Many
children dislike using public toilets, which are often not the nicest of
environments. A lot of parents will be
able to tell stories of their children trying, and sometimes failing, to hang
on until they get home when they need a wee, which can result in wet pants or
an emergency wee behind a bush, against a wall, down a drain or beside the car. They may be even more reluctant to do a poo
on an unfamiliar toilet.
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| Many children prefer using the toilet at home to using public toilets. This was certainly the case with me when it came to doing a poo. (c) |
In my
case I had no problems using public toilets when I needed a wee. Indeed, unlike many little boys, I did not
regard the outside world as my personal urinal and would have to be really
desperate before I would consent to urinating al fresco. But it was a different story when I was away
from home and needed a poo. Although I
was willing to park my bottom on a public toilet when I was very young, as I
got older it became a complete no-no for me.
I think this
probably came from my early experiences of using the Ladies as a little boy,
with my Mum or older sister standing outside the cubicle urging me to hurry
up. I never liked to rush when sitting
on the toilet so I stopped asking to be taken in the first place and simply
withheld my poo in a similar way to what I did at home. Naturally, this resulted in a lot of
accidents, either on the trip itself, necessitating an embarrassing clean up,
or after returning home. After a while
avoiding the toilet and withholding when on day trips and holidays became so
common for me that I did it without even thinking about it, like it was an
automatic response. Even my mother’s
expressed displeasure at having to change my pants on days out failed to
change my behaviour.
After the age of 8 most of my accidents occurred
away from home. Avoiding public toilets
when I wanted a poo had become so deeply ingrained in me that it was even
harder to break the habit than withholding at home had been. However, my accidents on trips decreased in
frequency over time and eventually became very rare, helped by the fact I
was now old enough to use the Gents by myself.
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| Aged 5, at Skegness with Paddington Bear. Days out were fun, but I often had an accident in my pants. |
One trip that sticks in my mind was when I was 10
years old and my mother took my sister and me away for the weekend to a wedding
in Humberside. Before we went my mother
told me how she was packing spare underwear ‘in case you have an accident.’ It was one of the few occasions when I can
recall her referring to my soiling problem while I was clean.
At the disco on the evening of the wedding I needed
a poo and shortly afterward felt the need to wee as well. Amazingly, the Gents contained only one
toilet, and two men who also needed to answer the call of nature came with
me. As a child, I was allowed to go
first. I unzipped my trousers and emptied my
bladder. I hesitated for a second but
then, despite the fact that these two men were standing outside the cubicle
waiting, I pulled down my trousers and pants and sat on the toilet to do my poo
and stayed there until I was happy I had finished.
I don’t know what gave me the confidence to poo in
public toilets in such circumstances that weekend. It might have been wanting to avoid the
embarrassment of soiling myself at the age of 10 in front of so many people, or
a determination that the spare pants my mother had packed would not be
needed. But looking back I feel it was a
breakthrough. However, I was still not completely free of accidents.
