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AIBU?

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Original poster

To not think my daughter should be made to use a changing room..

435 replies

hairnets · 04/12/2011 22:34

When getting changed after swimming with her Dad?

He told me today that she received a telling off ("major roasting" were his words) for refusing to use her own changing room after he took her swimming. He felt that it wasn't appropriate for her to get changed out in the open because there were other men about in the room.

She's 5.

I obviously think he's BU and I know exactly why I do but interested in what others think before I bang on about why he's BU - If that makes any sense!!

OP posts:
squeakytoy · 05/12/2011 00:39

The more I have thought about this, the more I think it is the fact that he doesnt want the child exposed to a load of naked dicks... which is fair enough. He can hardly ask the blokes to go and change in private, nor can he ask them to cover up, in what is the mens changing room. Nor can he take the child into the womens changing room. So the only option he has, is to tell the child she has to go into a cubicle to change.

passionsrunhigh · 05/12/2011 00:39

My dad is a caring, lovely, kind, sensible man, yet he wouldn't have wanted me to see other blokes (or in fact his own) bits, or for them to see mine. doesn't make him a bad person.
makes him a person of good taste and sensitivity, imo.

PeelThemWithTheirMithrasKnives · 05/12/2011 00:40

Lots of confusion on here. I don't think the DD's dad holding up a towel would have helped the issue for the OP, because (the claustrophobia issue aside), it wasn't the changing room so much as the dad thinking she should be "modest" and the OP thinking she shouldn't have to be.

Also confused though because OP thinks the dad has low moral fibre because of is Nuts-reading ways ... but might some of those other men in the changing room not also be of "low moral fibre" and so it would hardly be suitable for DD to be naked around them?

DD can get changed by herself. DD's dad is uncomfortable with her getting changed in the men's changing room. Time for DD to go to the women's changing room now.

nooka · 05/12/2011 00:40

I don't see that that is a real issue though GlitterySkulls, because there were cubicles in the changing room, so anyone who is uncomfortable could pop into one, just as in the ladies, women who are uncomfortable with little boys can use them. I'm not terribly comfortable personally showing anything much in a communal space, so I use the strategic towel placing technique. My children on the other hand at 5 or so were very happy running around naked whenever the fancy took them, and I think that is (in general) something to be celebrated rather than squished.

I can see that this is a tricky issue for you hairnet as you are right you can't really do anything much about what your dd's father chooses to do with her at the weekend. I'd be unhappy too (and I also think that people who read 'lads mags' are in general tossers, and leaving them out where a 5 year old dd can see them is really not on).

AitchTwoOh · 05/12/2011 00:40

lezzer marches... Hmm well, you did have a baby with him so his prickishness didn't bother you once.

i remember my dad taking me and my sister into the men's changing rooms when we were wee. we were completely au fait with my dad's naked body but WE STARED like little midwich cuckoos at the other men changing. not all cocks look the same. Grin

passionsrunhigh · 05/12/2011 00:42

Milly - I don't know, I wouldn't agree with this rule - would prefer to change a child of opposite sex, as festi suggested, poolside while holding a towel around them. Children are developing much faster than they used to, maybe the rules are old. If not sexually developing, than mentally/emotionally.

LRDtheFeministDragon · 05/12/2011 00:45

squeaky, that is not the only option.

They've been given several times now.

He could have held up a towel.

He could have gone in the cubicle with her.

He could have stood in front of the open cubicle door to talk to her.

He could have reassured her it was ok instead of giving her a 'major roasting'.

He could have told her it was ok to pop her clothes on top this time.

He could have done a lot of things that did not involve insisting that a scared child face up to a fear he himself is not willing to do, and then giving her a telling off about it.

squeakytoy · 05/12/2011 00:45

I think as there are so many concerns over changing rooms, there should be family changing rooms rather than single sex ones. These could then be utilised as schools changing rooms during the week too.

This was an issue 40 years ago, and still seems to be an issue now, so you would think planners would have done something about it by now.

GlitterySkulls · 05/12/2011 00:46

nooka- perhaps there isn't enough cubicles?

there's also the fact that it's the men's changing room, for men to dress in.
same as the women's is for women.
if the adult & child are different sexes, then the child should go in the cubicle, imo.

squeakytoy · 05/12/2011 00:46

LRD, I didnt say it was the ONLY option. I said it was ONE of the options...

passionsrunhigh · 05/12/2011 00:48

squeaky - some gyms (in mens changing rooms) have an area for fathers and children, which is quite separate from the rest.

LRDtheFeministDragon · 05/12/2011 00:49

peel - btw, I do get the issue is the dad's attitude which seems unpleasant. FWIW the reason I keep harping on about holding towels and up other alternatives is that if this bloke were really concerned about his DD, he could have thought of this stuff. The fact he didn't, then came back and said he'd given her a telling off (which suggests he thought he did nothing wrong in getting angry), is really worrying IMO.

I think people saying 'oh when I was 5 I would have preferred the cubicle' are missing that point, that it doesn't seem like this dad was actually motivated at all by how his DD was feeling but only by his own ideas about what he might be embarrassed by or his ideas about how she ought to be made embarrassed herself and her naked body if she isn't already.

passionsrunhigh · 05/12/2011 00:50

most gyms in london just don't have space! changing rooms aer really cramped, imagine a small girl in those, right next to someone's dick?

LRDtheFeministDragon · 05/12/2011 00:50

' squeakytoy Mon 05-Dec-11 00:39:41

The more I have thought about this, the more I think it is the fact that he doesnt want the child exposed to a load of naked dicks... which is fair enough. He can hardly ask the blokes to go and change in private, nor can he ask them to cover up, in what is the mens changing room. Nor can he take the child into the womens changing room. So the only option he has, is to tell the child she has to go into a cubicle to change.'

You did actually say that.

confuddledDOTcom · 05/12/2011 00:52

I love that people think it's not normal for a 5 year old to be scared of small spaces, my daughter is scared of beards. No reason why. She's only known good bearded men but other than her father she won't go near someone with even stubble (even he gets ordered to the bathroom Xmas Grin) I have to make sure she doesn't have an appointment with a dentist with a beard/ stubble or she won't even stay on the chair. I booked an entertainer for her birthday party and spent weeks working out how to ask him to make sure he'd shaved before he came lol

Anyway, I'm sort of mixed on this one, but more to the OP. I think you've had a hard time here. I totally agree with you that we should bring our children up to be responsible for their own thoughts only and I've allowed my children to run around a park or the beach naked because of that. So what if someone sees? They've not been harmed by it. I'm sure some men look at me with my hair down to my... well past my waistband or my 34J boobs and take mental snapshots. Am I harmed? Do I know about it? If he's going to look, he's going to look whatever she's wearing. BTW people, there's a difference between a paedophile and a child abuser.

OTOH I can see the point in not having children change in the main area when in the opposite sex changing room, people are where they are supposed to feel comfortable and they may not want to change in front of a child. I don't think it's a must though, like I say we're all in control of our own thoughts. However, either way, she is 5. My 5 year old is quite grown up and responsible but when it comes to getting out the bath and getting dressed or just getting dressed in the morning she has to be constantly told to get dressed, there are things she's not good at doing herself so I couldn't leave her. I'd be dried and dressed, her sisters would be dried and dressed and she'd still be saying "Mummy! I can't dry my legs!" If he can't deal with taking her into a cubicle then he needs to come up with alternatives, such as the holding a towel up that someone else suggested.

MillyR · 05/12/2011 00:53

A penis is just a penis.

I am finding all of this so very, very odd. For the first time on MN I am lost for words.

nooka · 05/12/2011 01:01

GlitterySklls as MillyR has pointed out repeatedly the rules at most swimming pools is that children under the age of eight can change with their accompanying adult in either the male or female changing room. So it's not exclusively the men's room, just as the women's room is not exclusively for women. It might be your opinion that a child of the opposite sex should use a cubical but that is just your opinion, and other parents might do things differently. I certainly never felt I had to stuff my son in a cubicle when we got changed in the women's changing room, and looking around I think this is actually fairly normal. Small children are first and foremost small children surely?

squeakytoy · 05/12/2011 01:03

Yes LRD.. I said that was the only option HE has... not the only option that the OP has...

two different posts... two different peoples options...

LRDtheFeministDragon · 05/12/2011 01:04

Yes, but squeaky the post I was replying to was the one where you said it was the 'only option he had' ... it's actually not the only option he had by quite some way!

LRDtheFeministDragon · 05/12/2011 01:05

I did quote it in full so not quite sure what the confusion is.

squeakytoy · 05/12/2011 01:09

sorry LRD, I had skimmed back to check to re-read, so that was my confusion I think.

But I do mean that perhaps that is the only option he felt that he had, and was how he preferred to do things.

MillyR · 05/12/2011 01:11

Despite the madness of this thread, I do agree with the poster who said there was a need for family changing rooms. There have been previous threads on MN about posters with older children with special needs who can find themselves in difficult situations in changing rooms. There does need to be more provision for adults and pubescent children who cannot get changed without a carer present.

LRDtheFeministDragon · 05/12/2011 01:12

No need to apologize - it happens!

I agree he probably felt it was the only option - but IMO it's a pity he didn't think about it. Could be just human error but the OP (who knows him and her DD, and we don't) has a concern it could be more than that, and suggestive of his attitudes being a bit off. I tend to agree with her to be honest ... I worry about a parent who concludes that's the only option.

But I'm falling asleep here so must call it a night.

LRDtheFeministDragon · 05/12/2011 01:12

Milly - agreed, it's a good point.

tigerlillyd02 · 05/12/2011 03:22

I wouldn't change my 2 yr old DS out in the open in a room full of other women (or men!) so certainly wouldn't expect someone else to change (if I had one!) a 5 yr old D in a room full of other men or women.

I don't think he was being unreasonable in the slightest about this issue. However, if she was genuinly scared of being alone in a cubicle he should have gone in with her to help.