Sit or Squat?

I have an issue with public bathrooms.

Sandy, wet beach toilets missing seats. Nice toilets in more upmarket restaurants. Questionable toilets in pub with that stale bleach smell. Dirty park toilets with backlog. Rank toilets on London Bridge platform. Squat toilets abroad. ‘Relatively’ clean toilets in the office.

I use them all. My bladder is the size of a pea. But one thing I never do, is sit on the toilet seat. Over the years I have perfected the art of “the squat,” where I teeter over the toilet seat in a desperate attempt to avoid contact between it and my bum. This is quite a skill, when you are wearing several inch heels, or when, in flats and faced with a particularly high toilet seat.

The thing is, LLC is making me more conscious of my aversion. Aware that I have an audience, I wonder if I should just bite the bullet, wipe off the seat if there is anything on it and put toilet paper or a seat cover (more readily available in the States) down before sitting like a ‘normal’ person. I’m sure this is what my mom taught me growing up, and I’m not quite sure where I went awry. While heavily pregnant I eventually succumbed to this in my office toilets but not until after months of squatting with bump.

With potty training looming on the horizon, it won’t be long before I’ll be taking LLC into public bathrooms *cue image of me holding small child over toilet* and I’m even more conscious that I should probably set a better example for her. Unless a toilet seat was particularly gross....then I’d probably hold her....

Most women I know don’t particularly care for public bathrooms (compared to most men I know who don’t seem to notice) but do you go as far as me and what do you teach your children in this department?