As any parent in the midst of potty training a child knows, public restrooms are sub-optimal for toddlers. HuffPost blogger Amber Dusick has illustrated the challenges (boys who can't reach the potty, girls who require toilet paper patchwork quilts, etc.), but much of the Internet is still outraged by one mom's recent solution to the going-potty-in-public conundrum.
It happened at the Thanksgiving Point Deli in Utah. The mom in question brought her family's potty to the restaurant, placed it on a chair and let each of her two children sit on it. While eating. At a table. In the middle of the dining room.
Kimberly Decker, a mother of three, saw the incident as it was happening. She took a picture with her phone and shared it on her Facebook wall, KXNT reports. The photo has since been taken down.
"She had to undo the jumpsuits, and take them all the way down so they were completely nude, with the jumpsuits down to their ankles just eating their chicken nuggets, sitting on little toddler potties," Decker told KSLTV. Many patrons, herself included, were horrified, she added. "The more you thought about it, the more unappetizing everything looked around me." she added.
Commenters on KSLTV's website agreed that the mom (who hasn't been identified) made an outrageous choice. "Parenting is difficult! Yes, we've all been through it, and potty-training is tough..... BUT, what you did is wrong in so many ways! First, you must teach your children the proper time and place to go potty - and public places, especially in crowded restaurants is NOT NOT NOT the place. Children are not animals - they are small versions of you! " user ad8835 wrote.
Others were skeptical that the incident was even legitimate and speculated that it might have been part of a TV reality show. "Are we sure this wasn't an episode of Punked??? [sic]" one reader wrote. "This had to be for an episode of, 'What Would You Do', or something similar," another suggested.
Spokeswoman for the restaurant Erica Brown told KSLTV that their staff didn't know what was happening until it was over, but if she had been aware, somebody would have asked this mother to leave. "I think state and local health codes were probably an issue, as well as just social norms," Brown told the station.
Apparently, mom has never heard the expression "don't sh*t where you eat."