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

[superpushymum]

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?

hmmm I will hold my hands up and admit I forgot the power of wikipedia!

I said in this case that it was wrong but only because our society is so backward (probably due to the Victorians...most things seem to be their fault).

I mean wtf is the problem with communal changing at all ages?

cory sorry didn't see your post

So is it the case in Sweden that mixed sex changing occurs up to puberty age and exists past puberty just not during?

Also why should one be ashamed of a changing body? My body is changing back from being spherical and has saggy bits, and jelly bits and all sorts...am I supposed to be ashamed/embarrassed?

It is wrong if people are not comfortable with it. Young girls often aren't. I don't see why the young girls of ds' age should have their feelings sacrificed so he can develop a healthy attitude.

And how can their parents possibly teach them about staying safe and developing healthy sexual attitudes if they are told that their feelings of embarrassment are a sign of a backward society?

Incidentally, I recently read that the Swedish government in 1972 seriously considered a proposed change of law to decriminalise paedophilia on the grounds that it would be backwards and unhealthy to deny children's sexuality. Incest and flashing were to be legalised at the same time. In the same era parents were encouraged on national television to let their children be present when they had sex. I don't think it really made much of an impact on the population at large: parents could see for themselves why this wasn't a good idea and quietly ignored the experts. But it must have sounded quite convincing at the time if you moved in those enlightened circles. Nobody wants to be backward, do they?

ICBINEG Wed 31-Oct-12 10:51:34
"cory sorry didn't see your post

So is it the case in Sweden that mixed sex changing occurs up to puberty age and exists past puberty just not during?"

No, mixed changing is not normal at public swimming baths: people tend to prefer single sex. And full nakedness in the showers is de rigeur, for hygiene reasons; you are supposed to actually scrub your bits, which many people are not comfortable doing in front of people of the opposite sex. But I don't think this translates as people being hung up about their bodies in everyday life.

TBH i wouldn't be comfortable naked around anyone in a female changing room let alone an 11 year old boy.

I totally agree with Cory.

Surely being comfortable with your body doesn't instantly equate with your body being used as an educational tool, especially without your permission.

We are very comfortable with our bodies in our house and often wander around nude (as the builders gutting the house behind us discovered last week ). However that doesn't mean that we should be happy to be naked in front of others if we don't want to.

Until last year (Y2) DD got changed for PE with her entire class. She is a vest-refuser in the summer and one night (she was 6, he was 5) piped up that she really didn't like XXX as he always stared at her when they were changing and shouted to all the other boys that she didn't have a vest on, and laughed at her nipples. This made her feel bad about herself and not want to do PE. We pushed for separate changing at school and got it - why should she be subjected to this crap? Yes, the child in question obviously needed a good talking to about why DD's chest is not a subject for hilarity, but she shouldn't have been put in that position in the first place.

In Y3 they are swimming and there is always separate changing!

YANBU OP, and I don't know why MIW is trying to make you feel like it's you with the ishoos.

age eleven is not really on. Grown ups dont even like mixed hospital wards

lovecat see I just don't understand your argument. Someone laughed at your DD's physical appearance and she didn't like it. This much I understand. But how can the solution be that she should hide her physical appearance?

People laugh at red hair, or facial deformities...somehow the answer doesn't end up being wear a bag.

Surely the correct response to someone laughing at someone else's body should be discipline of the bullies not enforced single sex changing for everyone in the country?

Also this patently doesn't stop girls laughing at each other.

Sorry it just smacks of the response to bullying is to change yourself till it stops. Which I essentially couldn't agree less with.

cory so sweden is more liberal about nudity but still hardly liberal at all. This doesn't really serve as a useful counterpoint to the idea that if ALL changing at ALL ages was mixed sex we might avoid these problems altogether.

YANBU.

An 11 year old boy is unacceptable in a Female changing room.

At school i had friends who were having sex at that age - that's a whole other thread as it's totally unacceptable for children that age to be doing that; but the fact is that quite a few 11 year olds are probably quite sexually aware.

The answer is larger cubicles for mothers or fathers & older sons in a Family Changing Room.

I would never use changing rooms if they were mixed sex.

I know of sexual assaults that took place in mixed sex toilets in local bars.

Also would feel very uncomfortable as would all men & women i know.

Changing rooms are the place you should be able to relax, not be anxious about hiding yourself away from members of the opposite sex.

I know 3 young Swedish women, all sisters, who were taken advantage of by older Adult men as young teenagers - thanks to the more 'liberal' approach there.

One of those young women is so traumatised by what was unfortunately seen as an 'acceptable' relationship that she cannot now have a normal sex life.

But that's again, a whole other thread IMO to the Changing room topic.

The point I was trying to make- no doubt badly - is that I don't think we would avoid the fact that hormonal boys do have physical reactions around nudity and that young girls are aware of this and feel uncomfortable.

I have a 12yo who has been raised in a liberal and open household where we are not uncomfortable about our bodies. This did not prevent his own feelings about his body from changing when he hit pre-puberty: suddenly things which had had no resonance for him (because he was not brought up to regard them as shameful) became charged with emotion because of his own physical reactions.

I don't think that is shameful or signs of a backward society: I think it is something about him that I need to respect, at the same time as asking him to understand that from my middle-aged pov these things are not quite so laden with emotions and tension- and also to understand and respect that there will always be people who for reasons of their own are not comfortable around their own bodies.

cory - i agree, i think everyone should respect that many people aren't as open or comfortable with their bodies as they are, & this won't ever change.

latara no I cannot agree with your arguments. Sexual abuse happened in mixed changing rooms so we should not have them? We are currently being bombarded with info of sexual abuse happening in hospitals, presumably the answer is not to try and prevent sexual abuse wherever it happens (and it mostly happens in the home) but instead simply shut any building where it has happened.

This is just nonsense. Again abuse happened not because swedish culture is different (or why would abuse happen in Britain?) but because some people abuse, and likely would do regardless of the circumstances.

cory that is a good point about rampaging teenage hormones. The single sex changing presumably doesn't eradicate the whole problem though...I mean some boys are gay...and some hormones are just totally on the fritz. Surely it is worse for those boys than it would be if changing was mixed?

I also just don't buy that just because some people are uncomfortable we should force everyone into single sex changing, with the side product that a lot more people are going to become uncomfortable because they have never changed with the opposite sex since the age of 5.

Again if someone is uncomfortable with people looking at their hair then maybe they get to wear a headscarf...but we don't tell everyone they have to wear a scarf...suddenly making visible hair in public a cultural taboo.

Since when did I say she should change herself or hide herself?

My point was that boys staring and commenting (boys of only 5 in this instance!) were making her feel uncomfortable. To have allowed that to continue when she was coming home in tears over this would have been cruel. She was SIX.

Yes it would have been lovely if the boys had stopped pointing and laughing (after the teacher did have words with them) but they didn't. They carried on despite being told not to. So why the hell should my DD suffer taunting? At the moment she's pretty much unaware of her body so how dare they make her aware at the age of SIX that she should be covered up? She now changes with girls only and is happy to continue vest-free. It was what she wanted and we respected her decision.

So which of these would have been changing herself for bullies? To wear a vest she doesn't want to or to be allowed to be in an environment where she won't get laughed at simply for showing her chest?

I don't get your logic. And the headscarf argument is rubbish too. Nobody (in the UK at least) is going to make the woman feel uncomfortable or bad about showing her hair in public.

I have recently been to a pool with a changing village which has now been split into male and female. There is a big sign which says something along the lines of people having expressed concerns. Mind you, it is in very multicultural area so it could be more to do with that than children. There are family changing rooms on the female side, but don't know about the male side.

lovecat you gave into the bullies by allowing their behaviour to change the behaviour of not only your DD but her whole school. One bunch of boys aren't disciplined properly for being obnoxious and now the whole school has to change in single sex environments.

Surely the answer was to exclude the boys from activities until they got the message their behaviour was inappropriate.

Making her wear a vest would have been giving in but what actually happened was a far more significant capitulation.

You are absolutely right she shouldn't have had to put up with it! The best solution would have been exclusion of the boys.

ICBINEG, I have no idea what axe you're trying to grind, but I think your argument, while fine in a utopia, does not apply in the real world. That's a shame, but in the real world, I'm not about to allow my DD to be made to feel shite about herself.

The whole feckin' school SHOULD be changing in single sex environments imho, the boys were disciplined but the fact of the matter is you can't stop 5-6 yr olds gaping and giggling and excluding them from PE for that just wasn't practical - the damage had been done, the girls were aware that the boys were looking at them and it made them uncomfortable. I wasn't the only parent who was pissed off about this, other girls were complaining too. If it had just been me I doubt much would have been done, but given that 80% of the class was girls and most of their parents weren't impressed, action was taken.

It might help if I explain that until 2 years ago DD's school was girls only, hers is the first year that has had boys in the classes and consequently they are the guinea pigs for stuff like this. They only got separate sex loos this term, I think the Head and Governors are feeling their way a bit...

I'm not sure how that's 'significant capitulation' but there you are. Not sure why I'm under attack for protecting my daughter but hey ho....

Bizarre

How can forcing a child to endure humiliation be fighting capitulation? Kids will be kids. They will behave in a childish manner. The problem has been resolved to child's satisfaction. Can't ask for more than that.

If my nakedness whilst changing was exposed at work because of inadequate doors (opening onto changing area) and the male staff took the pee... I'd expect the doors to be fixed. I wouldn't expect the men to do anything more than hide their obvious mirth whilst I was forced to continue to undress in front of them.

toothbrush really? Coz I would expect anyone laughing and pointing to be sacked.

Seriously, the answer to male misbehaviour is not for women to hide themselves away...it's to challenge the misbehaviour.

The reason I have an axe to grind is that I was bullied at school and was constantly made to feel it was my fault. I should wear different clothes..I should dye my hair, I should not give correct answers in class...coz then they would leave me alone.

The person whose behaviour is inappropriate should be the one to change. Always.

Oh and also for the nth fecking time there are more than two options here. You seem determined to say that any course of action other than single sex changing would have forced further humiliation on your DD...like the options are either
a) ignore the boys and the girls just have to put up with it
or
b) single sex changing

is it really totally impossible that there could be

c) people laughing and pointing at others are disciplined and learn to be better people in the future and hence the girls don't feel humiliated while getting changed in a unisex environment?

Because I kinda feel like if the boys were laughing and pointing because someone was in a wheelchair the answer wouldn't turn out to be either
a) ignore the boys and the wheelchair user just puts up with it
or
b) keep people in wheel chairs in a separate class.

It would definitely be

c) the behaviour simply isn't allowed and the wheelchair user is included in class.

I cannot imagine why this is any different.