This is the question: Can a parent get arrested if their child is peeing in a public park? Does it count as indecent exposure if the bare butt in question belongs to a two year old?
Let me start at the beginning. After receiving unsolicited advice from a complete stranger, (just why this woman decided to stop me in the middle of my ice cream cone when my daughter was only a year old to tell me this, I will never know...maybe it goes back to the theory that everyone in my Mom's generation swear that we were all potty trained by the time we were only one.), I went to the toy store and bought a bath dolly as directed.
Up until this moment, my wee one would sit on her potty seat to read a book, wear her potty seat cushion on her head or stuff her "babies" in the hole, but the actual peeing in the potty seat was still on the back burner. After getting this bath dolly, I have to admit, things did get better. My wee one would take a bath with "Bubbles" who would fill up with water and after the bath we would sit Bubbles on the potty and squeeze her tummy to make her pee. Soon my daughter got the idea and the potty training officially started. After that, other than the middle of the night wake up to "Mommy, Pee-Pee!", the rest was down hill. Or so I thought.
At 22 months she began to wear big girl panties. Which brings me to the fun part. Every day we take our 3.5 mile walk and go to the park. After this hour walk, my daughter inevitably has to pee. So being the supportive Mommy I am, not to mention the desire to not go back to the use of diapers, I would find a big tree at the park in a discreet area and whip down her panties and hold her up so she could pee in nature the same way our ancestors did. This, she mastered in no time. Unfortunately, instead of this being used for only emergency pee-pee needs, this became something that my daughter actually looked forward to. On more than one occasion she has run over to a tree and stripped naked before I could get my fortysomething legs to catch up with her. Okay, so a bit embarrassing, but I can look at the strangers at the park and smile and tell them that she is only two so it is cute, right?
Until last week when we did our normal walk, our normal request to pee pee, me whipping down her pants and instead of the tinkle that I normally hear hitting the grass, I heard a THUD. Oh sh*t. Now THAT is not cute. Thank goodness I did have a baggie with me in the stroller and just like any good dog owner, I did the poop-n-scoop. So this is a my next question...can a person get arrested if their child defecates in a public park? If so, I am going to start saving my bail money now.
Posts
