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AIBU?

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Original poster

To think that 11 years old boy should not be in a female changing room?

323 replies

superpushymum · 28/10/2012 16:09

Last night I went to a hotel swimming pool. After the swim I was taking a shower in the female changing room. I left the towel on the hook nearby.

When I got out, there was (what I thought) a teenage boy literally staring at me. The towel was out of reach, so I had to run back into cubicle and squeeze myself into my dirty bathing suit.

I don't like confrontation, so I just went out to reception and asked the pool attendant to speak to the mother of the boy. She was also shocked and asked the family to move to the family changing room.

After she left, the mother started to shout that everybody is mad in this hotel and she is not going anywhere.

At the end I had approached her myself and asked her to take the boy out. She told me she can't understand a word of what I am saying (I am foreign and got a slight accent), so I completely lost it by that point and called the assistant again. The boy's mother started saying that her son is 'only' eleven and I should stop being ridiculous and just get on with it. At that stage she also removed her clothes infront of her son and changed into the bathing suit.

I told her I just can't undress infront of him, she got into a strop and told her kids 'come on, let's go to another changing room, this nasty woman does not want you here'.

Was I am unreasonable, or maybe it's a cultural difference, and it's ok in UK to have 11 year olds in the changing rooms? If it was 11 year old girl in a male changing room, would it still be ok?

OP posts:
defineme · 30/10/2012 19:31

You do realsie don't you that people in many other countries would find us all mad?
My friend is Czech and can't get over the way the sexes are separated-she's used to mixed sex changing for all at any age and no one thinks anything of it-how lovely would that be to be so free of hang ups and inhibitions?
I have bad memories of an Austrian youth hostel with unisex communal showers-I just couldn't do it-dam my Britishness.
If we could just teach our kids that nudity is ok and not a sniggering sexual thing perhaps we'd be better off.

hazeyjane · 30/10/2012 19:37

I'm with you Zelda, I am just very shy wheb it comes to stripping off in front of anyone!

exoticfruits · 30/10/2012 19:46

It would be OK if we had mixed sex changing-we don't. There is no way we will-people like their privacy.
I don't think that people would like Iceland for swimming-you have to shower nude-there are no exceptions. Changing rooms are separate male and female. here

NellyJob · 30/10/2012 19:49

My friend is Czech and can't get over the way the sexes are separated-she's used to mixed sex changing for all at any age and no one thinks anything of it-how lovely would that be to be so free of hang ups and inhibitions?
yes well the Czech republic has babies for sale to sex tourists...so...? HOw 'lovely' is that?

SoldeInvierno · 30/10/2012 20:00

I used to be a member of Pulse8 gym in Wokingham and had exactly the same problem with a mum and her 11 year old there. When I complained to reception, they told me they had no policy regarding children getting changed with parents, so they could do nothing about it. I cancelled my membership, as I didn't want to risk coming in one day when some stupid parent decided that as 15 year olds are still technically children, he could get changed at the ladies. It is ridiculous that when family rooms exist, parents don't use them.

Cozy9 · 30/10/2012 20:08

Too many mothers are mollycoddling their sons by the sounds of things.

whathasthecatdonenow · 30/10/2012 20:11

Our pool also has the unisex changing rooms with cubicles of varying sizes. The showers are also communal but there are big signs stating that you must shower wearing swimwear.

When I was at primary school back in the late 1980s/90s we were separated for PE changing from when we went into the juniors and for swimming changing from the first lessons.

OP, YANBU, I also don't like changing in front of others at all, but the thought of one of the year 7s I teach seeing me naked is terrifying, and stops me taking up the cut price leisure deals offered for teachers in my local authority. Thankfully I live a couple of towns over so just avoid the pool near school, even though it would be cheaper to go there.

Catsnotrats · 30/10/2012 20:21

nellyjob probably to British tourists among others (if it's even true, having done a quick search it seems that child prostitution has significantly decreased intje czech republic). Obviously having single sex changing rooms have turned us into a nation of paedophilic sex tourists.

What a ridiculous thing to bring up.

NellyJob · 30/10/2012 20:29

well so is 'my friend is Czech' really isn't it?

NellyJob · 30/10/2012 20:36

link
link
oooh wouldnt it be lovely if we could all be relaxed about our bodies just like in Czech.
I bet So-vile loved it there

alemci · 30/10/2012 20:49

I would have died of embarassment too and been mortified.
An 11 year old boy should not be in a female changing room end of.

WearingGreen · 30/10/2012 21:01

I don't care about naked Czechs. If I have an expectation that I am in a female only space then I want it to be a female only space. If I have an expectation of being in a bi-gender space then I will not go act accordingly. You can't just trot out 'in europe/Vanuatu/deep in the Amazonian rainforest we are all bollock naked all the time' because it doesn't bloody matter. We are british and in a room with a silhouette of a dress wearing stick woman on the door and there should not be men and older boys in there.

Catsnotrats · 30/10/2012 21:14

An anecdote about a friend who is Czech isn't that relevant. The fact that having separate changing rooms is because of the culture we have the in the uk is an aspect to the discussion. However I'm struggling to see the link to child prostitution and sex trafficking.

NellyJob · 30/10/2012 21:36

OK cats it was a bit random I know ......

DayShiftDoris · 30/10/2012 21:41

Oh I believe the risk is absolutely tiny of a child being sexually abused in a changing room....

Small risk is still a risk - we talk to our kids about stranger danger (even though we know that the risk of abduction by a stranger is tiny) yet we should be ok about them getting naked in front of a stranger??

And further to that because older / smaller pools are often constructed with communal changing then we can not give children ways in which they can keep themselves save. They should have the choice of changing in private which when there is 2-3 cubibles available is impossible.

And risk comes from men and women actually so children in changing rooms alone are vulnerable... if parents make a judgement that their child has the skills and maturity to handle situation then all well and good as parents are generally spot on with this stuff...

The problem comes when you can't say that they would be ok on their own (my son can flood a bathroom if left to brush his teeth alone!) then you are put in an impossible situation. You cant accompany them, they can't accompany you and there is no amount of step by step instructions that will get them through when they can not follow more than a 1-2 step instruction.

If something was to happen in there (more likely my son messing with something he shouldnt and breaking it, probably naked as he will have forgotten to get dressed!) then I would not be able to justify why I had allowed him in there alone.

As my nearest pool with unisex changing is 9 miles away I will continue making do...
I find it fascinating that he can be supported to manage a mainstream swimming lesson but not to get changed safely - the world has gone mad

exoticfruits · 30/10/2012 22:43

11yr olds should be able to be dropped off with friends and swim and change with friends-obviously they still go with their families sometimes but they really don't want mollycoddling, neurotic mothers! At what age are they going to stop?!

OneMoreChap · 30/10/2012 23:19

DayShiftDoris

we talk to our kids about stranger danger

I thought we talked about boundaries and how everyone should respect them.

Still, them paediatricans, dodgy bastards the lot of them

DayShiftDoris · 31/10/2012 00:19

We talk to children about a lot of this - stranger danger being one of them but not exclusive...

OneMoreChap · 31/10/2012 08:40

DayShiftDoris

we should be ok about them getting naked in front of a stranger??

I presume the answer you are looking for is no?
I'd say "We should be OK about them behaving within societal norms, male children using the appropriate changing rooms without needing their mother to hover about them"

What do you think? When should ickle boys be sent into menz changing rooms?
16 with a note from their mum? 18?

cory · 31/10/2012 09:26

I like this:

OneMoreChap Wed 31-Oct-12 08:40:22

"I'd say "We should be OK about them behaving within societal norms," "

yyy!

I have a 12yo of my own and it is a time which needs sensitive handling. They have a lot of growing up to do in a short time and you need to give them the space to do it in.

A changing room full of hairy men and their dangling appendages may seem an alien place, to me, but he's not me: he's somebody who is going to be one of those men! A male environment shoudn't seem strange or scary to him. He needs basic self preservation skills, of course, but he'll need those anyway for going round the shops or being around the older boys in secondary school. What he doesn't need is the idea that being around other men is intrinsically dangerous.

DameEnidsOrange · 31/10/2012 09:53

DayShiftDoris

"we should be ok about them getting naked in front of a stranger??"

worse than

we should be ok about girls and women getting naked in front of a stranger of the opposite sex?

ICBINEG · 31/10/2012 10:29

onemorechap I meant that if boys are banned from seeing naked female bodies then the only place they will see them is in pornography. Not that we will force them to be thinking about sex every time they see a naked female body...although part of my point is that if you only ever see naked women in porn mags then surely the association is much stronger than if you see naked women all the time in a day to day non-sexualized context....

Anyway our CURRENT societal norms certainly suggest that 11 year old boys shouldn't get changed in the womens changing rooms but our FUTURE more enlightened societal norms will almost certainly involve not treating the sight of naked members of the opposite sex as some sort of taboo....because it is at the end of the day totally ridiculous to be ashamed of having a body, or worried that people will see it.

cory · 31/10/2012 10:42

ICVBINEG, I grew up in Sweden where societal norms about naked bodies were considerably more relaxed than in this country and there was no semi-porn in national newspapers. Even so, we had separate changing rooms in junior school because the girls did not like to show their changing bodies to the opposite sex, and even so the boys did their best to peer under cubicles and through high windows. Societal norms are one thing and 11yo boys a totally different things.

You can change a lot of things through a different societal climate but you cannot change the basic fact that puberty is an exciting and disturbing thing for young boys- hormones don't disappear if you ban porn. And if something makes young girls feel uncomfortable they have a right to have that respected- how else are you going to teach them to keep safe from exploitation?

cory · 31/10/2012 10:43

I am as anxious as the next person that my 12yo should grow up with a healthy attitude to the human body but I will not have his female school-friends used as teaching aids. They are people in their own right and have a right to have their feelings respected.

OneMoreChap · 31/10/2012 10:44

ICBINEG
I meant that if boys are banned from seeing naked female bodies then the only place they will see them is in pornography.

Hmm. Google "naked female body" and you'll see stock photos, are they pornographic? Art galleries, museums, educational videos. Do kids still play "doctors and nurses"?

Whatever the answers, allowing your 11 year old male child to see other naked women without their permission is completely inappropriate.