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AIBU?

Share your dilemmas and get honest opinions from other Mumsnetters.

Priest telling boys how to pee at school?

499 replies

Downamongtherednecks · 23/07/2014 21:10

Tween ds is at a private school, not UK. Most staff are female. There were incidents of the boys’ loos being left with pee around the lavatory bowl, so a male member of staff (priest) took the boys into the loos (in groups) to tell them that this was unacceptable and to suggest that they aim better and that they should perhaps practice more (!).

This was not discussed at all with parents.
AIBU to think this was not an acceptable thing for the school to do? It seems far too private and something surely better handled by parents. Priest has form for sexism so it is possible that may be one reason I instinctively don’t like it. DH (robustly boys’ private-school educated) says this was fine, it's a boy/male teacher thing, and he can’t see a problem with it. Happy to be told I am being biased against the sexist priest. No intention of taking it up with school btw, as dc are leaving anyway. AIBU?

OP posts:
marcopront · 28/07/2014 13:38

When your son is at school where does he pee? Does he use the urinal i.e in public or does he lock himself in the cubicle i.e. in private.

ICanHearYou · 28/07/2014 13:40

Is it a boarding school?

Boarding schools have a responsibility to replace some of the areas of parenting usually dealt with in the home.

So they will go into more detail about not pissing all over the place/not stinking to high heaven/washing clothes and showering every day.

This is absolutely normal and necessary.

Downamongtherednecks · 28/07/2014 14:06

Ds doesn't like urinals (he thinks they smell). Not sure about where he pees, because, you know, I have this thing about his bodily privacy now he is growing up. He isn't at boarding school. I do think it is my cleaner's job to clean up the bathrooms IF (big IF) there is any pee. I would also expect her to clean hair from the bath plug, throw away used tissues, and empty bathroom bins if friends have left used sanitary products in them. The dc are told by me not to leave her an unnecessary mess but if you think I clean before she comes in case she is confronted by bodily fluids in a house with DH, dc, multiple bloody animals and old-fashioned plumbing, you are barking up the wrong tree. She has a rule with them that she won't clean their rooms unless the floor is clear, which is one she created, and I fully support. In this house, frankly, pee would be preferable to having to clean after the huge spiders, and the new kitten with a dodgy stomach.

OP posts:
Icimoi · 28/07/2014 14:19

OP, you seem to be making no attempt whatsoever to explain why talking to a group of fully clothed children in a communal toilet breaches their bodily privacy, or why it wouldn't do so if they had exactly the same conversation a few feet away outside the door. Can you not see that breaching bodily privacy simply has to involve touching and/or removing clothes? I suppose you might just stretch it to include grooming activities, but you clearly accept that that didn't happen.

So in precisely what way was these children's right to privacy invaded simply by standing fully dressed in a communal toilet where they regularly pee within each other's hearing and, if there were urinals, within each other's sight?

Hakluyt · 28/07/2014 14:20

So basically,your son is not expected to clean up after himself if he misses the loo. Wow. Just.......wow.

ICanHearYou · 28/07/2014 14:34

I will teach my children to clean up their own piss, body hair and so on.

Emptying bins is a reasonable job to expect of a cleaner but the rest of it?

OP when your sons go off to university, who do you expect will be cleaning up their piss and hair? They are going to grow into those boys that nobody wants to live with and be a nightmare for their future girlfriends/wives.

You need to teach them to do this stuff because when they grow up they will need to do it themselves.

titchy · 28/07/2014 14:48

LOL at the irony that bodily functions/fluids are private and therefore to be kept to oneself.

Unless one has a cleaner in which case they have to clear up your skid-marks/piss/semen-coated-tissues and sanitary products!

OP do you really not get the a bathroom is private only when in use? If it is permanently a private place presumably you've never viewed one with an estate agent?

TheFairyCaravan · 28/07/2014 14:53

Christ on a bike, no wonder adult males leave home unable to piss in a toilet and then expect someone else to clean it up after them!

soverylucky · 28/07/2014 15:01

This reply has been deleted

Message withdrawn at poster's request.

ABlandAndDeadlyCourtesy · 28/07/2014 15:08

OP

Would you think that going into the toilet at home after your child and observing if there was pee on the floor would breach his privacy? I agree standing next to him whilst he peed would be, but no one has suggested that.

nauticant · 28/07/2014 15:09

I'm thinking of launching a breach of privacy action against Thames Water. They're all over my piss they are.

mathanxiety · 28/07/2014 15:43

Phaedra in light of Combust's earlier comment on this thread, I do not think she meant it to be a parody at all. I think it was 100% seriously intended.

combust22 · 28/07/2014 15:45

Yes I was serious.

HavanaSlife · 28/07/2014 15:57

People leave used tissues and hair in the plug hole for the cleaner to pick up?

That's just chatty

Sirzy · 28/07/2014 16:07

So basically you don't know if your son pisses on the floor, and he isn't expected to clean it up if he does. No owner the school have an issue then!

mathanxiety · 28/07/2014 16:22

Ds doesn't like urinals (he thinks they smell). Not sure about where he pees, because, you know, I have this thing about his bodily privacy now he is growing up. He isn't at boarding school. I do think it is my cleaner's job to clean up the bathrooms IF (big IF) there is any pee. I would also expect her to clean hair from the bath plug, throw away used tissues, and empty bathroom bins if friends have left used sanitary products in them. The dc are told by me not to leave her an unnecessary mess but if you think I clean before she comes in case she is confronted by bodily fluids in a house with DH, dc, multiple bloody animals and old-fashioned plumbing, you are barking up the wrong tree.

I find myself really shocked by the statements here.

Not just the details of what you expect the cleaner to do in regard to pee in the bathroom, but the juxtaposition of:
Ds doesn't like urinals (he thinks they smell).
and
I do think it is my cleaner's job to clean up the bathrooms IF (big IF) there is any pee.
Have you ever asked your cleaner if she thinks your toilets smell and if she has an objection to that, or to dealing with urine outside of the toilets?

I am really interested in how much this cleaner of yours is paid to deal with your family's bodily fluids.
I am really interested in how you think you can fairly assess how much to pay your cleaner when you actually do not know what she is dealing with by way of bodily fluids in places where bodily fluids should not be. It seems to me that you place the value of your DS's privacy ahead of the value of paying a fair wage to someone providing a service to you.

What sort of development work do you do?

I am really, really interested in how you square your preciousness about your DS's privacy with your question to the cleaner -- Have just asked my cleaner if she thinks ds is guilty of peeing around his bathroom, she said he's "better than most" Smile and then started telling me horror stories about other houses.

But what I keep on coming back to is the very obvious fact that you do not really care where your DS pees, and you do not care that other people are left to deal with it, while at the same time you complain over and over about a priest's sexism -- from saying 'yap, yap, yap' to hiring a domestic abuser as a sports coach, and you are clearly very clued up on the sexism inherent in the word 'hysteria' but you have absolutely no shame that your son performs only 'better than most' when it comes to peeing.

You completely fail to see that the sense of entitlement that allows your DS and the other boys to leave their pee on the floor or on the seat for someone else to deal with is exactly the same sense of entitlement that is fundamental to sexism in grown 'men'.

In fact, far from seeing how the entitlement is all the same, and far from understanding the need to stamp it out, you seem to think its manifestations (soap dodging, possibly peeing in the shower, and leaving urine behind for others to clean up) are amusing.

How can you be so blind? Join the dots.

Sexism begins at home, in homes like yours.

phantomnamechanger · 28/07/2014 16:25

Bloomin heck is this nonsense still rumbling on! Shock

MN: YABU YABVU YABVVVU and frankly ridiculous almost unanimous
OP: No, I am not BU

Aaargghhh!

phantomnamechanger · 28/07/2014 16:36

OP, soon your DS will be going through quite a lot of tissues which will be used for mopping up bodily fluids. How is it NOT an invasion of his privacy to have your CLEANER deal with that. Will you all be OK with that? Would you expect him to bin/flush them or is it fine to leave them under the bed for the cleaner to move? Would you expect him to empty a bin full of wanky tissues so the cleaner does not have to or is that her job regardless of what the bin contains?

Can I ask you a serious question? when did you last see your DS naked? At 11 my bro was still happy to waltz around naked. DS is 9 and sees me naked. he comes and chats to me when I am in the loo have you fainted yet? All of this is normal by the way. nothing sinister!

And just to stir things even more, what if your cleaner is a raging pervert who likes cleaning because it gives her access to peoples bodily fluids and the private bathrooms of pubescent boys .....

PhaedraIsMyName · 28/07/2014 16:47

Bloody hell Math and apologies to Hakluyt I really didn't think that could be a serious post and I'm as likely as anyone not to give the Catholic Church the benefit of the doubt.

Downamongtherednecks · 28/07/2014 16:59

I work in conflict and post-conflict countries - not sure why it's relevant. So am perfectly used to seeing and dealing with the REAL messes that this world leaves. And believe me, after that, it puts pee (real or imagined) into perspective.
My cleaner+ does a huge amount for me, and I pay her a wage that means she is very happy to work for me. Honestly, it's a joke if people are suggesting cleaners don't pick up tissues ( Hmm at the semen-encrusted, as ds is a big young for that; tissues have other uses!), or clear plug holes (I don't think the Veet thing could work in dd's shower as she has very long hair).
I can only assume you lot have perfect houses, with perfect dc who never abandon half a biscuit somewhere, or forget to pick up their clothes from the bathroom floor. I don't. So I have a cleaner. And she's great, and isn't bonded labour, and I look forward to having a Friday-night mojito with her when I'm around.
When I'm in a warzone, peeing by the light of my mobile phone in a ditch, I'm secure in the knowledge that my home is clean and my (imperfect) dc have someone who doesn't think throwing tissues away is beneath her! Mathanxiety one of my specialisations in development is women's rights so it is hilarious that you think I am bringing up a sexist son (dh was sahd when dc were little, btw). If you want to go head to head with me on feminist credentials, you will lose. My "precious prince" has a dm who regularly is dodging landmines, and takes stupid risks fighting for women to play some active part when countries are being rebuilt. So I will pass on your concerns that I am a raving sexist to the transnational NGOs who use me to clean up the worse-than-pee in the world. Not sure they'd listen, though!

OP posts:
Sirzy · 28/07/2014 17:02

Not perfect children, but a child who is being taught to respect the area he lives in (or goes to school in) and tidy up after himself not expect others to pick up after him.

Cleaners aren't personal slaves, and even with a cleaner people should take some responsibility for their own environment

Downamongtherednecks · 28/07/2014 17:08

Sirzy I can only assume you have a very unusual cleaner, if he or she considers cleaning a bathroom and picking up tissues makes them a "personal slave". There is a very unpleasant lack of respect on this thread for people who choose to work in domestic jobs or cleaning related. It's very offensive to suggest that a woman who cleans is "demeaning" herself, particularly since most women carry out this role in an unpaid capacity! You could argue that the paid cleaner is far less "enslaved" (your word) than the wives and mothers who carry out this role largely thanklessly.

OP posts:
Sirzy · 28/07/2014 17:10

The lack of respect if from you, cleaning a bathroom should not involve having to clean up other peoples piss. Simple rule YOU miss the toilet YOU clean it up. Whether you pay someone to clean or not is irrelevant for such messes.

My 4 year old understands that, so I don't know why you seem to struggle with the idea. Strange you think its such a private bodily function yet are happy for someone else to have to clean it up

PhaedraIsMyName · 28/07/2014 17:15

I'm a complete slattern living with 4 cats but leaving used tissues for others to pick up is just not on. Bin them and by that I don't mean a waste paper bin in a bathroom or bedroom but the main refuse disposal bin.

You're right on one thing OP what you do for a living is completely irrelevant to your son and his friends making a mess of the school toilets.

jacks365 · 28/07/2014 17:17

I have a lot of respect for my cleaner enough to ensure that tissues are binned and bodily fluids are cleaned up as they happen.