to have said the following to a dad outside the supermarket this morning?

[TidyDancer]

"excuse me, but there's a toilet inside"

The dad in question had just yanked the pants of his (estimated) four-year-old DS down outside the shop and instructed him to "piss up the wall". The little boy looked a bit confused and frankly embarrassed to be doing this. I (politely) called over to the dad and said the above. He told me "he's just a fucking kid" and told the boy to carry on.

Was I wrong to say anything? The child did not hear what I said, as the dad was standing at least 10-15 feet away and I made sure I said it quietly so as not to embarrass the child further. All parents get caught with a desperate child every now and then (I've been there myself!), but I fail to see how this dad could not have walked the child inside and led him to a cubicle. I really don't think I was wrong, the toilet was about a 20 second walk away and the child certainly didn't look like he wanted to pee up a wall.

If the dad was 15ft away from his kid, where were you when he yanked his childs trousers down then? and told him to "piss up the wall"...

This is the bit that confuses me. Because either you were stood next to them then to be able to hear that being said, or you were further away, in which case, how do you know what had been said unless the dad said it very loudly.

From the scenario you have described, the dad yanked his kids trousers down, and told him to piss up the wall, then walked away 15ft.. yes?

I was walking in the direction of them. Waiting for DP to pick me up from the pull in area. I heard him say it as I was walking that way. The dad walked the child over to the wall, pulled his trousers down and then walked back to his shopping.

Your last sentence is correct.

Ok.. so you were in the pull in area, and so was he, with all his shopping. So its safe to say he was also waiting for someone to pick him up.

Which would explain why he couldnt just nip back into the shop quickly with his kid..

Yeah, I guess so, but he was still there when I left a good 15 minutes later, so I don't think he was in a hurry.

I dont think i'd have said anything. The supermarkets are so busy right now, there could have been a queue for the toilets, baby change room occupied with a child really needing to go. The father could have been waiting for a taxi in which case he wouldn't be able to go back into the shop.

YABU

I don't believe for a second you told the supermarket to wash the wall

I don't neccessarily agree with urinating in public - I find it a bit gross in all honesty. However, with small children there can be an urgent need and I accept that. I wouldn't encourage my own DS to wee anywhere except in the toilet but with potty training coming up I also wouldn't rule out the fact that I may need to at some point. Hopefully I won't.

If however I did need to and someone such as yourself decided to pass judgement and comment, I think I'd say to you something along the lines of what this father did. You say you called him over and were standing about 20ft away, so he did not use this language infront of his child (seems as the child could not hear you either from being 20ft away?).

There's far too may people too busy worrying about others parenting skills and poking their noses in where it's not warranted. Unless you were standing next to them to hear the whole conversation that happened beforehand then you are making far too many assumptions - which is where many of these interferring people go wrong.

Oh sorry 15ft*

Oooooh...I had the opposite happen to me. I was in a shop with DS (almost 3) and DD in her pram, and DS wanted to wee. However the toilets were on the second floor, up two flights of stairs. So I took DS, and DD in her pram into the ground floor disabled toilet. We came out to be confronted by a furious woman, pointing out we were all able bodied and shouldn't be using the disabled toilet. I replied that by the time I'd bumped DD's pram up two flights of stairs, DS would have wet himself, and she replied :
" A boy that age doesn't need to use a toilet. You should have taken him outside and got him to pee against the shop wall!"

Wouldnt really bother me,i see dogs peeing all over walls quite often,pee is pee aint it?

Maybe the little boy was embarressed becasue he spotted you watching him? Or maybe it was the first time he had ever peed outside?

At the end of the day you can only surmise what you thought was going through their minds.

What tiger said. Exactly

And also doing I agree; I would have seen the boys embarrassment as evidence that he doesn't normally peep against supermarket walls and I would have surmised that it wad an emergency. He would have felt much more humiliated if he had weed his pants.