Gowanus Lounge: Serving Brooklyn

Public Peeing and the Park Slope Mom

September 27th, 2006 · 7 Comments

SmithStPee

Every now and then in our wanderings, we come across something unexpected and, um, interesting. So it is with this next item, which caught the attention of the adolescent side of our brain with the title “Pop a Squat.” It’s from a myspace entry posted by someone named Jenny. Here goes (verbatim):

So on my way home from work the other day I saw something rather disturbing. I was walking down Smith Street and I saw a typical looking park slope Mom and her two young girls standing on the side of the street. As i came closer to them I saw the mom standing over her little girl who was probably around 2/3. The little girl was sitting on a bucket with a plastic bag in it trying to pee! The mom said to her other little daughter, who was wandering away a bit, come here honey Julie is going to go pee pee! I was extremely uncomfortable with this. I mean maybe I’m being too critical but to pull out a port-o-potty on the street (a crowd main street no less) so you’re daughter can pee seems wrong to me. Is this what happens when you potty train kids? I feel like if it was an emergency she could have walked into any of the restaurants on the street and they would have let her use their bathroom. I mean already feel weird about dogs pissing all over the streets now we have little kids doing it too.

Interesting questions. While we’re always happy to poke fun at Park Slope Moms, how do we know the mom whose child was peeing in a bucket on Smith Street was a Sloper? Maybe we don’t know the telltale signs, but to us, a Park Slope Mom and a Carroll Gardens Mom and a Cobble Hill Mom on Smith Street would all have a kind of similar look. Which leaves the question of children peeing in the street, regardless of neighborhood of origin.

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7 responses so far ↓

  • 1 Z. Madison // Sep 27, 2006 at 10:35 am

    I’m with Gowanus Lounge – Not a Sloper. I’m going with a CG Mom as they slum it a wee bit more than CH (pun intended)

  • 2 grumpygirl // Sep 27, 2006 at 11:52 am

    i think it’s obnoxious to be upset by this; little girl had to pee, mom had two kids on her hands and didn’t want to go into strange restaurant–esp. because there have been things said online about using restrooms without being a customer in park slope–so she did the best thing she could. better than the kid peeing in her pants.

    perhaps this woman would like to ban breastfeeding as well?

  • 3 erica // Sep 27, 2006 at 1:17 pm

    And for how many years will this mother be toting around a bucket with plastic bag lining for her daughter to urinate in … in the street?

    Like Jenny noted, they coulda run into any store. Peeing on the street is just frickin’ weird.

  • 4 Anonymous // Sep 27, 2006 at 2:09 pm

    only allowed to pee on street if you’re drunk.

  • 5 erica // Sep 28, 2006 at 6:42 am

    … spoken like a true patron of The Old Carriage Inn.

    Did I do shots with you last night?

  • 6 Anonymous // Jun 20, 2007 at 10:20 am

    C’mon Give me a break. Your dogs piss all over the place. (It would be great if the dogs would piss and crap in little plastic bags frankly!).And guys piss on trees (please, maybe men should carry little plastic bags too)

    This mother was doing the best she can for a CHILD who had to pee (little kids have little bladders and they can’t often make it very far). As a mother, I can tell you, restaurants sometimes say NO

  • 7 remny // Aug 23, 2007 at 7:56 am

    As I get on into my dotage, I am informed by a friend that it is illegal for an wstablishment to have a “customers only” rest room. You can have a sign posted to that effect, but you can’t enforce it. Good news for oldere peers, too.