Another parent asked me to clean up his child’s urine. I passively aggressively refused, but now I’m troubled by my own inaction. Was I in the wrong?

Yesterday I was at a party for a four year old, and another parent asked me to clean up his child’s urine. I hadn’t met the child or her dad prior to the party, but was in the unfortunate position of witnessing the potty accident when it occurred so felt obligated to lend a helping hand. I fetched some paper towels (with some difficulty, since we were in another family's home), but at that point the dad had already escorted his daughter to the bathroom to clean her up, fleeing the scene of the crime. (Note that the child wasn’t deterred by the accident. She barely took note and seemed content to remain, at least temporarily, in urine-soaked pants, so it wasn’t like there was an immediate need to abandon the puddle and calm her down.) I put down several paper towels to absorb the liquid, but made what I thought was a reasonable decision to not get down on my hands and knees to wipe it up completely, stopping short of actually touching urine. I know from experience that a child's urine absorbed into a paper towel still presents a high likelihood of coming into contact with a bare hand. After a few minutes the dad kinda came back around but was still a little flustered (as one is when a child pees in the middle of a bustling party - I mean I empathized with him, I really did). I pointed out the paper towel roll, expecting him to finish the job. Instead, he said, “If you wouldn’t mind cleaning that up...” which is where I stopped dead in my tracks. He ran off again to continue to tend to his daughter while I questioned if I had heard him correctly. Is it common courtesy to clean another parent’s child’s urine? I silently pondered this for some time and placed a few more paper towels down for good measure. But I just couldn’t bring myself to touch a stranger’s child’s urine.The thing is, I’m kind of a wimp when it comes to seeing, smelling, or coming into contact with other people’s excrements in general. Just the day prior, in fact, I gagged aggressively when I was in a public restroom and was forced to wipe several drops of urine from the toilet seat after the previous user clearly hovered but didn’t bother to consider the next bathroom user and clean up after herself. (Hopefully we can all agree that these people are the worst.)Anyway, eventually the dad returned, realized I ignored his request to clean up his daughter's urine, and discarded the soiled paper towels and even sprayed down the area and wiped it up again. I learned during the party that he's a stay at home dad, and he didn't seem like one who in general would shy away from normal child rearing duties such as cleaning up potty and assume that a woman such as myself was more capable of such a task. I mean, maybe he requested that I clean it up was because he would be someone who wouldn't hesitate to clean up another child's urine himself? I just don't know.Considering how much mental semi-anguish I’ve had over the whole ordeal, at this point I wish I would have located cleaning supplies and just cleaned up the puddle immediately without being asked. Or maybe other parents would have seen me and questioned why I was touching another child’s pee with my bare hands and thought I was weird? Or maybe I just would have been a decent human being. But then I thought about what I would have done in a similar situation. In fact, what I have done in a similar situation, which is immediately clean up the offending puddle myself and not even consider having another parent touch it or even look at it for another second, and tend to my child after.But potty accidents are rarely an easy fix for a parent and the humiliation and logistics of cleaning a child and a floor after one occurs could potentially cloud one’s judgement. But enough to suggest another parent, essentially a stranger, clean up the mess? I'm troubled by the matter and my husband is tired of me broaching the subject with him, stating he can't talk about it any longer. I decided starting a reddit account and posting it for the internet to weigh in on was really the only way to go. So... thoughts? Was the request unreasonable? Or should I have done this guy a solid and cleaned up his child's urine? via /r/Parenting https://ift.tt/2U6Ze59