TheBabyCarriers

Do you take your young son to the ladies’ room when he has to tinkle? Does your husband take your young daughter to the men’s room when she has to go “NOW! Daddy!”

It’s a common problem among parents: knowing when a child is old enough to use gender-appropriate public restrooms.

The family bathroom, which offers extra unisexual space for parents and their children, is not found in every store and restaurant. Meaning, at some point, moms and dads have to decide if it is wiser to bring their son into the ladies’ room or their daughter into a men’s restroom, if they are solo with an opposite gender child.

Donovan O’Neil chose to do the latter, and it landed him in the headlines.

According to reports, the Maryland father claims a security guard accosted him after he took his 3-year-old and 1-year-old daughters to the men’s restroom at the Frederick County Department of Social Services.

“He banged on the (stall) door like he was a cop,” O’Neil told reporters. “He was just really inappropriate about it.”

What’s more, O’Neil says that when he and his daughters exited the bathroom stall the guard reprimanded him in front of a crowd.

As for the guard, he says he was just doing his job. The security worker maintains that he was responding to a complaint made by someone who had used the restroom while O’Neil was in the stall with his daughters.

Long story short, O’Neil wants an apology from the security guard, but the worker says he doesn’t plan to issue one.

Meanwhile, the father of two says his 3-year-old daughter has been so traumatized by the restroom incident that she now refuses to step foot in public bathrooms.

Frankly, I don’t see what all the fuss is about. After all, O’Neil had both children tucked away in a stall while his older daughter did her business. It isn’t as though he lined her up with the rest of the men at the urinals to pee. Furthermore, she THREE! As a mother of a daughter not much older than O’Neil’s I can safely say that the girl was probably more concerned about getting on a potty before she wet herself than she was in what other male patrons were doing in the restroom.

What do you make of the security guard’s reaction? What would you do if a child had to go to the bathroom, and the only one to take him/her was an opposite-gender parent?

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One of the reasons many parents say that they put their children into daycare or early preschool is so the kids will be exposed to more germs and therefore get their illnesses over with before they reach school age, when absence from school may have more of an impact.

I knew a mom once who firmly believed in the idea of exposing her kids early to illnesses. In fact, she ran a day care, and if a child came in sick, she would make sure that her children were playing with that child and sharing toys, in order to increase their exposure to germs early.

In the interest of disclosure, I am one of those moms that not only does not like daycare or preschool (tried them both, and they just didn’t work for my family) and who carries hand sanitizer everywhere I go with my kids.

Another theory goes that I may actually be harming my children by not exposing them early to as many germs as possible, setting them up for allergies and asthma later in life.

But a recent study that followed kids at age eight, found that kids who attended day care and early preschool were not more immune to allergies and asthma. The quote from an article on HealthDay about the study says:

“We found no evidence for any protection for asthma, allergy and airway hyper-responsiveness at 8 years,” said Dr. Johan C. de Jongste, professor of pediatric respiratory medicine at Erasmus University Medical Center in the Netherlands, who led the study.

The study was published in the Sept. 15 issue of the American Journal of Respiratory and Critical Care Medicine.

So while there may be very good reasons for placing your child in daycare and early preschool, including enabling parents to work and promoting some social interaction, it can’t necessarily be used as a health strategy for your kids.

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In the past two days, I have witnessed two “sippy cup incidents” and I thought this might be a good place to discuss them. The first one, I was taking a cross-town bus and there was a two-year-old (or so) sitting in front of me(or standing, actually) alternating licking the condensed and foggy bus window and pouring juice from his sippy cup into the ridges around the window and down the wall. The second was last night at a fairly swanky art gallery show opening for three local artists. I quickly assessed that one of the artists was a twenty-something mother since there were several young families wandering about with strollers (yes, in an art gallery) and there were a couple well-dressed toddlers bounding about swinging leaking sippy cups amidst the walls of art. Needless to say, the curator looked much more anxious than normal.

Now, before someone accuses me of being one of those cranky old people who thinks children should be seen and not heard, I hope you’ll remember that is not me at all–my issue is not with children being at art openings (I think that is fabulous) and I do realize that we have become an incredibly mobile society–water bottles and portable EVERYTHING taken into account–my issue is that I don’t think anyone ought to be dribbling juice down a bus wall or on the carpet and furniture in a public space. If truth be told, I didn’t even let my kids walk around the house with their sippy cups when they were toddlers–there was a place at the counter where they could have them and come for drinks and when we were out in public, it was a sit down and have a drink situation.

I get that life is messy and that parents want convenience and I really am not stodgy (at least I don’t think so) but I do think there needs to be some manners and protocol–even for the young set (and their parents). I am all for breastfeeding in public and I don’t even have a problem with children USING sippy cups when they are out and about, I just think, for the good of the order and the consideration of other people and possessions, that it ought to be a contained activity. I think we’re asking a lot from a two-year-old when we expect that a toddler unsupervised with a tippy cup will not use it as paint, science experiment or simply leave it toppled on its side drizzling liquid…

What do you think?

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