To think there is no reason my 11 yo DS can't try on jeans in the fitting room in Women's Wear

[SoupDragon]

Given that the children's wear one is shut and it's all separate cubicles?

They tried to tell me we had to go down two floors to menswear.

They saw sense in the end.

YaBU - I try on stuff in miss selfridge changing room and I'm 42

"so if the OP went swimmimg with her DS they would have to get changed separately"

Yes, and we do. that's not a problem and is, in fact, completely different to this scenario.

You don't have to go down two floors to try and find an open changing room, come back upstairs to swap an item for a different size or style, go back down two floors... Etc etc. Oh, and the fact that no one was wandering about/showering naked.

"he is ELEVEN! take him to the mens"

Which is two floors down and, IIRC, tucked in the furthest corner. Pointless waste of time when it is all separate cubicles and no one is getting naked or parading about in underwear. If they can't be arsed to open the children's changing area, I can't be arsed to go down two floors.
Where i would probably find the changing rooms shut because they don't have enough staff to open them when the store has just opened and they can't possibly open them for me as they aren't allowed to leave the till.

Not hugely bothered personally, but OTOH sending him down two floors to the men's changing rooms is not an unreasonable request - you wouldn't send him into the ladies' loos to avoid two flights of stairs would you? (unless you're not telling us that you're in a wheelchair and you had your 3 month old twins with you)
If there was a real reason why he couldn't use the mens then you get to over-ride other people's sensibilities a bit, but in this case I think the hyper-sensitive girls get priority.

nope it might be inconvenient but i think mens.

YANBU some shops don't even have gender specific changing rooms.

Is it a big communal changing room? I remember those . if not yanbu.

In which case, given that it was women's wear, girls shouldn't be allowed in either because they don't fit the (nonexistent) description.

As he's not a man so he can't go in the mens ones.

This has given me flashbacks to shopping with my mother as a child and her getting me to try stuff on in the middle of the shop [shudder]

If its a separate cubicle with a door and not in a changing-room complex/corridor/oh you know what I mean - well can't see a problem really.

Good lord, no. I wouldn't have taken him into a communal changing room that happened to be situated in women's wear! We're talking corridor with cubicles off it. there aren't even any mirrors outside (but there were seats for waiting mothers.)

My local swimming pool is communal changing, all separate cubicles, locking doors but mixed gender.

My local department store has changing rooms very similar to the swimming pool, locking door etc etc

How is it different?

mum of 3 boys!

I wouldn't have a problem changing in a cubicle next to a boy or a man for that matter. It's a private cubicle. I would have more of a problem changing where there are younger children, of either sex, who are likely to be peering round curtains or under doors.

oh, and I have 2 boys and a girl.

YABU

1 for arguing on YABU about BU.

2 because cubicles or no,t some women do leave the doors open, wander in and out to show people etc, because they (quite rightly) assume there won't be any males in there.

3 the reason many girls might be uncomfortable with your son in around read thisno matter how lovely you know he is.

I can foresee a good number of amused embarrased men at seeing me barging into the men's fitting room to check if DS' jeans are ok and barking a full set of instructions, I can even comment on other peoples' clothes while I am in. Or wouldn't they let me in because I'm a mother woman?

TBH I like GAP's approach, fitting room should be unisex.

Also mixed sex swimming changing rooms are not comparable becasuse signs clearly indicate that they are mixed sex so you are aware that coming out with the girls on display is going to be an issue

What self respecting 11 yr old would be seen dead in a womens changing room.YABU...very!

1. That is the whole point of the topic
2. Nonsense
3. Irrelevant

"becasuse signs clearly indicate that they are mixed sex"

Well, there were no signs indicating that these were for women only so it is natural to assume they are for anyone.

OMGNYDSJT, I come from a place where big huge effort is taken to protect women's modesty. I can assure you there is hardly a single woman there, married, teen, grandmother, who has not been gropped at least once in their life.

Having said that, I have lived in a place where people were not bothered at all about that, even topless sunbathers were part of the local landscape. Curiously, women were hardly ever gropped in that place.

So I do really don't buy the thing that it is such a bad thing for an 11 years old to be at the women's fitting room. Actually, the only reason I would bat an eyelid if I found a man there would be because I would have thought I have got into wrong one.

Who are these boys who will try on clothes?!

OhMyGod - that is appalling, but I have to agree, irrelevant. Don't think it's helpful to demonise 11 year old boys

I am surprised your son agreed to go in the Womens, SoupDragon. My 10 year old would run a mile (I'd be frustrated with him, mind you)

Morloth - indeed!!!!!!!

Just dropping one of these babies in, cos I can >>> [hgrin]

Not demonsing, and I'm sure the OP's ds is lovely. But girls that age can be very modest and if they get loads of pervy crap at school they'll have good reason for feeling that way. Seems unfair on them to not have any private space because of laziness. At 11 if I had seen a boy my age in the changing room I wouldn't have gone in.