A stranger took a photo of my toddler with his pants down in a park

"I think it was meant to be innocent, because why else would he send it to me? But others don't agree."

It was an ordinary Tuesday morning, which in our family means “total chaos”. 

Tuesdays are the day I don’t work, and instead stay home with my two boys (one and three).

As any parent of toddlers can attest, there is no greater hell than being stuck inside with two kids bouncing off the walls, so my strategy on a Tuesday is simple: get out of the house at all costs.

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"I thought you'd appreciate it"

Sometimes, that means an adventure. It could be a trip to the museum, the zoo or the aquarium. Sometimes it’s a visit to the local library or a playground to see a friend.

And sometimes, like this particular morning, it’s bundling everyone, including the dog, into the car and heading down the road to our local dog park for some babycinos and a run-around. 

Our morning was about as far from picture-perfect parenting as you could get: a barefoot one-year-old hooligan (he refuses to wear shoes, don’t ask) chasing his brother through puddles as they both shrieked at a pitch somewhere between “glee” and “insanity”.

There was laughter, there were tears, coffee was consumed, cookies were argued over, my three-year-old threatened to take his little brother “to jail” for being “too stinky”. Just your regular boy mum stuff, I guess.    

I’m used to my kids attracting attention. I like to think it’s because they’re adorable, but it’s quite possibly because they’re very loud (a trait I confess they inherited from their mother). By the time we arrived at the cafe on this particular Tuesday, I’d already been stopped once by someone I didn’t know - a lovely older lady who, after watching my one-year-old bumble his way around a soccer ball like a drunken fool, told me that David Attenborough’s favourite animal is a toddler.

We laughed, she told me to enjoy this age, and I promised that I would. 

A little later, as we were preparing to head home, a man I didn’t know approached me. He asked me if he could Airdrop me a photo he’d taken of me and my boys.

“It was so funny I couldn’t help but capture it, and I thought you’d appreciate it,” he said. 

The photo shows my dog eating a cracker he’s just stolen from my younger son. I’m trying to ward off the waterworks by frantically offering him a replacement cracker, while my older son decides it would be a perfect time to practise his independent toileting - right there, in the middle of the park - with a bush wee on the grass. 

"A bush wee on the grass." Image: Zoe Rochford

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"Stranger's photo of my son with his pants down"

Admittedly, the concept of a stranger taking a photo of my son with his pants down took me aback at first, but his intentions seemed pretty straightforward: after all, he’d obviously taken the shot with the intention of sharing it with me.

Once my initial shock wore off, I couldn’t stop laughing. It’s rare, particularly as a mum, to have a genuinely candid photo of your parenting captured, and I guess this is what mine looks like. At first glance - okay, and second and third glance - it looks like complete and utter chaos. It’s the kind of photo you might show someone to warn them that parenting means losing all control. 

A number of people I’ve shown the photo to have expressed concern about it. Even aside from the nudity element, the feedback from other parents has been mixed.

Some have told me it seems intrusive, and that they wouldn’t want a stranger capturing what they perceive as a vulnerable parenting moment when everything seems to be falling to pieces. 

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But the truth is, I’m pretty proud of what that image captures. It shows a mum who’s at eye level with one of her kids, responding to his distress, while her other child confidently - perhaps too confidently, but that’s a lesson for another day - and independently practises a skill he’s really only just beginning to master. (For the record, I’m not particularly proud of the dog’s behaviour). 

On balance, I’m glad I have this shot, and I’ll cherish it, because it’s a perfect snapshot of what parenting my kids actually looks like right now: messy, silly, sometimes frustrating, but more often hilarious and joyful. 

And, if nothing else, a timely reminder that I’ve got a bit more work to do in the toilet-training department.

Originally published as A stranger took a photo of my toddler with his pants down in a park