changing a shitty diaper on a restaurant table is classy, so it’s all relative I guess.
A lot of kids wear split pants, although diapers are getting more and more popular. Kids with split pants generally don’t just shit where ever they happen to be standing. Usually, the parent is there and the kids most often pee. What one usually sees is the parent holding the child in the gutter or at a tree for them to urinate. When it’s poop, same thing but again it’s pretty rare to see it (or I’ve lived here too long). India may be a different matter with adults and kids relieving themselves in public, and one may confuse the practice of these two different countries
Only when someone uses incredibly rude, inflammatory language to do so - and insists on digging herself in deeper (and ever more self-righteously) when others point out her mistaken factual presumptions.
What “mistaken factual presumption” would that be? If you live somewhere where you would have to take a cab if you got off the bus, because the buses don’t run all day, odds are pretty damn high that you live someplace where the mass transit is not efficient and reliable enough that people use it as an alternative to driving, and where most people use it only because they don’t have access to a car. If you live someplace where taxis are cheap and plentiful, odds are you live someplace where there will be another bus along shortly, and you don’t have to take a taxi. What is so friggin hard for you people to understand about that? If you are taking the bus in a town where if you had get off the bus and take a taxi home because there were no more buses after 6 p.m., why would anyone want to deal with that unless they didn’t have a choice? If your financial situation is such that you don’t have a car in a place where it is clearly so inconvenient NOT to have one, your ass ain’t affording no taxi.
Could anyone be that oblivious? I’m not gonna take a pee in public without seeing someone else do it first. Then again, this was in NYC right?
MinniePurl,
Has the fact that the subject of the OP was in NYC where busses are plentiful escaped your attention?
We could “what if” all day long. No one here is saying that if you’re trapped somewhere for hours on end with no hopes of escape, that you should just let the kid sit in their own poop for those hours.
Can you point out exactly where someone said that?
Oh, you can’t?
Then shut it, already.
You’re countering a point that no one has made.
[off on a tangent, pardon me]
Can I use this regarding smokers? I don’t smoke but people who do smoke can’t control their nicotine-laced vapor and it gets everywhere! If the wind is right, I will breathe in your smoke. Even driving in a car, I get to breathe the cigarette smoke from the car next to me. Sorry, the car I use has no ac and I roll the windows down. I think it’s rude, too, just like the smell of shit from a diaper on a bus. “Sorry, lady, it’s not my fault you smoke BUT… it IS my problem.”
[/ooat]
Guess what? I’m sure all of us have caused our parents great discomfort while we were of the diaper-wearing age. We surely all had our shitty-diaper-in-a-public-place-and-it’s-leaking-out-our-pants moments, too. Sometimes a bathroom is handy, sometimes not AND while I’m not condoning the parents who are disgusting and let germs fall where they may on tables, counters, floors, and so on, I’m just saying it’s something to consider. You know you all “raised a stink” somewhere, somehow for your folks. Just sayin’, is all. 