So. I’m not sure how I feel about this. I’m at the park yesterday with the rest of Bainbridge Island because this bright, round ball appeared in the sky, and we all ran out…. Anyway. It’s a relatively small but popular park. Not one of the rambling, wild-ish ones you might find in this region. Picture crowds of kids, 0-8 years old, couple of swings, a few slides. There’s your usual stomping on heads, throwing wood chips and dangling from high heights. Then I saw it. One boy gave his mom the universal signal of “gotta go!” Not unusual for this age (4?5?). What was different was the mom’s decision to have him pee on a tree inside the park fence. She/he was discreet, although my monkey immediately tried to peer around the tree. What worried me the most at that moment was that my kid would then think SHE could do the same thing next time she needed to go. She LIKES doing her business outside, and that’s all I need is visual reinforcement by a stranger that it’s OK. As I thought about it later, I was more bothered. There was a bathroom not far away. There were a lot of kids at this small park, including babies who had been crawling or sitting only a few feet away. I carry a change of clothes in the car in case my kid can’t make it. Granted, it does rain a lot here, but…..it just comes down to……ewwwwww. Down an alley in Los Angeles or New York is one thing. Well, it’s one gross thing. But do we really need yet another sign posted of prohibited activities in a park? Should we be understanding? Is it ever okay to do this? Am I being too uppity?
[You can find this post on my other blog, Bainbridge Breezes.]
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i saw it too and was bothered by it as well. Right inside the park when the toilet options are so closeby. Or at least a tree outside of the park if he has to go that bad and can’t get to the loo.
I had a similar experience at a local park. Mom instructed her little girl to go just outside the play area. The potty wasn’t very far away and it wasn’t clear why they didn’t just move on over to the bathroom. The whole thing bummed me out.
Aside from what toilet options were available here are two things to note:
1) Unlike feces, urine is not harmful. While peeing on the ground and then rolling around in it may seem disgusting, it is not hazardous and is sterile when excreted. Urine can be used to treat wounds.
2) My own experience while traveling outside the states, is that peeing in public is just not a big deal elsewhere. Here in the US, dogs are pretty much given freedom to pee all over the place, but a person peeing in an alley or on a tree is frowned upon. Why?
Secret – one of the things I miss about my home on Bainbridge Island is that I could (and did) pee in my backyard. It was secluded and private when working out in the garden or just hanging outside, I’d never go in the house to pee. I just picked a tree and relieved myself. It felt good. No need to waste water.
I think of all the social barriers and rules that kids naturally violate. These are our grown up barriers and rules. And I find that often there really isn’t a reason for them. For example – explain to a child (or anyone) why they cannot pee behind a tree.
The other day I was in the car with my daughter and she had to pee. She had to pee right then! We pulled the car over, took her out of the car and huddled around her to attempt to hide the I was an active role in urinating on the side of the road.
Life would be so much easier if we relaxed on some of these boundaries.
This type of issue reminds me of the story I read where some guy on an airplane was offended by breast feeding. OMG – a boob! It’s loose!
If kids have anything to teach us, it is that we need to relax our boundaries and rules a little bit.
Oh, Will! While I have always appreciated your independent thinking, this time I must disagree! First, pee may be sterile when it initially comes out, but once mixed with air, it is not and all kinds of stuff grow in it. Second, dogs are not allowed on lots of playgrounds here, probably for this reason, among a few others. Third, let’s not try to be like other countries in the bathroom department! I went to some fairly decent restaurants in Rome only to find a nasty HOLE in the floor of the private bathroom stall. My world-traveler friend packed toilet paper with her around the world due to need. I’m all for peeing out in the wilderness (I did live in Alaska for 7 years), and even in my own backyard (only those authorized persons!), but not in my own playground!
I’m in agreement with Wendy. What amazes me is that several people saw her do this and no one said anything. Are we so PC that even when it is offensive and a health risk we don’t want to cause a stir. I’ll bet everyone would have spoke up if the person was smoking instead of peeing. I wouldn’t want her kid at my house to play in the back yard. I could go on and on about how damaging it is to the environment when in large enough quantities. The fecal coloform counts are through the roof in Bothell waterway next to the Burke-Gillman due to dogs on the trail (to dog lovers; yes there was a study and the source was confirmed). I hope whoever the playground offender was, she reads your blog. There is a reason for sanitation design. People used to get sick, water was contaminated…..what would the playground be like if all the kids peed in it? We are not islands, even though we live on one.
I hate public bathrooms, especially port-a-potties. I would much rather go stand by a tree with my daughter. But that is selfish. Go use the bathroom.
To clarify I’m being mostly facetious, as in lacking any sort of *serious* dissection of this matter.
I am not advocating public urination, but rather poking fun at the concern over it
1) Urine on the ground outside is not a health hazard. To be a hazard it would have to be an area where LOTS of people are urinating in a single spot that had no drainage (i.e, it was left standing) and then if you hung out in that spot you might get some bad bacteria (indoors with no ventilation then you have a problem). I can understand being grossed out by someone peeing where you might sit later, but claiming it a hazard is simply incorrect.
2) You have to admit, as a dog owner, being grossed out by kiddie urine at the park is odd since you have had gallons of dog urine soaked into your backyard. That’s worse than *some* of the alleys in NYC!
“I’m in agreement with Wendy. What amazes me is that several people saw her do this and no one said anything. Are we so PC that even when it is offensive and a health risk we don’t want to cause a stir.”
1) It’s simply not a health risk. If it was then dog owners everywhere would be sick. Urine does grow bacteria but only if sitting, collecting and standing in typically and enclosed area.
2) I speak out all the time against strangers doing things I don’t approve of. It gets me into trouble and this is why I think most people don’t speak out . Having said that, maybe we don’t know what was really going on. We all have kids and know how difficult it can be on a daily basis. Every one of us talking on this thread has had at least one day when we are just simply too exhausted to enforce a barrier. It happens. Give this woman a break.
I was there but at the other side of the park and wasn’t sooo offended that I was going to grab the baby and run across the park–that was swarming with kids/parents– to say so. I wonder if I would have said anything if I was standing right next to her, though. But you are right Will, who knows what the story was. I’ve been to that park so many times and am relieved to say it is the first time I’ve seen a kid go inside the park rather than outside. And I’m just remembering a hasty exit we had to make from that same park last summer when my own kid had a very wet “accident” near the tire swing. Remember when Dr. Lundquist gave us the “poop is everywhere” talk at the coop. Urine is probably all over that place. We should probably be grateful that boy made it to the tree.
Ah, yes, Maria, “the thin layer of poo” lecture. Who could forget? No one has mentioned that perhaps the mom had two or three kids there, and collecting them all to dash across the street would not work. Who knows. I just wish she’d walked outside the fenced area to another tree. With SO many people using that park daily, if everyone peed so freely there, there’d eventually be some kind of pond. I think it comes down to an issue of teaching appropriate social/public behavior. Small park, lots of people, daylight, find a potty. Side of the road emergency stops, large wooded park, your own backyard, who hasn’t?
And don’t start me on DOG pee, Willi! I’ll take dog pee over cat pee, any day!
Um yes, cat pee is a smell you don’t get used to. I have three cats, indoor cats, and everyday I question their presence.
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