About two weeks ago, I chaperoned my daughters' preschool field trip. It was fun and exhausting. My group included my four girls and two other students. Somehow I ended up being the only chaperone who did not have help from another parent or teacher. (One group had six kids and four parents!) Oh well, the seven of us did our own thing and had a lot of fun.
Of course, with six preschoolers there are bound to be plenty of trips to the bathroom. Not a big deal. The girls in my group needed some help reaching the sink to wash their hands, but could do everything else on their own.
As the entire class waited for the bus, a few of the girls in my group needed one last trip to the bathroom. The teacher's aide asked if I would mind taking another girl from the afternoon class. I didn't have a problem with this, until we were headed to the bathroom and another mom mentioned that this girl needed "help" in the bathroom. I felt a little uncomfortable because a) it's not my child and b) I'm not the teacher or her parent. But I figured if you have to go, you have to go, so all the girls did their business, I helped the other girl and we were done.
So what's bugging me? When we went back outside, I found out the girl's dad was on the field trip. Why in the world did he not take her to the bathroom himself? Why would he let a complete stranger help his daughter in the bathroom? (This facility has several unisex/family bathrooms, so the issue of using the men's room wasn't a factor). Am I wrong to be a little miffed? I had no problem helping this girl, but what is he teaching his daughter? There have to be boundaries, especially with strangers. I'm a mom. I had 0% bad intentions, but how does he know that?! I'm not even blaming the teacher's aide in this situation. The teacher hadn't arrived with her group, so the teacher's aide was trying to keep track of all the kids and chaperones who had arrived. She knows me. I have four girls. Of course she had no problem sending this child with me. But the dad? I'm just not sure why he didn't take care of it himself.
April 18, 2011
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7 comments:
I don't think you're wrong to be miffed. If the dad was there and there are uni-sex bathrooms...
That does seem unreasonable. In general, if my husband and I are both out, he takes our son to the bathroom (he doesn't need help) and I change the baby (girl's) diapers. HOWEVER, we've each done the other. Certainly, I'd do so before pushing them off on someone else.
I would be miffed too. Why come on the field trip if you can't help your own child?
I'm wondering if this was the first time he had been in a situation where she needed to use the bathroom and he was the only parent around. Who knows.
Either he's has never done it before, or he is lazy. Hard to tell, but I would hope my husband takes my daughter rather than some mother he didn't know. No offense to you of course!
Oh, I hope and pray this won't be my husband one day! He's only changed a handful of diapers in 27 months (which is not cool at all), but I would hope he'd step up if the option was to ask another adult...
I would be so embarrassed if my husband ever did this. Tiny is already pretty independent in the bathroom, but I would still feel bad if T pushed her off on someone else when he was able to do it himself.
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