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?

The OP might be a total knockout for all we know. There are also women who would prefer not to be gawped at by adolescent boys because they hold themselves in exceptionally low esteem.

Oops just noticed it wasn't a council run pool.. Same thing still applies. Fwiw have also been in a holiday camp pool where they had communal changing areas..

There is also the issue of teenager's and young women who have every right to hold themselves in exceptionally high esteem. You can't just march big lads into women only spaces and say its ok because all the nekkid women will be unattractive and therefore shouldn't object to a good gawping because a) they might not be and b) thats not the point.

ds(14) says that is disturbing and he should be in the men's or as a compromise family area

I don't think you have to consider yourself to be 'special' or some sort of 'sex bomb' to be too embarrassed to get changed in front of an 11 year old boy. Hell I get embarrassed getting changed in front of female friends, let alone a stranger's son!

I am the sort that has to do some complicated dance with 7 towels in order not to expose any flesh when getting changed on the beach. Believe me it's nothing to do with me thinking I'm irresistible.

Yanbu. I have been quite vocal on these threads about me feeling that 8 is too young to expect a child to manage by themselves - especially if as us the case at many pools lockers ate hard to mAnage DBS there is poolside access to non swimmers. Ds got incredibly upset a few months ago when older bits hid his clothes in a pool changing room

However he is heading towards 9 now and has discovered girls and in particular boobs. It is now not appropriate for him to be in a ladies changing room without private cubicles. Though to be honest I would never change in a changing room without a cubicle anyway.

A thing - how ON EARTH is it better for her to go onto the mens'? That's bonkers.

You're either deeply disingenuous or rather naive marriedinwhite if you think 11 year old boys have no interest in the (middle-aged or not) naked female form.

I probably wouldn't have cared too much - but the fact that he was staring would have pissed me right off, too. At 11 he's certainly old enough to handle the men's changing rooms by himself.

I remember exactly what my fellow 11-year old male classmates were like. And uninterested in the opposite sex they most certainly were not...!

I do think that people can be exceptionally uptight over this issue. I wouldn't bat an eyelid if an 11 yr old was in a changing room with me.

However, I have a 10 year old who has, for at least 2 years, been more than happy to take himself off to the men's changing rooms on his own.

at my gym, from age 6 boys HAVE to go in the mens (apart from two families where the boys are SEN)
OR you go in the family room
I'm amazed than an 11 year old boy would WANT to be in the ladies
my DS would be mortified

I didn't say it was better.

I don't see how it could be any worse.

It's certainly not "bonkers" to suggest they go to the men's rather than the women's when there are two of them and one is a man (in terms of sexual maturity) and the other a woman.

Two people of different genders need to get changed together, why is the default that both go into the women's changing rooms/toilets?

I don't get it

"I have no issues whatsoever about being seen naked by my almost 18 year old son or my 14 year old daughter because bodies are entirely natural and normal and I would hate it if they thought otherwise. If my son had been in a family changing room at 10/11/12 I don't think he would have bothered to stare because he had seen it all before and would have thought it natural"

Quite right, but it's very different when it's not your child, or not your parent.

The boy's mum said he was only eleven - this is how I know h is age.

I am not a sex bomb and I don't hold myself in high esteem, in fact I got huge body issues, and eating disorders. I have not been to a pool for the past 4 years and only accepted to go because it was quiet and almost empty in the evening.

I accept I got some issues, that's why I wanted opinions and wanted to know if it's all in my head or is it a completely normal situation.

Yes, slightly surprised it needs pointing out. They might get an eyeful of their parents at home (DS and DD certainly do) - but other naked people is a different kettle of fish entirely...!

Turn it around

would that Mum be happy for her 11 year old DD to be in the Men's changing room?

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I thought not ...

JudeFawley, I and others who wouldn't like to be naked in front of an 11 yr old boy, may well be uptight (or insecure, shy, have issues about their body/appearance etc), but do you know what that really isn't the issue here. It's a female changing room, as far as we know the boy had no sn, and the op felt uncomfortable, so why shouldn't she complain!

I think kids are old enough to go in the right gender changing room when they are old enough for school. So 5. Not 11! How is this boy going to cope at secondary school?

Exactly, hazyjane. People should be able to have an expectation that the rules will be adhered to, then they can act accordingly. If there was one big open changing area for everyone then people who didn't want to use it could act accordingly, either stay away, go somewhere else, campaign for better facilities or whatever but if you expect to be in a room with same gendered adults and small children then you should be, you shouldn't be put in a position where you have to justify precisely why you don't want to be naked in front of 11 year old boys.

Op - you do NOT have any issues. You had a perfectly normal reaction to a situation which a lot of women would find uncomfortable. And what about any girls in bis age bracket. Does them feeling uncomfortable about being gawped at by a pre pubescent boy mean that they hold themselves in high esteem or consider themselves to be a sex bomb totally bizarre attitude to have. Almost as odd as the notion that 11 year old boys aren't fascinated by sexually mature bodies. I have NO problem with being naked around my own children - but other peoples ? No chance.

Some mothers seem to be incapable of letting their sons go - a child of 7 should be perfectly capable of getting themselves changed in a swimming pool changing room without mummy needing to hold their hand.

Would anybody expect an 11 year old girl to go into the land of aftershave and the hairy scrotum?

Mums seem to forget that men's changing rooms are frankly comical places full of naked men scratching their arses

and that 11 year old boys may feel as awkward surrounded by Brazilians as their sisters would in the other side

As far as I know if i remember her telling me, my friends not allowed in the mens changing room( Im sure the men wouldnt mind!!) plus it sounds like her local pool is really the basics, shes tried the toilets to change him but its virtually impossible. I would myself have thought in this day and age thered be a seperate room, she gets the same probs with public toilets if theres no one around to open the disabled one for her and her disabled key doesnt work.

btw i know OPs talking about a diffrent scenario but just wanted to point out that sometimes in certain cases theres a reason for this, obviously not in OPs case where there was a seperate room).

and maybe single dads with sn daughters have same prob?

I was showering after swimming a few years back, and a bloke walked in with his 2 daughters. Guess they'd have 10-11?

He told me I should be wearing trunks, as he didn't want his daughters seeing naked men. He took it amiss, when I suggested he send them into the women's changing room, as I preferred to shower so I was clean both before and after swimming.

He asked me if I was going to be reasonable, and I said I currently had my back to them, and that was as reasonable as it got... he flounced out. I suspect he complained about me, as he came back later sans daughters.

How bizzare, onemorechap, arent some people odd?

YANBU

You were asbolutely in the right to do and say what you did. The mother was being unreasonable.

I wonder how he copes when he goes swimming with school.

Of course eleven year old boys are interested in the naked female form, regardless of the female. It's just how they are. There could have been young girls his age there who would be very embarrassed.

There is no justification for anyone putting any blame on the OP in this instance.

Some mothers seem to be incapable of letting their sons go - a child of 7 should be perfectly capable of getting themselves changed in a swimming pool changing room without mummy needing to hold their hand.

This is the real issue-it is a pity that more DCs don't vote with their feet and refuse. You reacted perfectly reasonably OP.