AIBU to question a pool asking my four-year-old daughter to cover up?

I agree young children wearing bikini tops is strange. They have nothing to put in them.

Yabu for using ai.

I think you are right to be annoyed . It’s like she is insulting your parenting choices or implying you have done something wrong by saying “I’m a mother” when she is just a child and has nothing there to cover up .

It's actually shocking

I am absolutely baffled. What on earth is so hard about getting a 4 year old in and out of a swimming costume? Surely she can get it off herself at least? It’s hardly a complicated piece of clothing.

I agree with you OP and YANBU. For the woman to call it out and raise it with you is inadvertently or subconsciously sexualising your child by saying she should cover what will in 8 years or whatever grow to be breasts. It’s ridiculous. She’s a child of 4 whose chest is exactly the same as a boys. You were right to question her

You don’t have to go swimming, if it’s so hard that it’s such as struggle to get them changed then don’t go. Or get the costume on before you go under clothes, that’s what I do. A colleague working in a pool that you don’t own and pay to use is entitled to enforce a policy. It’s like men having to put on a shirt when you go to a campsite in public places. It’s respectful.

No you don't just have to accept everything someone tells you

It’s ridiculous, this narrative that you can’t put your daughter in a common or garden one piece swimsuit because they’re so fiendishly difficult to get in and out of.
These are able bodied women of average intelligence, presumably?
What will happen to these poor children when they start school swimming lessons in Year 3 and have to do it all by themselves??
Actually, they’ll manage perfectly well, just like all the other children 🙄

They also just sell bottoms for girls .

No, from that question it appears she knew it was someone"s daughter but needed to clarify if it was your daughter, however having read a lot of the thread I now agree with you, it is of no real consequence if your daughter wears just bottoms at that age, but what did the company say, that is the thing most people want to hear I think?

The reality is that most sexual abuse happens in the family unit, it is family members or people close/known to the family, how on earth could a random pervert in a public pool get "access" to a child, unless the parents were negligent and let the child wander off on their own unsupervised?
This has happened of course, and children have been snatched off the street etc. (there was a very disturbing documentary on one of the crime channels recently about a young boy that was snatched, picked up by someone in a car,and later found dead, on a street in London on the day of the Charles/Diana wedding because his Dad let him go to the local shop on his own on their way home from the celebrations)
The basic solution IMO to the pervert problem (in membership gyms/pools anyway) is to have separate pools for parents with children and another pool for adults, so basically unless you have kids in the pool you don"t need to sit and watch kids in the pool! How difficult is that?

So confused by all the comments saying a 4 year old should be wearing a bikini top or one piece costume in order to cover their chest area, just because they're a girl. Why?

But why would you not want to cover your child’s chest regardless when I put my child who is also 4 into a swimming costume it doesn’t make her chest stand out or her private area it just covers it because I get the size that fits and isn’t too tight or too baggy. I’d never put my daughter in a pool in just pants

Ok, you should ask the company for full clarification on this, bearing in mind that if the staff member had their own agenda they could get sacked.

Fair enough, as you said the main "risk" in a public pool is that someone is watching them not that someone will abduct them, there used to be signs up back in the day in some pools that said "We don"t swim in your toilet, please don"t pee in our pool!" They should make signs that say "If your kids are not in the pool, please don"t watch kids in the pool!" But of course that breaks all sorts of PC taboos and the corporates are all about just making money so they would never do that, I think at that age it should be down to parents how the child is dressed for swimming, to enforce dress codes for boys/girls is obviously controversial now, just look at this thread FFS!

Many pages in, I really don't think we will ever find out the answer to this aside from the fact it is UnCoNvEnTiOnAl... Mind boggles

I think the angle of my child can’t put it on because it’s so difficult is nonsense. The angle really is I don’t believe I should,
don’t need to use the child no being able to cope with it because that’s silly. There is no physical difference between shorts or a swimsuit. The OP just seems annoyed that they were asked to do something and they feel slighted. If so just take it up with the company. Opinions are just opinions and some will agree and some will don’t, what’s that going to achieve? The company may come back with the policy that girls need to be covered, if so go swimming somewhere else.

Sexualising a child has nothing to do with sexual attraction, it’s the perception of them being a sexual being and therefore needing/others needing to respond accordingly. Ironically the idea that 7 year olds need to be ‘modest’ by wearing hijab is exactly the same attitude displayed by the worker here. A four year old is not dressed ‘inappropriately’ for swimming unless she’s wearing outdoor clothes or shoes.

How does a swimsuit protect a child? Do you think someone who is sexually attracted to a child is only attracted to a naked child? That’s as stupid as imaging rapists will be deterred by trousers, or tampons, or being pregnant or being at a grave or being their own child. Pretending a swimsuit or bikini is keeping a child safe is false consciousness and only hurts the child who wants to enjoy themselves on the beach or the pool.

A child has absolutely no idea about the correct attire for swimming and would swim in their pjs if you told them that’s what you wear in the pool. A swimsuit or shorts changes absolutely nothing of the child’s fun. Why does this hurt the child? It hurt the parents ego and the parents sense of choice and control. The child couldn’t care less.