A Philadelphia mom is peeved¹（恼怒的） that police gave her a $50 ticket after her 2-year-old son peed against a street light post.

 

"I'm absolutely going to fight it," Caroline Robboy told NBC News on Thursday. "It was a potty-training accident."

 

Robboy's legal hassle（困难，麻烦） began Sunday night, she said, when she was out with her elderly in-laws and her three children, ages 9, 6 and 2. Her husband, an ob-gyn（妇产科医师）, was on the job, delivering babies.

 

After eating at a Johnny Rockets diner five blocks from their home in a high-rise, the family went across the street to a clothing store.

 

Robboy said two of her children told her they needed to go to the bathroom, but the store operators wouldn't let them use their restroom. They headed back to the diner, but the 2-year-old couldn't hold it.

 

"I told him to go over to a grassy² patch and make pee," Robboy told NBCPhiladelphia.com. "Next thing you know I have an officer giving me a police ticket for public urination（撒尿）!"

 

The officer wrote on the $50 ticket that Robboy told her son to go in the street and never acknowledged it was an accident. Robboy then claims the officer gave her a lecture on parenting.

 

"He said, 'I'm doing this for your own protection because God forbid there might have been a pervert³（性欲反常者） out there looking at my son,'" said Robboy.

 

"Every once in a while a 2-year-old catches you off guard," she said.

 

"If this were my 9-year-old or 6-year-old I would have been mortified⁴ and would have had a much more adult conversation with him," said Robboy, a licensed⁵ social worker and sex education counselor⁶ also trained in early childhood education issues.

 

Robboy tells NBC10 Nathaniel is a bright child who, aside from Sunday's misfire, is doing well with his potty training. She also says she plans to fight the ticket.

 

"It's not about the $50," said Robboy. "I want a place that feels friendly to me where my children feel safe and have positive experiences with police officers."

 

A spokesperson with the police department tells NBC10 they routinely allow their officers to use their own judgment⁷ and discretion⁸. They're currently trying to contact the officer who issued the ticket to get his side of the story before they take any action.

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