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AIBU?

Share your dilemmas and get honest opinions from other Mumsnetters.

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Original poster

To think this is really a bit much, or is it apparently ok?

73 replies

Stickaforkinimdone · 30/06/2017 15:25

Very busy main road in south London this morning at 9.45ish, I find myself stopped in traffic waiting for the lights to change
To my left is a bus stop with a number of people waiting in the shelter and I watched (slightly in horror I admit) along with pretty much everyone else as a woman who had pulled up her car into the front of the bus stop, gets one of those portable potty things out, gets her daughter out of the back of the car, trousers off, and sits her on the potty in the middle of the pavement in front of the bus shelter.

Now is it me, or is that just really not appropriate??

OP posts:

SoupDragon · 30/06/2017 16:45

People have toilet-trained kids forever without resorting to public potty use

Yeah... they used to just let them go in the gutter without a potty instead.

Notonthestairs · 30/06/2017 17:18

Ignoring the blocking the bus lane which definitely isn't on I wouldn't have given viewing a toddler using the potty on the pavement a second thought. In fact I might have brought out a potty for my DD to use in a car park or two over the years. We often had emergency wee (one child with learning difficulties making toilet training v difficult).

Vintagegoth · 30/06/2017 17:29

That's nothing. At a motorway rest area in France , I watched in horror as a mum held a toddler who was naked from the waist down out of the car door. She held him in mid air and let them do a poo on the parking space next to the car and then drove away.

JeffyJeffington · 30/06/2017 17:43

I did something similar today on the way back from the park (minus the car of course which is BVU IMO). DD said she needed a wee and a poo. Asked if she could wait till we got home (5 mins). She said no. So put her on the travel potty on the pavement. Disposed of the bag in my bin when we got home. Hardly anyone around though she did take ages and I avoided catching the postman's eye as he walked past! On another day if I didn't have a potty I would have asked her to hold it and taken the risk. That I had her on my shoulders may have influenced my decision! Didn't really fancy getting poo all over her and me! But yeah if I offended anyone....not sure I really care! For her to tell me she needed potty and me to say she couldn't go despite having one on me would have been an unhelpful message to give her. And it's hardly obscene- it's a toddler's bum!

Birdsgottaf1y · 30/06/2017 17:51

""People have toilet-trained kids forever without resorting to public potty use, so what's her excuse?!""

When I was toilet training in the 80's there's were public toilets everywhere and women generally didn't drive.

Those that couldn't get their toddler to a toilet would hold them over drains or go in alleyways.

I bet around the supermarket were people littering and spitting, which is what I wouldn't want to see.

The time it takes to park and get to the toilet would have probably been too long.

I'm horrified that anyone is bothered by this.

pitterpatterrain · 30/06/2017 18:12

I saw a girl using a potty in the middle of the kids section in the library

The librarian was running around with wipes and spray afterwards

Yes the library had toilets

GoingToInfinity · 30/06/2017 18:41

A couple of weeks ago I saw a mum sit her child on a portable potty in the middle of a Costa. It was very bizarre considering she was only 20ft away from a vacant baby change toilet. Just totally unnecessary and I felt really sorry for the child having no privacy whilst they were going about their business whilst the general public were looking on.

BeBeatrix · 30/06/2017 19:11

When I was toilet training in the 80's...women generally didn't drive

Where were you? I was in South-East England in the 80s, and I remember most women I knew driving...

mateysmum · 30/06/2017 19:19

When I was toilet training in the 80's...women generally didn't drive

Would that be the 1880's?

It's not acceptable to block a bus lane and let your child potty in public. I can't believe people on here don't see an issue with it.

Milkmachine15 · 30/06/2017 19:22

If my child has told me they have to go NOW I will pretty much stop wherever I can to let them, I don't expect them to wet themselves just because other people might get embarrassed!! If anyone has an issue with seeing a half nakey small person I say the problem is with them!

HappyFlappy · 30/06/2017 19:37

Quite right Milkmachine.

Why would anyone be embarrassed by a toddler performing a perfectly natural function?

The only time I have ever found anything like that objectionable was when a woman stuck her toddler on a potty at a church coffee morning and then tucked the potty (and its contents) under the table while she continued her chat. That was DISGUSTING - and bearing in mind that the floor was covered with kids crawling about all over, was far from hygienic.

I was embarrassed for her - not because a child had publicly pee'd, but because his mother couldn't be bothered to dispose of the product in the nearby lavatory.

LovePeaceAndHarmony · 30/06/2017 19:41

Yes very inappropriate I don't know why a mother would do that, the child could have easily used the potty in the car.

missymayhemsmum · 30/06/2017 19:46

Presumably the child was at the 'urgent and unpredictable' stage of potty training. Not sure what she should have done, left the kid to crap in her carseat? Pulling into the bus lane is a bit antisocial, but when a toddler's gotta go......
I don't suppose it was her ideal morning, either.

YesMilk · 30/06/2017 19:55

Minus the bus lane, I don't think it's a big deal. Toddlers do have them, I need to go NOW!, moments.

Even in a shop (no I haven't done this) but if my toddler was about to wet themselves and a toilet wasn't close by, I would rather pull out the travel potty than let them poo/ pee all over the floor

If they're going to do it anyway, why not use the potty??

Birdsgottaf1y · 01/07/2017 01:03

""When I was toilet training in the 80's...women generally didn't drive
Would that be the 1880's?""

No it was the 1980's. Families were still one car, if that and it was the husband that drove.

I said in answer to the poster who said that previous generations had potty training.

SerfTerf · 01/07/2017 01:06

She'll get a ticket. I got one for driving through a cross hatched box on Battersea Bridge Road too slowly once. Bloody cameras.

kali110 · 01/07/2017 01:14

Yanbu, in the bus lane??
No completely unacceptable, needing the loo or not!

NeedsAsockamnesty · 01/07/2017 01:31

Christ.
I've got lots of kids of varying ages I've also been around a lot of kids.

I have once and only once seen someone use a portable potty not in a bathroom or loo area and it was fairly recently (right by the table I was sat at eating dinner) other than that I've never needed to use one and I've never seen one used.

And my kids are not weird geniuses or anything a fair few of them have issues in that dept due to disability.

I've seen more pissed up adults going in the street.

KoalaDownUnder · 01/07/2017 01:33

No it was the 1980's. Families were still one car, if that and it was the husband that drove.

I said in answer to the poster who said that previous generations had potty training.

Dunno what was going on in the UK in the 1980s, but I was toilet trained in the 70s and my mum certainly drove. As did almost everyone else's.

I can confidently say that not a single person in my family has ever put their child on a potty in a street/car park/shop. (Or held them over a drain. ) In fact, I've actually never seen it in my life.

If worst comes to worst then yes, your child has an accident and you deal with it.

9toenails · 02/07/2017 13:20

Nothing wrong with this, for me, unless it's the aspect of parking in a bus lane. Even that, though, could have been necessary -- we just don't know.

Some of you need to get over yourselves. Generations of parents with toddlers have done this for them when potty training. (I can vouch for at least three such generations!) What's the problem? It's just a small human being needs to go.

(OK, maybe in a cafe or restaurant, something you don't want to see. And dog shit, now there is a problem. That's another thread though, I guess.)

AndTakeYourHorseWithYou · 02/07/2017 13:24

Well what was her alternative?

To do pretty much anything else but what she did?

BeepBeepMOVE · 02/07/2017 13:31

Disgusting! There is simply no need.

Sounds like one of those women who has forgotten how normal people behave and is all baby brain.

FrancisCrawford · 02/07/2017 13:34

This reply has been deleted

Message withdrawn at poster's request.

happypoobum · 02/07/2017 13:54

Aside from driving in bus lane/blocking bus stop, I wouldn't have given this a second thought tbh..............

pudcat · 02/07/2017 14:01

Think it will be an expensive toilet break for her.

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