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AIBU?

Share your dilemmas and get honest opinions from other Mumsnetters.

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:
CiderwithBuda · 30/10/2012 09:09

Getting changed for PE doesn't involve total nudity but swimming does. DS's school in Hungary started separating th boys and girls changing for swimming at year 3 I think. Presumably in Uk it would be the same?

OneMoreChap · 30/10/2012 09:22

DayShiftDoris
we are more aware than we have ever been about the risks?

Disagree with that completely.
Your chances of:
Your child being run over
Being allowed to become obese
having second hand smoking problems are probably much higher than the risk of attack by predatory paedophile.

Of some 3964 child death reviews up to March 2012, 43 were injury/abuse, 71 were suicide, 231 other trauma (e.g hit by car), 295 were sudden, unexplained, and about another 1800 were medical conditions (the remainder were neonate etc)

43 deaths by abuse are way too many. But it's 1%

Risks are hard.
Humans are really bad at judging risk.

AThingInYourLife · 30/10/2012 09:28

"This is paedophile hysteria at its best."

Yeah, but it's more than that, I think.

There is not just paedo panic, but a generalised fear of and disgust at men.

Places where men change/use the toilet are thought to be filthy, threatening, unsavoury, unsafe.

I have 3 daughters, all 5 and under. They are all too young to be in changing rooms or bathrooms alone, so they go with whichever parent can most easily take them.

Surely a place so dangerous and full if repellant creeps that an 11 year old boy can't face it alone is not suitable for little girls?

Should my adult DH come into the ladies to keep his girls safe?

This issue is fraught with contradictions, as OneMore points out.

The "little boys" some mothers are so keen to protect from grown men are in their way to becoming men themselves.

CecilyP · 30/10/2012 10:07

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?

You are so not being unreasonable. You sound such a nice person, so don't let this awful woman make you feel bad. And it is absolutely not a cultural difference, so much so that a rule at our old local municiple pool said that no children over 4 were allowed in the changing room of the opposite sex. This was larger ignored for such young children - but 11! That's one extreme to the other.

A boy of 11 should be quite capable of going to the swimming baths on their own and should be able to take himself to the gents changing room while there. The only exception I would make is if a boy had severe special needs and needed his mum to get him changed, and, in this specific case there was a family changing room where this could take place.

This woman clearly has issues, and was totally out of order for both taking her 11 year old into the women's changing room and for being so abusive to you when you dared to speak to her about it.

PropositionJoe · 30/10/2012 10:37

I know you aren't ever opposed to say this on mumsnet, but I'm not sure special needs make a difference here. Many many special needs leave the sexual urge entirely unaffected.

AThingInYourLife · 30/10/2012 10:41

By the time I was 11 I was regularly going swimming by myself.

It does seem weird that a child of that age would need his mother nearby to get dressed.

ScarahScreams · 30/10/2012 10:45

This boy is going to turn out like Norman Bates if his Mother continues in this way!

threesocksonathreeleggedwitch · 30/10/2012 10:46

an 11 year old boy should not be in the female changing room.
this idea that bad stuff will happen if they go in the mens is just mad.
my son has never had a bad experience and I am sure most men are just there to get changed.
with sn, that is why there are disabled changing facilitys.

freddiefrog · 30/10/2012 10:46

A Thing - I was about to post the same thing.

At 10/11 onwards I was going to the pool with my mates, I see unsupervised 10 and 11 year olds unsupervised at our pool too.

kim147 · 30/10/2012 10:48

This reply has been deleted

Message withdrawn at poster's request.

Pagwatch · 30/10/2012 10:51

Of course people ith SN may have completely unaffected sexual urges. The point about sn is only be relevant if the women's changing room would offer the only location where the female carer could possible assist the child to change.

Ds is 16 and can change alone but needs prompting so I need to be near him. Fortunately for the nearest pool we can use disabled/family changing or the other local pool just has a changing village.

AThingInYourLife · 30/10/2012 11:37

"The point about sn is only be relevant if the women's changing room would offer the only location where the female carer could possible assist the child to change."

But surely the female carer could choose from 2 locations - the women's changing rooms, or the men's changing rooms?

I wonder why the default option seems to be the women's changing rooms.

What about a 13 year old girl with SN swimming with her Dad. Does she go to the men's room?

KellyElly · 30/10/2012 11:42

I don't even know how anyone can you YWBU here. An eleven year old is perfectly capable of going into a changing room of their own sex and getting changed without their parent. End of story!

IneedAsockamnesty · 30/10/2012 13:22

athing.

yes she would if her dad was the adult.

where i live the pool changing rooms are all unisex and have been for years so problem solved.

Pagwatch · 30/10/2012 14:18

AThing

Well ideally -as i said- I wouldn't go with either scenario. I was just saying why the fact that a child may have SN may be an issue at all. I was simply pointing out that the Ustinov of the child having SN or not is nothing to do with the possibility that they have average sexual response but whether they can be left unattended.

If I had to chose from both of us to go in one or another I probably would take him in the woman's changing simply be ause I would try and make the best of a bad situation and I would assume that more men would be offended by my presence than women would be offended by DS2 whose SN means he dosen't like to look at people.

Pagwatch · 30/10/2012 14:21

The Ustinov !

Deargod...

hazeyjane · 30/10/2012 14:57

I have just spurted my coffee all over the screen, at, 'the ustinov.....'

I may have to start using this in everday speech, maybe instead of 'the crux...'

eg, 'the ustinov of the situation is whether.....'

ToothbrushThief · 30/10/2012 15:49

OneMoreChap - can I just point out I was being devil's advocate...

OneMoreChap · 30/10/2012 15:58

Yes, ToothbrushThief I know you were, sorry if that wasn't clear.

scoobydooisawimp on the other hand was the paedophile spotter, viz. her

Can you guarantee that boys will not be more at risk of sexual abuse in a men's changing room?

ICBINEG · 30/10/2012 16:01

wouldn't it be great if no one was embarrassed about their body and everyone could just get changed wherever and whenever regardless of gender?

Surely it is the very fact that everyone on here thinks that and from the age of 8 onwards a boy should cease to see female bodies in any form other than the pornographic, that leads to staring and obsession by age 11?

If we just had joint changing for all ages this would be a non-existent problem.

OneMoreChap · 30/10/2012 16:10

ICBINEG
Surely it is the very fact that everyone on here thinks that and from the age of 8 onwards a boy should cease to see female bodies in any form other than the pornographic,

First, everyone om here? Don't think so.

Interesting choice of words; I would have thought that boys approaching 10 are becoming increasingly aware of their sexuality and would be interested in sexual differences. I wonder why you chose pornographic rather than sexually?

foreverondiet · 30/10/2012 16:15

YABU - 11 is too old - even if no family changing rooms available old enough to change totally on his own (unless obviously with special needs, although even then not sure its appropriate unless perhaps blind)...

In my gym is up to 8 in female changing room which I think is totally reasonable.

My sister lives abroad and at her gym its up to 2! So you are supposed to send your 3 year old DS into the men's changing rooms on his own - no family changing! Her DS is now 11 so its not a problem for him to change on his own but when he was younger they had to get dressed by the pool and shower at home.

stillsmarting · 30/10/2012 16:19

My DS has Aperger's but this did not stop our local pool from insisting that he use the men's changing room once he was over their stipulated age. My main worry was not sexual predators, but that he would wander round in the nude and forget to get dressed. I used to stand at the door and call "X have you got your clothes on?"
I am not sure they would have made allowances even for a DC with learning dsifficulties to be honest.

ZeldaUpNorth · 30/10/2012 16:43

I couldn't get changed in an all female changing room never mind with a pre-teen boy.
I went to a pool I'd never been to before a while back and nearly had a heart attack when I realised it was open plan. Luckily there was a few cubicles at the back which I used. I'm just a very shy person, though I can change in front of my dds.

exoticfruits · 30/10/2012 19:17

At 10/11 onwards I was going to the pool with my mates, I see unsupervised 10 and 11 year olds unsupervised at our pool too.

Of course they do! At 11 years old you can just drop them off and pick them up.
They couldn't walk into the female changing room alone at 11 yrs so I can't see why they should get away with it just because the mother is with them.