Man in ladies loo (with little daughter)

[CallmePaul]

Hello Mumsnet, 1st poster here.

So I'm the man in question here, my 4yr old girl needed the loo in a big store today, went into the men's, stinky & horrible & the only 1 available cubicle is engaged, the disabled one is locked & my little one is busting.
I opened the ladies door, wow much nicer than the men's! I asked loudly if it was OK if a man came in with his little girl to the loo, got an OK from a cubicle, business attended to.

Washing her & my hands afterwards I got a pretty loud tut & mumble of humph womans toilets, from a lady who just entered, I get it, I'm a bloke in a ladies loos, I really shouldn't be in there.

I've never taken her in the ladies before, always the men's & some pretty nasty loos at times.

So acceptable behaviour from me or was I out of order?

Perfectly fine, you called ahead and then took her in, don’t blame you for not wanting to take her in the men’s. When we go out as a family I am usually designated toilet taker as the men’s is usually grotty.

Sorry if you are offended @CallmePaul . I don't think I'm being antagonist but understand you have taken it differently and you're feeling defensive.

I was not suggesting you're wanting something personally from going in the toilet! I'm questioning your reason for the thread. You said you wanted a female perspective and didn't seem to like many of them. So the conclusion I draw is that you wanted reassurance (validation) that you did the right thing, not a discussion, because if you'd wanted that, then you'd be ok with what I'd said. Even if you disagree.

I haven't said at all that I didn't understand why you took your little girl in there.

Seems like anyone having a different point of view, or challenging someone, is "calling someone out" these days. I don't understand what that means or why it's bad. If we disagree, so be it.

As for @Bubblesoffun ... Banshees and screaming and hysteria... Nice bit of misogyny there! I can recommend some good books about why the patriarchy is bad for everyone if you're interested. Or should I just be a good girl and shut my trap (while having a big glass of wine). 🙈😆

I don't think it was a case of not wanting to use the gents more a case of the cubicle was already in use so he couldn't.
Options
Wait with a desperate child risking 'accident'
Use ladies
Go elsewhere looking for loos again risking 'accident'

YANBU

She was quite a small minded woman.

I wonder what she expected you to do with your 4 year old DD.

I don’t blame you. Personally, I wouldn’t want a little 4 year old boy or girl to have to go into a Gent’s loo, they are usually repulsive.

Wrong, we’ll take our daughter into any toilet and there’s nothing you can do about it 😀

There are barely options for adults on their own who want to use the loo once you factor in broken ones, out-of-order ones, ones where you need to be a customer, ones where there's a queue a mile long and someone taking a decade in there etc. The state of public toilets in this country is a disgrace, which is the problem we should all be shouting about instead of fearmongering about parents needing to take toddlers into them or the absurd transphobia that always lurks around toilet issues here (I am not going to enter into a debate on this so don't bother).

The first time I encountered a man in a ladies' toilet was a dad in a similar situation to the OP and that was about 15 years ago. It was a non-event. I think since then I've encountered one other dad and maybe a couple of male cleaners so there obviously hasn't been any sort of deluge of dads storming women's toilets.

I don't agree. It is more important than ever to protect women's spaces. There are lots of men looking for the flimsiest of reasons to invade women's spaces. OP has already said that he would do it again and has taken no responsibility for preventing a recurrence of the issue.

Evidently such an important principle that some people are prepared for a four year old child to soil herself and have her dignity removed in order to uphold it.

@Soontobe60 @Windywuss

sorry but it’s not misogyny. I’m a woman as well however I will brand all or most of mumsnet as Misandrists… “off to google you go”

Honestly, some of you need to have one of your “ cheeky” massive glasses of white wine and calm, the f down

you go first

Not really. The OP could have sent her in and waited by the door but really the time it takes to check with all the ladies in the loo that they're happy for a man to wander in is not quicker than the time it takes to wait for a cubicle in the men's to be free. This is just another entitled man spinning a yarn which some are falling for.

No you shouldn't have gone in.

You've just expected women to solve your problem by encroaching on their space. What if there was a deaf woman in there or someone who didn't speak English or someone who had recently suffered a rape trauma?

Start a campaign for men to behave in a more civilised fashion in their own toilets so that they're more acceptable.

The OP needs to plan better to prevent recurrence of this situation. It's ridiculous to take the word of a 4 year old that they don't need the loo and then leave it to women to compromise their dignity and privacy to sort out the problem. No one wants a child to crap themselves but our empathy over that should not blind us to the other solutions which existed if the dad chose to take them. Instead he chose the path of least resistance and stuff the women who pay the price.

I suspect they already have.

You are of course entitled to your perspective.

I simply find it depressing that some women are prepared to disregard the needs and personal dignity of very small children to uphold the principle of single sex spaces. I'm entitled to that perspective too.

Internalised misogyny exists! Hating the patriarchy doesn't mean hating men.

4 year olds are not known for being able to hold a 'busting' situation. They often wait until they are about to go to say they need the loo.

Exactly, @literalviolence. As to your last two sentences, this strongly begs the question of why on earth this first-time poster was posting here in the first place. His stated intention is to continue doing it; he doesn't intend to put any measures in place to avoid doing it. In which case, what exactly is the motivation for such a discussion?

Same with the post upthread: 'I'll continue doing it and there's nothing you can do about it'.

Something's eerily familiar about this rap. This is hardly something women have never heard before; in fact it's standard fare for those who persist in pissing all over women's boundaries. Same tone as those who accuse women of being screeching viragos on threads where the OPs are being taken advantage of and abused, and the responses are suddenly flooded with recommendations to 'suffer and be still' in a mode very reminiscent of the Victorian era.

This is the sort of rhetoric that tends to come from a very specific direction.

No one has said the girl can't use the ladies.

I make a point of not drinking on a Monday morning. You know other countries exist right?

You said he could have sent her in alone and waited outside the door. There were many reasons given above why that might not have been possible for such a small child.

Still, you have your views on where the line should be drawn and so have I - and those views are different.

Completely agree with this.

Huh? I don’t see the need for the sarcasm. There are no public toilets left where I live, but I use toilets in cafes, restaurants and pubs regularly, if that’s what you mean? I’ve seen little girls with their Dads in loos occasionally but not often - that’s why I asked the question. I asked my partner and he says he’s never seen any little girls in the men’s. So - back to my question - what do these men actually do? Avoid any place with no individual unisex toilet facility when out with their young daughter? Avoid taking their daughter out alone at all? 🤷🏻‍♀️

Surprisingly my DH managed to take not one but two daughters out frequently to various places, take them into men’s toilets when necessary and not once did he go into the ladies or allowed them to wet themselves.

The OP needs to plan better to prevent recurrence of this situation. It's ridiculous to take the word of a 4 year old that they don't need the loo and then leave it to women to compromise their dignity and privacy to sort out the problem. No one wants a child to crap themselves but our empathy over that should not blind us to the other solutions which existed if the dad chose to take them. Instead he chose the path of least resistance and stuff the women who pay the price
I agree with this.
Plus, unless I'm living my life in a parallel universe, there's regularly queues for the women's facilities.
So it's fine for me as a woman to queue with my children in the women's (with the usual basic parent expectations of not taking a young child's word for it on toilets, making use of pull ups/training pants if they were still having regular accidents or on medication that meant they might struggle with toileting, stopping at regular intervals for toilet trips to check and try rather than waiting until DC get worried they're desperate etc just basic parenting stuff that most mums and a lot of dads do as standard), but not ok for a man to queue for the men's with his child.

To be honest though the whole thing feels off to me from the wow aren't the women's toilets so much nicer to probably doing it again if the same scenario happens, to the endless poo scenarios. Surely the logical response would be saying "it wasn't ideal, but now I know why some women don't want men in single sex spaces, I'll put things in place so it's unlikely to happen again"?