Dad in women's loo .

[HappyDays40]

I have been to the loo in Mc Donald's and was mid flow when a dad walks in with his daughters aged about 4 and 6.He stands waiting while his daughters are using the toilet. I came out and said you are not supposed to be in here.
He said he had to take his daughters to the loo and I told him that he needed to either wait outside or take them the mens. He said they don't need to see that and I told him that he shouldn't be hanging round in women's toilets for any reason. His sense of entitlement gave me the rage so I told a member of staff. I can only imagine how triggering that could be for some women. Intrusive fucker.

should not

I wouldn't be bothered by this and I would rather have young girls use the ladies than the mens toilet. Maybe the disabled toilet would have been a better option but I expect someone would have been offended by this also.

@Mally100 but what about the rights and safety of young girls who are using the women’s toilets unaccompanied, only for a man to lurk in there? You’ve assumed everyone else in the women’s toilets is a fully grown woman, which isn’t necessarily true. What about the 9 year old girls dealing with their first periods- maybe having to find sanpro or clean themselves up when periods start unpredictably- don’t they have a right to safeguarding and privacy?

The safety of those children takes priority over my desire to have a women-only space. Women can hurt kids too. I'm glad he was looking out for them!!!

I completely agree!

YABVU

All toilets have signs saying both male and female cleaners could be cleaning them so if you think men are such a danger then it’s more important that girls are escorted.

It is extremely rare that a women is assaulted in a public toilet by a dad of a child.

What’s less rare is a young child getting assaulted by a male or female because they went in unattended.

Right? It bums me out that so many people don't think this

@Natty13 don't let it get to you 💐. My dad must be a pervert too then for taking me into the mens changing rooms when I was around 5 and allowing me to see all the penises.

But they can still enter when a woman is already in there in mid-flow, the fact they’re carrying a sign doesn’t make it any different for the OPs scenario.

I’m a man who actively chose to have a child as a singleton. No wife work in this home.

"Hysterical"? That's a very telling insult when it comes to us discussing womens rights. Do you know where that misogynist insult comes from? The origin of it I mean.

"Lurk" what are you, a tabloid newspaper? The man clearly wasn't lurking, he was waiting for his children

They don’t do that.
They wait until it’s empty.

@Natty13 no, your brother shouldn’t be going into the womens toilets to change the baby’s nappy. If there is no separate baby change (often it’s in the accessible toilet, which is enclosed) then he needs to speak to the staff in the establishment to organise an appropriate space.

The safety of all girls and women is promoted by excluding men entirely from women's spaces.

I can't believe the short-sightedness of some parents on here. The 4 or 5 year old you insist on accompanying to the women's toilets despite being male is going to be the 7 or 8 year old going in by herself in a few years. And then you've played your part in normalising adult males (and let's face it, the vast majority of sex abusers are adult males) going into the space which your girl is using alone, without any adult to protect her.

Girls are not unsafe if accompanied into the men's toilets by a male parent. And statistically they're most unsafe in female-only spaces due to men entering those spaces when they're alone without a parent.

I don't know where you live but these are the standard urinals in every western country across the world. That's why they're called urinals. It's a long floor-length drain that flushes every now and then.

Nope she clearly doesn’t.
She also clearly has no concept of women’s rights, SSS or why we have them in the first place.

But let’s normalise men in the ladies shall we?

There's no ideal solution to this other than a family toilet which I guess this McDonald's didn't have. On balance i would say the dad going in the women's is probably better than making little girls go in the men's? Neither ideal though.

Again, the chances that a dad with his 4 and 6 yr old daughters by his side and helping them use the toilet is also going assault a another woman or girl is zero. He’s not “lurking” in there. There is no safety risk to other women and girls in this scenario.

Sensible solution would have been for him to use the disabled or baby change toilet. Would be surprised if MCD didn't have one

Men look after children a lot more now a days and this is a good thing. We need more family loos and changing rooms.

They just don’t see it Hippo.
I’ve said the same thing, a few times now.

It’s how abuse and attacks more generally happen. By normalising things that shouldn’t be so.

That's why if he was genuine he'd be waiting outside the entrance. Not inside it.

@FiveNineFive any other small children using the women’s toilets wouldn’t necessarily know that though.

It’s not only the children accompanied by a parent who have rights.

No they don’t. I was just in a place yesterday and a male cleaner was cleaning cubicles in pairs while we women came in, did our business and left in the other cubicles. I’ve also been in a toilet when they come in. They come in and announce their presence and then start cleaning.

He should have taken them into the men's. A man with daughters is not an accessibility issue, unless one of them is in nappies.

They can say what they like but local policy does not trump the law.
While I don't agree with people using accessible toilets for reasons other than access reasons, if there is no other option a male can take a child to one of those.
It baffles me that an organisation could think safeguarding for one group of children should be flushed down the toilet in favour of another.

Unfortunately it is not about saying what they like, it is about doing what they like. So if a foster carer breaks the guidelines that the local authority set down, then the children would be removed from their care. And they frequently do, causing far more harm to the child than can be imagined. I actually know of a family where this exact scenario happened. And of course social services can remove a child from it's foster carers for minor reasons or no reasons at all, and there is no come back. So even if I do not personally agree with these guidelines and would not have followed them with my own child, I would always follow them to keep the children loved and safe in my care. Even if against the law - although I admit I do not know the law.

Social services consider the safeguarding and rights of the looked after children way above the safeguarding of any other child - including the foster carer's own children. Never quite sure if that is right or wrong, and some ridiculous circumstances do arise that leave me tearing my hair out. But we still have to do as they say and this toilet issue is one of them.