American helicopter parents are applauding a nationwide trend toward family restrooms.
"Now, we never have to take our eyes off our sons and daughters," said one parent while hovering over their child. "We'll never get a life!"
Kathryn Anthony, Professor of Porcelain Throne and Contemporary Bathroom Architecture at the University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign, spoke of this recent trend and said that it is being cloaked as an answer for child safety, an increasing elderly population and access for physically disabled people, particularly America's veterans who are coming back in droves from America's wars and need assistance from family members in the bathroom.
"But we know why American helicopter parents really want family restrooms," the minutely judicious Anthony said.
No one, not even the American Restroom Association (AREASS) seems to have any numbers for how many family restrooms are in the U.S., but in America, they have been showcased since the year 2000 in high-profile places such as Dollywood, Tennessee, Mall of America in St. Paul, Minnesota, O'Hare International Airport in Chicago, and, certainly not in Mayberry, North Carolina and the conservative South.
"It's important to note," said Anthony, " that in many places of the world men, women and children have been squatting next to each other in public toilets for many years ever since the first public toilets were introduced in Pakistan and north-western India in 2500 BC. It's really nothing new."
"But when it comes to humility, Americans are always last to get it," said feces researcher and dingle-berry analyst, Niles Crotchogler of the New Institute of Feces Research. "There is something inherent in the American psyche that tends to block out this emotion."
The American Restroom Association (AREASS) defines family-type restrooms as a facility where more than one person can go to the bathroom at a time.
Spokesman for AREASS, Raymond Butters says that unisex facilities need to be opened that accommodate more than one person and laws need to be relaxed for persons who violate single-stall unisex bathroom occupancy codes.
"Police officers have enough to worry about without having to arrest and hang-cuff toilet violators," he said.
