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AIBU?

Share your dilemmas and get honest opinions from other Mumsnetters.

Original poster

Mother upsets daughter changing for swimming

207 replies

Twig45 · 13/01/2017 16:55

AIBU please tell me if I am but at swimming lessons with 2 of my ds in woman's changing rooms which has lots of cubicles. One mother is completely starkers at the lockers ( she is big lady so taking up a lot of room) she is getting dressed and shouting at her daughter who is over the other side with her back turned. Daughter is about 10 and is shouting mum you are so embarrassing there is loads of cubicles and everyone is staring. Mum is shouting it is you making everyone stare with your constant whining about everything. Everyone is staring because of the noise and because she is completely starkers and not even starting to get dressed AIBU to think this poor daughter was absolutely embarrassed and humiliated.

OP posts:
Imamouseduh · 14/01/2017 19:28

It's a changing room FGS of course it's ok to be naked in there.

themummyreturnsAGAIN · 14/01/2017 19:33

I've never seen a naked person in the changing room or shower at a swimming pool. People have a shower in their costumes then get changed by the bench or in a cubicle.
I prefer to have a shower when I get home as the showers get full up .
I used to be embarrassed by my mum when she would call me into the bathroom to ask me to get something for her, but that past once I grew up.
I used to hate getting changed in front of people but again that passed as i grew up.
By the way has anyone been to a Moroccan hamam and been scrubbed by a naked lady?

Gwenhwyfar · 14/01/2017 20:10

"They should try going to a poolside barbecue with Dutch, German, Swedish, and Belgian people. About 20 in total, mostly not known to each other, ages ranging from 12 up to mid 60s, very few in the best shapes of their lives.

It would be considered quite normal to all strip off in front of each other"

I can agree with the others, but that's not my impression of Belgians after 10 years living there. They're more comfortable with nudity than we are, but nothing like Germans or Scandinavians. Some Belgians go to spas that tend to have better facilities in the 'naked section' than the swimming costume one, but by no means are they all comfortable with it.

They do let men in to women's changing rooms in shops on the basis that everyone is inside a cubicle.

QuimReaper · 15/01/2017 12:04

Oh Clary I'm so pleased you're so excited and so glad I could help! There is indeed also a mixed and a Men's pond but the Ladies one is much the nicest. (OK, I haven't obviously been to the Men's pool, but the Ladies one is wonderful!)

I keep seeing you on threads and meaning to ask if your name is a Cazalet reference...?

ClaryIsTheBest · 15/01/2017 12:56

quim :) The stuff I found in it online makes it sound really wonderful
Now I just have to make time for going:) I hope I can go next weekend.

No... it actually isn't a Cazalet reference. Clary is one of DD's nicknames (my favourite English nn of hers) :)

I've actually never thought of that (although DH has just told me he did but didn't mind. Oops Blush).

myfavouritecolourispurple · 15/01/2017 13:13

And I really don't understand folks who do that, get starkers at the pool and gym when there is cubicles there. I am not inhibited about being naked, but I don't get naked in front of strangers and I'd really rather not catch a glimpse of someone's bare ass or genitalia. Seriously. If it's there and free, use a fucking cubicle

This. I go swimming and I am the only one who gets changed in a cubicle. Am I unreasonably prudish? I don't think most bodies are particularly pretty though, least of all mine.

llangennith · 15/01/2017 13:19

I'm a fat Gran who takes DGC swimming every week and they'd be justifiably mortified if I behaved like that. Not that I ever would!Grin

llangennith · 15/01/2017 13:22

Clary lovely though the Hampstead Heath Ponds are they are absolutely freezing!

ClaryIsTheBest · 15/01/2017 13:43

langennith

How freezing? I mean, according to this there won't be any ice chunks and stuff, right? (And it's currently not cold enough for this anyway)

www.jellybaby.net/ponds.html

Do they have a hairdryer or a place to plug in my own? Plans would need to be made if they don't....

Natsku · 15/01/2017 13:47

I find the fear of naked people in changing rooms rather silly but then I think back to being ten years old and realise I probably would have been very embarrassed too. But embarrassed or not, the daughter had no right to shame her mother for being naked.

Frankly I think its much better when there aren't any cubicles and everyone is naked, it shows children how people are all different shapes and sizes, how common stretchmarks and scars and other things are so hopefully they will be less embarrassed and self-conscious about their bodies as they grow up and get the unsightly bits and bobs. I'm glad my DD sees so many different naked bodies (at the local pool and sauna obviously, not generally seeing naked bodies just around!), I hope it will help her to grow up with a healthy body image and self-esteem and confidence in herself.

Natsku · 15/01/2017 13:50

I swam in 1 degree lake water once, lots of ice floating about. Couldn't feel my arms and legs after a few minutes! Which wasn't good as I had stupidly swam really far out and needed to swim back.

ClaryIsTheBest · 15/01/2017 13:54

natsuku

I personally agree, plus, I tend to see the sauna and then a naked jump in a lake as good and just awesome (? Like, not sexualised ornaughty or illicit or anything, just normal and also ok to do as a family activity).

But I think it depends on whether you see nudity as inherently sexual, maybe?

Beebeeeight · 15/01/2017 13:57

My thought would've that she's from another culture that doesn't have British nudity anxiety.

Natsku · 15/01/2017 14:00

Sauna and naked jump in the lake is the best, makes you feel really good. In the absence of a handy lake then sauna and then going into a really really cold shower works well. Or what me and DD love, is sitting in the sauna and pouring ice cold water over each other's heads Grin

ClaryIsTheBest · 15/01/2017 14:06

natsuku

That sounds really neat! Sauna and then snowy stuff is cool as well. Or icy lakes. (But yes, icy lakes aren't for swimming away from the exit...)

DD is currently wayyy too young for the sauna (she's a baby).

Natsku · 15/01/2017 14:10

DD started going to the sauna at two weeks old (very short visits at that age of course)

RonaldMcDonald · 15/01/2017 14:15

YABU - you should have been more supportive of a woman with a whiny kid. I would imagine that you made your disapproval felt

I do think a large part of your post has to be about her being fat and naked.

We especially have to support other women who are different than ourselves otherwise we are simply a pack of bleating mean girls

They are just bodies

I cannot imagine being a fat woman wanting to exist in this world if this is the support I'd get
She was in an all woman's space. To be completely naked there, after swimming, makes complete sense. We need to honour that right.

I am a 10, a muscly, tall, scrawny at times, 10.
You would never have posted this about me

I hope you have learned from this and I hope the other mum is joyously naked next week.

ApocalypseNowt · 15/01/2017 16:03

Ok. I think i've got it. She was naked and large not fat but getting in the way of people using the lockers while drying herself and getting dressed while shouting across the room into her daughter's face who was crying and shouting back.

I don't think she sounds unreasonable. She sounds like a multi-tasker.

Anyhoo back to the point. How old are your sons OP?

ClaryIsTheBest · 15/01/2017 17:45

The OP's sons? I think I must have missed some kind of update.
Is that the issue here?

WankingMonkey · 15/01/2017 18:41

I would probably expect to see nudity in a changing room..unless it was one of the mixed family ones in which case I would not really expect to see naked adults strutting their stuff

I personally wouldn't do it. I have got changed in communal places before with no changing room, and I couldn't get over my shyness and ended up getting changed in the small toilet instead..which is silly really as noone would have paid any attention to me.

However, I would have been equally horrified I think as a child seeing my mother naked in a public area. Even in a changing room.

Noone is being unreasonable tbh, except there was no need for the shouting match really

WankingMonkey · 15/01/2017 18:42

I have got changed in communal places before with no cubicle*

BlueHumbug · 15/01/2017 20:35

I do get changed in front of everyone in a changing room. What's wrong with it? The cubicles are usually showers or toilers and I'm not going to risk getting my clothes dirty by changing there.

AvaCrowder · 15/01/2017 21:12

I'm ok with my own and other peoples nudity in areas like changing rooms and saunas. I don't go to look just to use the space in an appropriate manner. My 10yo dd is the same.

My dh did see a naked lady today drying herself between the showers and the changing room. He told me in a very neutral way, like I think he was surprised at her being comfortable with it, but not that she was wrong.

Gwenhwyfar · 15/01/2017 22:21

"And I really don't understand folks who do that, get starkers at the pool and gym when there is cubicles there."

Well, usually there are benches with hooks and some cubicles so you can choose to use either. I'd prefer cubicles, but would be embarrassed to use them as it would show how prudish I am. It's a bit like saying I'm special and nobody should see my body.

On the other hand, while I wouldn't complain about it, I don't understand total nudity either. If I was taking a swimming costume off I'd have a towel around me and nobody would see me totally naked. I think people who walk naked from the shower are exhibitionists. They're carrying towels anyway, they'll be cold so why don't they wrap the towel around them?

Natsku · 16/01/2017 06:58

I walk naked to the shower but not back from it, because yeah, might as well wrap up with my towel to warm me up and start drying me.