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 💩

How much campaigning are you doing @girlmom21 ?

Nope

i wouldn’t like some random man in there. Whilst you know he’s safe. How do me and MY children know he’s safe?!?

to us he’s a random man in a female toilet…….

he’s there whilst my children and me are trying to have privacy. Some children are Too frightened to lock doors and he’s there. It’s strange. I wouldn’t like it myself

but it seems you think he’s perfectly ok to do this and dislike any post which tells you otherwise…

Your son is disabled so the disabled toilet is fine if it best meets his needs.

Why can’t he shout into the mens to tell them to shut cubicle doors?

Why have you name-changed, OP? Could it be that you're posting a very goady, provoking thread? One that is going to result in a lot of bad feeling, setting apart posters who don't want men in female spaces?

I can't think of any other reason that the subject would need to be raised again other than the fact that it's a quiet week and you'd quite like a ruck?

My input is that men don't belong in women's spaces. Nothing else to say.

@TheFairyCaravan I'm not suggesting we force children to wear nappies.

No my DP would never go in the ladies, he'd feel too conscious. If he's on his own with SD and SS, he takes them both in the men's with him.

I think when they are too little to walk into the loos on their own with the parent waiting outside, then it doesn't really matter which ones they use and they won't care if the mens are a bit grotty...your DH wouldn't mind that if they were 2 boys, it's not really any different with little girls.

That said, I'd use the accessible toilet first if possible, just for practicality.

If I hadn't been around, what should my husband have done? Changed a pooey nappy on the floor of the pub? Walked the 20 or so minutes home with my kid sat in his own filth and risked nappy rash?

Changing bags come with a change mat. So sit on top of the toilet with the change mat on your lap. Or take the buggy into the toilets , lie it flat and again use the change mat.

Or take the change mat to the car

Nobody wants men in womens spaces and nobody wants young girls in mens spaces.

I have a disabled teen and we would totally understand the need for a dad to take young children in the accessible loos. I would far rather they did that than take little girls into a men's toilet.
I would also suggest he could knock on the ladies door and ask if anyone minds him bringing his girls in there. People can say no if they are uncomfortable with it.

@Clymene thanks I actually didn’t realise that I could do this! I thought it was like disabled car park spaces, they are only really for specific disabilities, not anyone with a disability. (As far as I have been told). That is a relief as he is so vulnerable.

It has made me more aware, sadly, of the dangers within bathrooms for anyone vulnerable (including younger boys, vulnerable people and women). It is not just silly for people to want to protect these places and make them safer. A vulnerable teenage boy (with similar disability to my son) was assaulted in a shopping centre men’s toilets not too far from where I live a few years ago. If we were more aware then the mother could have given her son a radar key and avoided this awful incident.

So no campaigning at all, then? Thought not

Your husband is neither a woman nor disabled so he needs to use the mens. If he needs to plan trips out to places that have suitable toilets then so be it.

I have to plan trips out for the rest of my life to places which have enough toilets to meet my needs, as if there are too few disabled toilets at a venue they tend to get taken up by some twatty bastard who thinks they can use whatever facilities they feel like.

Kids do not automatically turn men into virtuous human beings. You can be a dad and a creep.

One of DD's friend's dads is a right weirdo. I won't have her in her friend's house, I don't let DD get picked up, given a lift or generally in any way with him without supervision. I have good radar and he's a wrong 'un.

If he walked into a women's loo, I guarantee he would be having a good look.

There's a gradual creep of men taking over women's spaces. I was in a women's underwear shop this week and some teenage throuple came in and the two men were looking at everyone's purchases.

It doesn't matter if most women would be OK with it. If some aren't, that's enough. DH always took DD into the men's loos and changing. Cover eyes if necessary.

I’m female, not a parent, I wouldn’t have an issue with a Dad bringing his daughters into the ladies. I’d probably appreciate some loud performance parenting to with it as a way of indirectly announcing his presence and why he’s there, but I’d rather he be taking his little girls in the ladies rather than the mens where there is random male genitalia out in the open.

It might be nice if he asked if anyone in the bathroom minded first, I suppose?

It’s worth saying that I would have all of the issues if he decided to use the women’s without his children, or if he put on a dress and wanted to use the women’s toilets.

It's a difficult one. I'm disabled and don't like non-disabled people using the toilets too much as then I have to queue. However, I think it would be better than the women’s toilets and they often have baby changing facilities in them anyway.

It's simple. In a single sex loo people expect there will be no adults of the opposite sex in there. So no men in the women's and no women in trhe men's(even if they are accompanying a child of the opposite sex). Most people will accept there is not the same need or entitlement for adults to have privacy from young children of the opposite sex as there is to have privacy from adults of the opposite.

And yet, folks on here have said they don't mind if a father chooses to bring in his offspring for a nappy change or to use the loo. So your use of the word Nobody is incorrect.

Are these grim mens’ toilets area specific- my DH is a SAHD and I’ve never heard him have an issue. He’s always just used the gents with our DC.

Exactly what I said.

I was sexually assaulted by a friends dad when I was a young teenager.

If he came into the womens bathroom under the guise of being a caring parent, he would have happily forced his way into a cubicle with a young girl with the intention of feeling her up.

Grew up as a girl with my dad being the main parent i went out places with. Always got taken into the mens with him supervising until i was old enough to use the womens by myself. I'm in no way scarred by men at urinals or dirty facilities, don't even remember it. What i do remember, was being alone in a female toilet in a quiet upstairs area of a busy pub as a 16 year old girl, (was at a football final in cardiff with my dad, 95%+ of the people in the pub were male) and every loo bar 2 being unusable as were blocked to the rims and dirty and stinking. When at the sink washing my hands after, a full grown, drunk man lurching out of a cubicle behind me, muttering all the mens cubicles were completely blocked so they were having to use the womens. Gave me quite the fright, and was disgusted to realise every man needing a shit was parading in to the womens and blocking all their cubicles up too after making the mens loos unsuseable. That man was apologetic and meant no harm to me, but it made me feel very unsafe that men felt they had the right to just swan in and use womens toilets when it's convenient for them.

If there are unisex/family loos then great, if not then males old enough to go by themselves belong in the mens toilets, be it alone or with children of either gender too young to go by themselves. Females in the womens alone or with young children of either gender, and disabled/accessible toilets left free for those with visible or invisible disabilities who either cannot use a regular toilet/cubicle, or cannot wait if there's a queue for regular loos due to bladder/bowel illness or injury.

And that's the point.

He's putting his daughters before other peoples daughters - above the Muslim/Jewish girls that cannot share intimate spaces so have to stay home because of men like this, above the 12 year old girl dealing with her first period who is humiliated to find herself washing her hands next to a grown man, above the traumatised abused child who is frightened of male figures, above the teen previously assaulted in her college toilets.

He doesn't get to prioritise his convenience above the legal right of women to have single space services and facilities.

He should show the same concern and respect for other girls needing safe intimate spaces as he does for his own children.

Why is it a womans job to campaign for something for men? We have enough shit to fight for of our own.

Men aren't happy? Men can fight for better.

I’m a woman with a disability and I haven’t done any campaigning for toilets, am I still allowed in them?

It’s worth saying that I would have all of the issues if he decided to use the women’s without his children, or if he put on a dress and wanted to use the women’s toilets

what is it about children that make a man safe then?

Should we be handing out door frames to the womens loos and children to prisoners? Seems they all have magical.powers that means that despite the sense of entitlement they are showing and the obvious trampling of blunderies which in itself is predatory behaviour, its still.ok 🙄

I'm.sure borrowing a child would he cheaper than rehab..