Dad taking dd to ladies toilet

[AdaHopper]

MN - help dh and I with a disagreement please.

When dd(4) needs the loo in a public place, he takes her to the ladies' loos. I told him that women don't like that and he should take her to the men's loo. Aibu or is he?

But a child is a choice. You can choose to have the child, or choose not to. People fight for pro-CHOICE. You choose whether to procreate or not.

Having a disability is NOT a choice.

The two are not comparable.

That is absolutely not true. Generally speaking women in the UK have the choice but you certainly cannot say that for all women.
Perhaps as the Daily Fail have latched on I won’t go into fertility control as a pattern of DV and perhaps off topic as that doesn’t make it ok to use disabled toilets.

I suppose because of the work I do I just can’t see the assumption that all women have a choice being made and fail to challenge it sorry.

I think I’m coining a new term - ablesplaining. Able bodied people explaining disabilities to disabled people. It’s happening on this thread.

At the risk of sounding patronising can I implore people who are able bodied and use disabled toilets to listen to the people on this thread who can only use them. Yes, that’s you people with double buggies. No you do NOT need to used the disabled toilets. In fact I bet my bottom dollar that if you took a double buggy somewhere with no disabled loo you’d find a way to use the toilet. Something many disabled people don’t have the privilege of doing.

He's just not thinking of women/girls who might feel uncomfortabel

I think this goes for a lot of men OP. They don’t have the foggiest, and I have no problem telling them/

Do you really think the people who saying don’t use the disabled toilets are not aware of hidden disabilities? I have crohn’s and sometimes I use a wheelchair.

Of course but I was referring to the poster who says she frequently has to queue because entitled mothers with buggies are using the loo. How does she know that that person is not entitled to use it? The point is we don't know and Asda has included within its definition people with anxiety and social phobias too. It is far, far broader than the blue badge definition.

Anyway, I am not saying that having a child is a disability or anything like being a disability but where you have a person who cannot physically access the ordinary toilets because she has twins in a buggy and is on her own, it is unfair to simply say 'well you chose to have kids' and that she cannot use an accessible toilet. As someone else pointed out, it might not even be an un-coerced choice.

Pregnancy is another condition that may lead to someone needing to use disabled facilities (not always but sometimes brings on other conditions like severe back pain). That is a disability, but are you saying it is a chosen one? Are the morbidly obese who cannot fit into a cubicle also disabled by 'choice'? It's too stark a line to say that inability to fit into a cubicle due to 2 babies is chosen but that disability is not so the first person cannot use the accessible toilet.

Sorry but the majority of women in the UK who are out in supermarkets and other places using disabled toilets because of their buggy size have made that choice.

Wild, if you have disabilities, invisible or not, buggy or not, you are entitled to use the disabled toilet.

If you do not have disabilities, you are not.

It really is that simple.

Regardless of the ‘parenting is a choice’ (as said before I don’t like that phrase but it is of course not comparable with having a disability), people with buggies do not need to use disabled toilets. I gave three perfectly good and do-able options below.

Yes, that’s you people with double buggies. No you do NOT need to used the disabled toilets. In fact I bet my bottom dollar that if you took a double buggy somewhere with no disabled loo you’d find a way to use the toilet

How though if the buggy physically does not fit? You could say the same for some, not all, disabilities (ie finding a way if no other facilities). (I would never ever expect that of a disabled person though). If a mum goes to the toilet and is in there for several minutes, should she leave her babies unattended in a busy toilet for that time? Should she be forced to go to the toilet (possibly more than a wee IYSWIM) with the door open? It would be good to get some practical guidance on what is expected.

I think what wild is trying to say is that you can't tell if someone is 'allowed' to use an accessible toilet or not by looking.

One of my friends is disabled and has a radar key. If she is out with her kids then she'll bring them in the cubicle with her. She already gets fed up with thr number of times people have tutted or given her filthy looks as she emerges (which I can only imagine is like when people on MN act like bloody toilet royalty and are annoyed whrn they have to wait). She ignores them because she knows she has done nothing wrong. One of these days I can see her losing it with the some idiot self-appointed needs judge.

People who use them when they shouldn't take the piss.
Equally, people who think the toilet should be free for them on demand and then judge people for their 'worthyness' are also taking the piss.

Wild, if you have disabilities, invisible or not, buggy or not, you are entitled to use the disabled toilet

Yes, I do get that. But if the toilet also doubles up as a changing facility (as many do), you can use the toilet or let your older child use the toilet after changing your baby.

Also, this is a moral entitlement, because there is no law against using a disabled toilet when you are not disabled (it is just heavily frowned upon and rightly so).

*@TheDevilMadeMeDoIt

I understand the conflict, but I would rather a father in the ladies - individual cubicles - than a four year old girl being taken into the gents with no idea what she might see. (And I've wandered into the gents accidentally a couple of times, they're not nice places! Smelly, grubby.....)*

^^^this

Yes, if the toilet is the only place with a unit to change a baby, it's shared. I don't think it should be, but it is.

I'm curious as to what those with double buggies do if the disabled toilet is in use, or there is no disabled toilet? Do you wet yourself? Or do you find a solution?

Why is a smelly toilet any better for a four year old boy than girl!

Agreed Maisy. Until my disability worsened, mine was invisible. I have experienced issues with people having a go at me for using the disabled toilet. I offer to show them things they wouldn't want to see and they soon shuffle off, suitably embarrassed.

I have MS. I would frown more on a grown man taking his dd into a specifically female area - the ladies ‘ room- than I would a grown man taking his dd into the disabled toilet.

No problem whatsoever with a man taking his small daughter into the ladies toilet. Ive been in this situation and was asked if it was ok and I didn’t think twice, It in no way opens the floodgates for other men to come in it’s very clear that this scenario is different to a lone male wanting to use the ladies toilet for whatever reason.

Why is a smelly toilet any better for a four year old boy than girl!

Sadly I don’t think any of those who couldn’t allow their precious daughter in the nasty men’s room will actually answer this question.

@Primaryteach87 I really hope you aren't a Primary teacher. Your attitude is discriminatory and morally horrific. As another poster wrote - Kids aren't some free pass to do what the fuck you like.

I had no idea people actually got shirty about women using the baby changing facilities in a disabled toilet. Where else am I supposed to safely change my baby?

It's not my fault that the establishment has chosen to put the change mat in the disabled toilet?

So what we learn again is that men can do what the hell they like when they like. A man has no place going into female toilets, female child or not. Why is the mens ok for a boy but not a girl they too have cubicles. Kid could use the ladies alone when the dad waits outside.

any male between aged 1-12 is bordelrine perverted for using the female toilets????

We are talking about children not sex offenders though, surely? I accept a very strong teenage boy could commit a sexual assault but a child not yet gone through puberty?

Love the language of some of the mums on here dread to see how they leave the ladies toilets .

I had no idea people actually got shirty about women using the baby changing facilities in a disabled toilet. Where else am I supposed to safely change my baby?

I don’t think people actually do. If that is where the baby changing is that is a different matter. That is a lazy establishment.
It still doesn’t help those disabled people who perhaps have had an accident in the meantime and/or are forced to go home to sort themselves out.

We need to start suing shops and shopping centres for not having daddy-daughter toilets. That'll teach them.