Children’s spaces

In haste right now: please don’t let me be misunderstood. I really can’t think straight today.
I’m not attempting to reinforce young girl’s anxiety, but since it persists, it’s up to adults to advocate on their behalf, and make sure they have such privacy as they need. (And to strive hard to stamp out this heavy burden on a girl, since the thing itself is grim enough! )
i am utterly appalled that embarrassment, let alone actual shame about menstruation is more widespread and intense than it was back in the 1960s.
There are additional cultural reasons involved now of course, but that doesn’t explain the whole.

But I’m not a rabid man hater wanting to see young boys alone left at the mercy of wolves! I think maybe the cutoff, regarding holding mum’s hand and using the Ladies, must be under ten. Say 8/9, as a general line.

We are all on about how things could improve, no? So those ideal family cubicles/ rooms are the obvious solution for any combination of guardian and child, plus baby tables and so on.

You're being deliberately obtuse. You think a ten year old boy in rhe ladies where everyone has their own privacy is an an encroachment on your right to female only spaces ?!

I think the age will be different depending on the individual and the location.
A quiet local pub for a Sunday dinner might be OK for a sensible ten year old to enter alone.
An outdoor public toilet in the evening somewhere busy is different. It's also more complicated then if mum is going to one and son to the other as there is the potential that the child will be waiting alone their mum too.
By secondary age I wouldn't expect a male to need to go with his mum to the ladies - if due to some additional need they can't go to the gents alone then the disabled would be appropriate.
We generally can't determine age by looking either.
Common sense needs to be applied. If a mum has brought a young boy into the ladies then why would anyone assume to know better than her that that's the most appropriate place for her to take him?!

So what age does it become an “erosion of women’s rights” then? Should women accept 10 year olds? 15 year olds? 20 year olds? Everyone?

and what about the boys right to dignity too? It’s not fair on them to be dragged into the ladies toilets as they get older either!

A girls perceived / potential embaressment doesn't trump a child's safety.

I would not be sending my young sons to public male bathroom simply because a young girl is paranoid they might smell her period - that's bonkers.

I'm all for stopping male encroachment on female spaces (and rights!) But thats not what we are talking about. A 9 year old child who happens to be male being taken to the ladies with his mum is not an erosion of the rights of women to their own spaces.

Family bathrooms would be the ideal option to please everyone but they aren't widely available.

Periods are nothing to be embarrassed of (obviously) and we should be raising kids of both sexes to understand that.

Schools, specifically secondary schools are clearly a different kettle of fish and I agree boys and girls should have separate spaces there. But then children of that age should be using their gender specific bathrooms out and about too.

Point is, the girl might well feel she can’t do her thing when there is the risk of even half a boy in her vicinity. Closed door or not.
We surely know that awful self-consciousness that convinces many a young girl that everyone knows, can tell, can even smell, and all that sad nonsense.

But I did make a hash of my comment, as I said to you elsewhere, by jumbling up two or three different related responses and blurring the lot together. A masterpiece of clarity.

My apologies, I’m just on about school loos in that bit.
Think I was taking so long to put my comment together, everything I think on the general matter came out all at once.

I'm remembering an occasion when DH took our 3 children (2 boys aged about 8, 6 & daughter aged 4) out for the day shopping for a Christmas present for me & generally to get them out of the way so that I could prepare for our expected visitors.

They needed the loo.

No problem taking the boys into the gents - but he (quite rightly) wasn't comfortable about DD going into a place where men would have their penis's out peeing in urinals. So she went into the ladies while he & the boys waited outside. Boys got bored &, as they were in a dept store near a display of Christmas decorations, they went off a short distance to look at the decorations. DH waited, and waited, ladies came & went. DH still outside the ladies loo, increasingly becoming aware that a man standing outside a ladies loo for a lengthy period of time on his own was beginning to look dodgy. So he decided to ask the next lady that came along to check on DD, of course it seemed the entire female population no longer needed the loo and no-one appeared. He considered going to ask a sales assistant to check on her, but there wasn't one nearby & he didn't want to go and look for one only for DD to emerge from the loo to find no-one waiting for her. Luckily DSs reappeared so he sent them in to find their sister who was having a great time slathering herself with the free body lotion & playing with the hand dryers. For context this was mid 1980's & hand dryers weren't common in public loos so they were a novelty to her.

DH came home swearing that he would never take the children out without a female again.

I think that 'family facilities' are the way to go as he could have taken all the children in there together.

We are talking about children who are too young to safely use gent's toilets alone. Does their safety matter less than a girls embarrassment? Really?

Are we really expecting 9/10 year old boys to a. Know that a girl in a cubicle he can't see is dealing with a period b. Make fun of a girl who for some unknown reason is obviously dealing with a period whilst accompanied by his mother?! What bathrooms are you going to?!

Every user of a ladies toilet has Privacy. What other consideration could their be?! I've seen a pp mention girls on their period but unless they are changing their pads next to the sink what is the difference in having a 9 year old boy use a cubicle?!

Risk of assault to girls and women is not the sole consideration.

Although I have frequently had to tell mothers that their 10 year son is not allowed in the ladies changing room. Let’s just say, they usually react pretty badly.

No. There should be adequate ‘family’ loos which cover changing, mum+boy, and dad+daughter. And a separate wheelchair access one.
A ten year old lad shouldn’t be in the Ladies’ any more than his twin sister be in the Gents’.

The menstruation thing is important as well.
I think back to days out as a girl, and pestering Ma about the san towel machines, and yammering about their mysterious function. Once I started though, it was a very different matter. I wanted silence, and secrecy.
That was well over fifty years ago, and yet it appears things have become even more grim, more furtive, for the average girl.
It angers and saddens me greatly, but nevertheless we owe these girls the kindness to accommodate their needs as far as possible.
It’s not their fault their parents brought them up to feel furtive or dirty about menstruating.
Admitting boys to their possibly bleeding or distressed midst is a flipping outrage, not least because it’s yet more foregrounding of male rights at the expense of obvious female needs.

(Another thing we might consider, though God knows who’d take the work, is to bring back toilet attendants in public loos. A very civilising influence.
I guess candidates would come from only those groups most likely to experience abuse, even assault, in the job. )

Agreed!

I think changing rooms are different to toilets tbh, people often get fully naked in a communal changing room whereas that doesn’t happen in toilets except behind a locked door. I can see why women would have an issue stripping off with 8/9/10 year old boys watching, but I don’t see the same issue in a toilet.

My guess is it's less about being able to defend yourself and more that it's very unlikely at 8 that a boy has gone through puberty?

I don't know any 9, 10, 11, 12 or even 13 year olds who could defend themselves against an attack by a fully grown man.

Yes, although do we know that disabled toilets are currently being used by people who are "not disabled"? I mean, it's impossible to tell from just looking at people whether they need a disabled toilet or not.

Children vary a lot at that age. DGS is small for his age and we have often at soft play or similar met other kids who are bigger than he is but actually much younger. Unless a child is very obviously much older than 8 I don't see how anyone is actually going to know.

It's standard to be honest. I work in a leisure centre and we have gents and ladies changing and a disabled that can used by either sex.

Children of 8 and above are supposed to go in the changing room of their own sex. Lots of parents ignore that rule and we often get complaints from women that there are 10 and 11yo boys in there. I would say most tolerate 8yo boys in the ladies.

Also children of 8 are allowed in the pool without adult supervision. I think the idea is by that age, children should have some sense and the ability to follow lifeguards instructions.

This is daft. No issue with primary age boys using the ladies with their mum. Everyone has their own cubicle, they pose no risk to the women or children in those spaces.
Most changing spaces have family areas.
Wouldn't take a boy over 8 into a communal womens changing area of course but ladies toilets pose no issue to anyone. I'd much rather see a ten year old boy in the ladies than have him sent to the men's alone.

It wasn't in the Stoke area, was it? I've never seen it elsewhere. They were also the staff and visitor toilets because they were suitably private when you were in a cubicle that it didn't matter. (One grubby school I visited, I was escorted to the grim toilet block because I didn't have a DBS check).

The same model in Europe was always spotlessly clean.

I worked in one of our local secondary schools that had that toilets design, and it was all open to the corridor as well, it worked really well! There was no way of hiding any bullying, abuse, or vandalism in those toilets.

I’ve never seen it and will always protect my son how I see fit. I think it’s a MN rule?

Not necessarily. Some men’s loos look grim and the sorts going in and out my son wouldn’t know how to manage that if anything bad happened. I wouldn’t send him in some grimy dark stinking toilet with horrible looking men with their hands down their pants (why do they do this?!).

im thinking a lot of people who say this don’t have boys and don’t think that they can be vulnerable just like girls.

We do, however, install zebra crossings, pedestrian lights, footbridges and subways to minimise the risk. No-one is suggesting we ban public loos; just debating how the risks to children can be mitigated.