Sometimes — OK, many times — moms need to make split-second parenting decisions, and it’s not always clear in the moment whether they've made the right one. One mom admitted to readers on the UK forum Mumsnet that she was faced with one such situation and is now wondering if she made the wrong choice.
She confessed that she once let her 3-year-old leave the restroom by herself to go back to the playground while the mom was still using it.
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The mom explains that her family was at a 'rural touristy attraction' when nature called.
“When we arrived both Dear Daughter (3, nearly 4) and me needed the loo,” the mom wrote in her post. “DD went then refused to wait for me and ran out to the play area (toilets were within the play area but not staffed/ticketed),” the woman explained on the forum.
The mom told her daughter to wait 'but she said no and was off.'
Her daughter immediately ran over to the slides, and the mom knew the battle between her toddler and her bladder was over.
“I had to go to the [bathroom] and therefore she played in the park for 2 minutes unsupervised,” she shared.
But looking back, she's wondering how bad of a call this was, so she put her decision to a vote.
“Am I Being Unreasonable?” she asked. “YES — I should have got her back and made her stay with me. NO — she is OK for 2 mins, she knows where I am.”
“What would others do?” she wondered. “She is very independent and confident but it's just the safety aspect.”
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Commenters were unanimous — the mom messed up.
"I wouldn’t have done it," wrote one commenter.
Someone else agreed. "She’s three. It only takes a moment for a child to be snatched or to fall off a high slide or run off where you can’t find her. You shouldn’t leave her alone. She needs to learn she can’t run off when you tell her to stay with you. Take her into the loo with you."
"She would've been straight back out the park gates before her bum touched the slide if she did that to me," a third commenter added. "'Independence' and 'confidence' don't come into it. She's 3 years old for goodness sake."
But at least one person could empathize.
"You know it wasn't great but nothing went wrong," the person commented. "Just have a plan or better control in place so it doesn't happen again. Having two children in a toilet cubicle with you isn't fun, especially when you are sitting there and one of them is opening and closing the door!"
It's clear that the mom felt conflicted about what happened — and she definitely won't make the same decision in the future.
