DH using toilet for DT’s when out

[Silverbirch123]

I have NC for this but I’m a regular poster

We have 3 year old twin girls. If we’re out (or he takes them out on his own) for the day and my DH has to take one (or both) of our girls to the toilet he’s started using the ladies (not always just sometimes)

The reason he says for this is that the mens toilets are usually really grotty. He went somewhere a couple of weeks ago where there was only 1 cubicle, and several men using the urinals. He pushed the door open and there was a guy sitting on the toilet who hadn’t locked the door 🤮

He immediately came out and used the ladies. No one has ever said anything to him but I’ve suggested that in those circumstances he uses the disabled, but that’s not always possible if you need a special key to open them.

i darent post this in AIBU but given the circumstances above would you DH’s do the same? I’m keen for my DH not to cause offence by using the ladies but I’m also keen for my DD’s not being subjected to filthy toilets and grown men not shutting the doors when they’re having a poo 💩

I agree with the poster about boundaries, you don't know if another girl or woman has been subjected to sexual abuse or rape and is triggered by suddenly encountering a man in a sex segregated space. I didn't consider it until it was mentioned to me once and it's stuck ever since. Other women's safety, privacy and dignity aren't anyone else's to give away. I assumed everyone would immediately state no, he should not be using a female only space. Use the disabled toilets in lieu of a family room or single capacity cell being available.

Kids have always gone into the facilities according to the sex of the parents. Usually up until the age of 8/9 or whatever the sign on the door/wall says.

Why is it a problem?

Why are you playing into clearly an extremely effective plan to absolve men of parenting.

Yes the mens have a stronger smell but its highly unlikely that in the same building ones full of corpses who have overdosed and men dancing around with their dicks out and the other perfectly fine. Smelling of roses while assistants fetch us glasses of water and powder our noses for us.

Either you are being lied to/or allowed to believe uts worse than it is so your husbands don't have to take the kids anywhere.

Or he's taking them to known drug and cottaging hotshots which are not family venues

I don’t know what urinals you’ve seen but they don’t require a child’s face to work.

They can be used quite discreetly

Wait until they found out that some dads take their daughters swimming!

Unisex changing rooms for swimming has caused quite a stir in my neck of the woods. They do still have some private cubicles thankfully

I absolutely agree with @StRaphael here.

Making an issue out of a bona fide dad trying to take care of the needs of his little daughter just detracts from the real issue women face wrt women's spaces.

And it is absolutely not ok to use the disabled loo, potentially keeping some genuine user of those facilities from getting there in time.

The problem is lack of family restrooms.

In the name of research have asked DH where he took our DDs (20 odd years ago) and he said "the men's - used the cubicles"
But, aha, said i "what about the multiple penises on show?"

And then DD2 piped up "well, mum, i know you've used men's in the past as have i and I've never seen a penis when men use the urinals". DH agrees that unless you walk right over and peer around the, the chance of the sight of a penis is very small.
I have seen them outside because some men find it necessary to piss anywhere they like. But never in a toilet.

I have seen a penis in a women's toilet, but that was a whole other issue and the police got involved. and that was back in the middle-ages - or the 80s as i like to call it. So it's nothing new.

So for me the issue is:
Men should definitely complain a lot more to each other and facilities owners about the state of men's toilets.
Nobody except the people who need them should be using the disabled toilets.

My DH has used the baby changing table in the woman’s toilets when there wasn’t one in the men’s. I think your DH did the right thing, if he takes them into the men’s, two little girls might see a bunch of strangers genitals. If he takes them into the woman’s, all the women in there see is a fully clothed man clearly accompanying some children. Sometimes you need to do what you need to do.

If more places provided family toilets and unisex facilities, these types of decisions wouldn’t have to be made.

So many people think using the disabled toilets is acceptable BECAUSE... It isn't. People had to campaign to get those toilets, it's not fair to say one group with a need that they should wait & potentially have an accident because a man with a child think they have the right.

If you wouldn't use a disabled parking space, please don't use a disabled toilet.

Do start a campaign with Mumsnet for family friendly toilets.

I once had this exact situation in a communal changing room at a swimming pool. Was changing with toddler daughters when in walks a fully-fledged bloke, admittedly with a daughter, but his excuse being that his daughter shouldn't have to change in front of strange men. But what about MY daughters?? Thankfully a member of staff had seen him enter and came in to remove him but my initial instinct was sheer terror when I first laid eyes on him. If we accept that men are allowed in female toilets when accompanied by daughters, then surely we also have to accept that they are also allowed in female communal changing rooms with said daughters?

This. They really don't.

Of course there should be more family toilets.

But because there wasn't the DH believed he was entitled to go in the Ladies. I completely disagree. I'm appalled that he felt this was a decision he had the option to make.

No sorry - he was in the ladies loos shouting into a cubicle.

Absolutely. Women's sex-based rights aren't the OP's husband's (or any other men's/women's) to give away!

If the twins were boys what would he do? Sounds like no 3 year old really fancies the mens loo but tough luck. Please impress upon him how utterly inappropriate it is for him to go in the ladies.

But a lot of the accessible toilets include the baby change facilities. They certainly do everywhere that we go including Tesco!

I'm sure most men will feel uncomfortable stood at a urinal if a child comes in boy or girl. There's also perverts who wouldn't think twice about flashing at a child.

If you're there though why would you not take them yourself?

I know it's annoying. I have disabled children though not wheelchair users. Often had abuse for using them. I managed to squeeze the three of us into a cubicle until they got older and son too big to be going in the ladies. Sometimes still have to if no disabled toilet. He still can't go in alone as an adult.

Didn't we have almost exactly the same thread a couple of weeks ago, but in that case there was a single daughter?

Your husband should be planning ahead to check where there are suitable family toilets, single occupancy room toilets, or baby change facilities with toilets, like the rest of us had to. Three year old children need frequent reminders, and to be encouraged to try to go to the toilet when suitable facilities are available and at a time when they're likely to need it (e.g. if they've been for lunch and a drink). They can't hold on for long, so the parents need to step up and do the thinking ahead for them.

All those people saying that a man must be allowed in to the female toilets, he's with his young daughters, neglect to consider that other people's young daughters are also in the female toilets, and may be just at the age when they are beginning to go to toilets alone, or perhaps dealing with their first period. You know your husband isn't a threat, but those other young girls in the female toilets don't.

The last time I used a public toilet, I had to pee with the door open as I had the double buggy outside, and ds (who has asd) had to hold my hand to avoid an already threatened meltdown. I was embarrassed enough around other females but would have felt extremely uncomfortable and embarrassed if a male was in there at the same time.

You've just reminded me our local Tesco has the baby change seperate to the disabled toilet. Be better if everywhere did that. Some use it as a family toilet. I used to take baby out and take them in with me. Supermarket toilets are often bigger. So just use the ladies if I've only got DD.

It's not a compatible scenario kids in mens vs adult male in ladies. The women in those cubicles may have religious reasons for needing the single space, trauma, a basic respect for themselves and their basic rights not to have men in spaces for women... all perfectly valid reasons for single sex spaces remaining that way.

If there is no family facility available then the parent needs to find an option that doesn't infringe on the rights of other facility users.

On the disabled toilets comment, often they are disabled and changing rather than only disabled so surely a dad popping in with a toddler is no different to a parent in there changing a nappy.

It's less than ideal that we don't have more family spaces, but that isn't going to change overnight so until it does change men, the grown ass adult males, need to accept it is not up to them what women have to accommodate and find a solution without their own comfort at the centre of it.

Exactly this!!

He, and they, should use the men's. That's what DH does with mine.