AIBU to think if boys in changing room bother you, use the private cubicle

[starfish2020]

So to clarify, I have a boy with special needs and there is no way I can send him alone to the men’s
They only have male-female changing areas which is annoying.
They have 1 just 1 disabled changing room, which is usually needed by a person who has mobility problems in a wheelchair etc.
Someone today complained and the staff came to ask me how olds my boy is and why is he in female changing room?!
Well he has special needs and although he looks about 10/11 he is only 8 and mentally probably even lower.
My issues is this. There are single changing cubicles and the women who object to my boy seeing them naked can use those. Why do they prounce around but naked if it bothers them. I can’t fit in the cubicle with him and help him to dry/change it’s just not big enough.
So who is being unreasonable?!
Me who WILL keep bringing my boy with ME to female changing room, or the people who complain about it considering there are private cubicles available for them to use, they just choose not to.
Mumsnet wisdom needed

You are most welcome starfish. I hope you are having a better day today with your lovely boy.

I don't know if it would be of interest of if there is any available group/service in your area, but it might be worth looking at Rebound Therapy? This is a service which uses trampolines to help with balance/co-ordination etc with children with disabilities. These are professional trampolines so a bit more springy and less "solid" than the type we more typically have in domestic gardens.

It's not something I've used but I know someone who runs this local to me (Scotland) and I would think that there must be similar elsewhere. Not that I am saying stop the swimming, just that this may be something that might be of interest/benefit as well.

I think people are coming from this at different angles. The OP isn’t a teenager, she’s an angry, frustrated mother of a boy with extra needs who attends a pool with terrible facilities. Everyone agrees. Everyone has sympathy. It’s a crap situation.
But the OP could articulate that if she chose to. She’s not lashing out like a teenager. She is a grown up who can understand her emotions. And she’s clearly very articulate.
She completely agrees that she will need to find new facilities or solutions in 10 months (but has no interest in hearing any suggestions right now, that’s fine). Her problem is getting angry with someone who thought her son was breaking the age rules. I still feel she was being unreasonable because she says her son looks like he was breaking the age rules. So completely fair enough to me. Nothing whatsoever at all to do with his extra needs, merely his age.
If she was asking should she get leeway on the age rules because of his disabilities, it would be a different thread.
If she was giving out about lack of facilities for those with disabilities , different thread too.
There’s no need to speak as if I don’t have utmost compassion for carers. I have my own struggles with a child with hidden needs, and have had cause in a different role to go swimming with a disabled person. But I don’t agree that we get angry with someone who mis guesses a boys age.

I think I said earlier mice, I have next to no experience with disabilities and am a pretty ordinary average person, I probably am nowhere near "getting it" but at least I'm prepared to try. I'm not the most tolerant person on earth (or even in my house!) and I've been a bit shouty from time to time especially when I was a very tired working mother to two small boys but it doesn't take a huge amount of understanding and compassion really does it? It's really no more than holding a door open to help someone with a buggy get through or getting a packet from a top shelf in a supermarket for someone who cant reach. It takes moments to make a difference to someone, sometimes that moment to help is simply not being an arsehole for once.

Rules, I think the OP is asking for a bit of empathy!

Waxon ❤️

It takes moments to make a difference to someone, sometimes that moment to help is simply not being an arsehole for once

You might not have a disabled child/adult. Threads like this are worth it, for people like you ❤️X

Slaney you are really not getting this. you can't compartmentalise these things into different boxes to make it more convenient. Each of the things has a cause and effect on the others. You also can't just remove relevant parts and say if things were different they would be a different thread. Yes, each of these scenarios might get a different response individually but they didn't happen in isolation.

We also all don't go round being rational and analytical of our own emotions while we are in the midst of them. it's not always easy to see the wood for the trees.

As an example, a friend of mine committed suicide. For quite a while I was really angry with her. I was angry because she "chose" to do this and devastate her family and also deprive them and us, her friends, of her company. It took me quite a while to accept and understand that she wasn't selfish and was instead a very ill woman who felt she had reached the end of her tether and thought she was doing the best she could for everyone. She was wrong, she'd needed help, then I felt guilt that maybe I could have noticed, maybe I could have helped. Again this was misplaced as actually she was a clever woman, she didn't want people to know. Now I feel sad about how things turned out but glad that I knew her. You can't always help how you feel or how you react and I would say I'm a pretty rational person.

But I took her at face value as she was asking a compartmentalized question.

Aww shucks, thanks @Shedmicehugh1

Slaney

How it works is that you start at the beginning of the thread and then you read through and find that further details are added and further emotions are expressed and you take that into consideration. There was at least one poster who started off being confrontational back at the OP in a few posts and then actually read on and then apologised for being shitty and was then really supportive. That was a brave thing to do and it showed the power of these threads to make a difference and change hearts and minds. You still keep referring back to the OP and can't seem to move on.

I get how difficult it is ‘not to be an arsehole’ my DH can be one too and he should ‘get it’!

My train lift to station analogy was him I am patient, I’m understanding, i have rights, I’m only asking for 10 minutes!

It’s the circumstances of those ‘10 minutes’ that is crucial. Like this thread, you can be patient and understanding of disabilities, of course you have rights, choosing when to implement them is key!

Agreed, we all have arsehole moments. I was one the other day for asking my DS2 if he was still having the chicken when the waitress arrived to take our lunch order. Apparently it was embarrassing . I only asked as I was having the chicken too so I thought it would be less awkward to say we wanted two than each order the same meal one after the other....but what do I know?

DH was one on monday for leaving the bedroom window open when he went to work and I was off for the bank holiday. A great big loud bumble bee got in and was trapped between the curtains and the window and couldn't get out. so that was me up at 7.30am on my day off!

DS1 was one last week for managing to eat the whole of a 1.13kg jar of peanut butter and still lose 2lbs even though he doesn't need to lose weight.

I take back my earlier compliment! You chicken orderer, bumble bee arsehole! grin]

I don’t know what I need to move in from though. I agree on EVERY point people have raised re: lack of facilities , how hard it is to deal with that every day, etc. that doesn’t mean I have to agree she can get angry with everyone around her without her being unreasonable. And of course she is ALLOWED to be unreasonable every now and again. We all are. And I think she was here. It doesn’t make me a bad or uncompassionate person.

now I look like an arsehole for only [grin

That's you and me both shed

Slaney i'm done. I've hit my head of the keyboard so much now I have "qwerty" as a temporary forehead tattoo.

Shed, Wax I love the ❤️ situation!!!!!

Slaney: you have no emotions, it's simple, not sure what you're still discussing about, you just have no heart, for you it's black and white.Not only you, there are a few others in this thread, but you do insist, you just don't let go. Really really hope that if you're ever in need help, you don't come across yourself, cause you're screwed !

I have no emotions!!! You know nothing about me then. You’ve completely changed my mind, the OP should be free to be angry with everyone who crosses her path and rage at every transgression. And if she even doubts herself and and asks if she’s being unreasonable we will all back her up.

This thread is disgraceful and should be deleted. Some of you should be ashamed of yourselves with your ignorant attitudes towards a disabled child.
Anybody can give birth to a disabled child including any posters on here.....think on. I was 29 when I gave birth to my DS, he has Down Syndrome, it was not detected whilst I was pregnant.
Like I said in my earlier post most people do NOT UNDERSTAND the daily stress that caring for a child with special needs brings.
Your kids were all probably toilet trained by the age of 3, I’ve been toilet training my DS for 10 years now, every day for the last 12 years I’ve wiped poop off his bum, it gets tiring and tedious and frustrating.
My DS is non verbal, he uses sign when he feels like it or he just gets frustrated and hits either me or himself.
He hasn’t got the strength in his hands to cut up his own food with a knife and fork.
He has never slept through the night, I’ve got up to him every night at least once for 12 years.
He can’t read or write and never will.
He doesn’t understand dangers in the world around him despite myself and his wonderful teachers trying so hard.
He will never get a job.
He will never marry and have children.
When I die he will have to be cared for by others who may abuse him.
The endless hospital stays with something as minor as a chest or ear infection.
I adore my DS but having a disabled child sometimes feels like a prison sentence. I have NO freedom, I have no respite because so many services have been cut.
People look down on me because we live solely on benefits, the nearest special needs childminder is 30 miles away, I would love to go out to work and have the 9-5 drudge of work that people moan about.
Friends have fallen by the wayside.
It’s a lonely, empty world sometimes.
To all the small minded posters bleating on about how a young disabled boy would upset their precious daughter in a changing room get a fucking grip and learn to have a little compassion.
I think I’m done with MN. This thread has infuriated me that much.

Drainedandconfused

Drained
Please don’t leave for this thread

Your post really laid it out how hard it is for you and others . This is why MN teaches people

Thanks