The Trickle Down Effect

I saw a child do this in a front yard last weekend when I was diving by. I thought What the??? Oh, just a kid being a kid. But maybe not.

I think the parents will be in for a big surprise when they are on vacation this summer and see how well trained their children are.

I once saw a little girl squat in the Museum of Natural History's hall of mammals and pee right on the floor.

Hey, when you gotta go...

Yuck. Yuppie pigs.

Considering the healing properties of prepubescent urine, I'd figure there'd be a legion of folks hanging out at Edgemont park looking for a little spray...

But really, is the objection to kids having to go, or that it was not behind a nearby tree?

Thankfully there is a simple solution. Whenever I take my daughter to the playground at Edgement, I bring along one of these

I've never seen foot patrol in any of our county parks.

Perhaps a few surprise visits from the park police would deter these bold nannies from this reprehensible behavior. It's not the kids fault, it's the nannies.

What burns my hide is that these parents are the first to bitch and moan about the environment, cleanliness, germs, ad nauseam and they do this? At least if you're going to do this, take it deep into the woods, away from people and other kids that might come into contact with it. Use some common sense here!

Yeah that's just nasty. Take it in the woods.

complainer, that was hilarious. I watched it with the sound off, but I suspect I got the basic gist of the video. Revolutionary!

About the pee...

Kids do some pretty gross stuff, but urinating in a shared playplace is just unsanitary. Period. You'd have a pretty strong case to complain if, in fact, this is the case. Unfortunately, I was unable to determine from the information you provided whether the kids are peeing ON the playground or NEAR the playground. If it's the latter, I don't think there's much you can do.

A.S., did you actually say something to one of the nannies or are you suspecting that they would probably "tune you out?"

Take pix & start a Web site.

Either the parents will see their kids & then fire the nannies, or you'll score a 32 million hits & get a $500,000 advance from Random House for a LOLKIDS book before the year is out.

How can you lose?

complainer, that was hilarious. I watched it with the sound off, but I suspect I got the basic gist of the video. Revolutionary!

About the pee...

Kids do some pretty gross stuff, but urinating in a shared playplace is just unsanitary. Period. You'd have a pretty strong case to complain if, in fact, this is the case. Unfortunately, I was unable to determine from the information you provided whether the kids are peeing ON the playground or NEAR the playground. If it's the latter, I don't think there's much you can do.

A.S., did you actually say something to one of the nannies or are you suspecting that they would probably "tune you out?"

Did these nannies by any chance have gold teeth?

Human urine is sterile.

Take the kid behind a tree or away from the general crowd. However I do know all about potty training - and when your in that phase when a kid has to go you have to let them go asap!

Also as gross as this story is - the joggers who stop and pee in Brookdale park upset me a lot more. They are at least grown and don't have teh potty traning excuse.

I agree that they need to find an appropriate place to go but, for what it's worth, unless the person has kidney disease or a bladder infection, urine is sterile.

just a heads up...most of the bad behavior i have witnessed - the parents not the nanny was the one turning there head. Parents are just as clueless...don't always blame the nanny:)

"...what it's worth, unless the person has kidney disease or a bladder infection, urine is sterile."

OK, I'll remember that next time I ride the subway and a vagrant pees on the seat next to me. "Excuse me, Sir, may I inquire as to whether or not you have a kidney disease or bladder infection?" "You don't? Phew! What a relief. Have a nice day."

If you must have your kids raised by someone other than his/her parents......you should probably choose someone with similar values and customs.
I don't mean to offend anyone but I think it only makes sense.

There are plenty of rest rooms in Brookdale park, archery field, tennis courts, main building, so the joggers have no excuse.

I swear when I was little I would see a kid take a poop at the beach or lake every time I was there.

Sterile or not, pee is stinky! On another topic--did anyone else notice what seems to be a house demolition going on just south of Watchung Plaza on Park St.? Drove by a little while ago and a machine is chomping off the right side of the house. Looks to be more than your standard renovation. I wonder what's going to be built there; it also made me realize that I haven't seen many teardowns lately--that haven't been held up by the planning/zoning folks, anyway. Maybe there's an upside to the worsening economy and housing market.

What's worse than this are the adults (men, actually) who stop on the shoulder of the Parkway to take a whizz on the way back from the shore. Lately they don't even seem to make much of an effort to conceal what they are doing by going into the bushes. They just stand beside the car and tinkle.

Human urine is sterile when it is in the body - once it leaves it starts to react to oxygen, other elements and begins to break down. Maybe the parks department should consider using the same surface for playgrounds that they use for dog runs. They could also include poopie bags.

Never mind the pee..ers. That pond is a disgrace. Can't the town keep it clean? Lakeweed & garbage floating everwhere. Pay a couple of teenagers to get out there in a rowboat and pull out the flotsam & jetsam...Oh, I forgot, no money in the budget!

I guess I have to be first to bring up the matter of cultural mores and that it is quite common and acceptable in other societies to urinate in public.

I know it's not that way here, and I would like to keep it that way.

But I am so used to people around here lamenting that we can't be more like, say, the French (accepting leaders keeping mistresses, being bilingual, appeasing dictators, nationalizing health care, eating unpasteurized cheese, sunbathing topless, and peeing in the street) that I fully expected someone to defend it.

But no one has.

C'est la vie.

Maybe they should just hang a catchy sign outside playground reading: "Welcome to the _layground. Notice, there is no "P" in it. Please keep it that way!"

To the best of my knowledge, peeing in "public" can result, depending on the town, in either a disorderly conduct or indecent exposure citation and/or arrest. It certainly worked that way for two acquaintances over the years.

Walter Mitty (you dashing dreamer, you), I've never gotten the idea in any foreign country I've ever been in that public urination is ok. Never been to France, but I can attest that in the basically spotless streets of Francophone Canada such conduct would never play out well.

Cathar,

You have not been to India. Peeing and pooping in the street is common there.

Mrs. Martta makes note to self to cross India off her list of possible vacation sites.

13%annual...., no, I've never been to India. I always assumed that the cow pies in the streets from the "sacred" animals was bad enough there. But you've certainly expanded my knowledge of that country. Thanks much!

This doesn't bother me as much as the nanny who was in Anderson Park, looked up from being plugged into her ipod.....and saw the toddler across the other side of the park getting on the train tracks.
yeesh
nannys and ipods....NOT A GOOD IDEA

Nannys themselves seem not to be a good idea. I don't understand why people have children only to outsource them to complete strangers whose only attachment to the family is a paycheck (and probably not very generous one at that).

Pork Roll - you are right on with this one. There are undoubtedly situations in which a parent or parents may have no choice but around Anderson and Edgemont Park it seems that even households with only one working adult still outsource care.

I was in France, and I did see someone pee in the street, one of the many homeless residents that lined the streets. He was also completely naked and neither of these things seemed to bother my host, who was in a hurry to get us good seats at the next showing of Taxi Driver. Seeing Taxi Driver for the first time in a language I had little comprehension was much more disturbing then the naked pee man.

Nannies are like any other profession: There are good ones and bad ones.

You can call a Tech Support line 5 times, the first 4 getting people who are just there for the paycheck and really have no idea what they're talking about. But, that fifth time, you might get someone who not only has extensive knowledge of the product s/he supports, but also has a genuine desire to help people.

My wife is a nanny. She would never work for a family that she didn't like on a personal level and has a genuine vested interest in the lives of the children she watches.

The parents she works for realize this and trust her with their children, not because they don't want the "job" of raising them, but because they are busy people who work hard to provide for their children and see the services my wife provides as a means to make sure that their children are actively engaged (both mentally and physically) during business hours instead of just plopping them down in front of a TV or shipping them off to a summer camp where they would receive little or no personalized attention.

I wonder how things will be in Edgemont Park when they get the new $500,000 (today's estimate) Universal Access Playground in place.

Apparently, the approved design lacks only two things: bathrooms and
parking.

The Town hopes the new playground will see many more people in the park.

Hopefully they've "gone" before coming to play.

This is to the mom that let her son pee in the bushes in Canterbury Park......Poison Ivy.

Have a great summer!

The new Universal Access playground at Edgemont is still in the "design" phase but the current thinking is porta potties, some of which will accommodate a wheel chair ramp.

Parking has yet to be worked out, but it won't be extensive depending for the most part on existing parking by the "boat house." Perhaps a few spots will be incorporated on Edgemont Road.

why does everything cater to the least and remote possible denominator, not the best for the most common denominator?

Ladies and gentlemen, I am proud to present to you the
R KELLY PLAYGROUND ANNEX!

There is a website for this, it is called I SAW YOUR NANNY and nannies who let their charges pee up our playgrounds have been outed on there many times, along with slap happy and napping nanies!

You guys might want to get MGM to sponsor your playground instead, since Universal can't seem to keep its stuff from burning down.

Yeah, Mike, and not to mention- the TWO times I ever let a kid pee in a park, he was only almost three, we were never going to make it to a toilet and it was that or let the kid walk all the way home soaked in pee, and I took him into a very thick bush and got him to pee right into the bush, where it would be physically impossible for any kid to be playing.

You know, there's an "Oh crap" moment where you do what seems to be the 'least worst' thing to do, and then there's making a routine out of public displays of urination on a shared playspace.

Ugh.

Amandala,

You couldn't take him to the bathroom in the park and had to make him pee into a bush?

Whatever happened to proper planning?

Really. If you don't allow your kid behave that way in your home, what makes you think it's okay to do that out in public common areas? I really don't get some parents today.

Well that might have something to do with my having not been at the kind of park that has a bathroom.

When I say "park", you see, I am this time specifically referring to the kind that contains a reasonable helping of "Nature".

That's right - Egads! - I don't even refrain from bringing small children into "Nature" on the grounds that "Nature" lacks toilets!

However, I would never, ever let them pee in (or near!) a playground. So you and your children are safe in Brookdale Park from the degrading spectacle of a toddler boy disappearing into a bush and reappearing a minute later with crooked pants.

Well, apparently you're not, actually, but you're safe from US performing such a spectacle anyway...

How does Complainer know the person with the children was the nanny? Each time? Might it be a parent? A relative or friend? Or is it assumed that a dark skinned woman with light skinned children is always the nanny? A lot of assumptions here.

Amandala,

Brookdale Park has bathrooms and at least one post-san near the dogpark. You have no excuse!