To have shouted at a stranger at the pool?

[Fullmooncomfort]

I’m still mulling this over so needed some opinions from you wise owls. The fact I’m still thinking about it makes me think I probably did the wrong thing 😖

scenario: busy pool today with Dd8 and her friend, we had just into a family cubicle to change after a nice swim. Changing rooms were busy and in high demand which is normal for weekend family swim time. We’d been in there for a couple of mins (so just at the stage I’m half dressed with dripping wet hair and the girls are wrapped up in towels slowly starting to dry off). The door to the cubicle gets banged on really loudly so I ignored it assuming someone had the wrong cubicle. However when it happened again really loudly I said “it’s occupied, won’t be too long” and the person on the other side started shouting about a jacket and rattling the door. The knocking and rattling of
the door continued and got louder and this girls started to get upset so I opened it a crack to say I think you’ve got the wrong cubicle, and a very red faced angry woman started shouting at me saying I’d taken her cubicle and stolen her daughter’s jacket 🤷‍♀️I had to speak loudly as she was literally just ranting and I said I think you have the wrong cubicle, it’s me and 2 girls and we are changing so please step away and you are welcome to come in when we are done but there’s nothing it in apart from our stuff.
She then put her hand on the door and continued to shout about a jacket, saying she needed to come in and check as I had clearly moved her clothes out of it and stolen the cubicle and jacket. I finally lost my temper and shouted back (I know that was wrong but it was awful, the girls were upset and she had her hand on the door so I couldn’t shut and lock it) and she started really yelling at me. I didn’t know what to do so asked loudly if security was around (lots of wide eyed parents standing who did nothing but not a lifeguard in sight as they were poolside and no security as they of course would normally have no reason to patrol a kids changing area)
She then screamed that I was racist and she was calling security on me for theft 🤷‍♀️🤷‍♀️🤷‍♀️and walked off, so I went back in to reassure the girls, having locked the door.
Next thing I know a lifeguard of about 17 who looked confused knocked on the door and said a lady had come to complain that her daughter’s expensive jacket had been stolen and I had been racist towards her. I felt really upset (I think just shock) and managed to wobble out the above story and that I was finishing getting the girls ready and we would come out and she could check it for this jacket (that clearly wasn’t in there). Then a security guard arrived so it was chaotic at this point, it all got repeated and she said she would try and find the women. She came back after a few minutes to say she’d spoken to her and told her she should have been polite and waited for us to exit before going in to check if the coat was in there, but that she had denied raising her voice and said that I had been deliberately goading and obstructive and racist. I got quite upset and said I certainly wasn’t racist or goading and while I did stop her entering the cubicle it was only because the girls were naked and we had just started getting changed. She sort of shrugged and nodded and walked off and I gathered up my things and we left. I feel awful for having lost my temper and shouted at her and for security, which scared the girls more, but I simply lost my rag after repeated attempts to ask her to wait while
we finished changing, and then she was so aggressive. I’ve had to explain to the girls what racist means and how It was nothing to do with race, but I’m mortified my DD and her friend saw me raise my voice and shout at her to move away from the civil cubicle. WWYHD in that situation? My gut tells me I handled it badly but it was all so sudden and intense and I think my fear turned into anger ☹️

"The poster who used the phrase "the race card" ought to be ashamed of herself - it implies that people making false accusations of racism is a widespread phenomenon - which undermines the reality that in fact, racism is the widespread phenomenon."

I would say that the people who should be ashamed for undermining (the no doubt many) genuine victims of racism are those who cynically fabricate accusations of racism to try to get their own way (i.e. Changing Room Lunatic). Not those, like this poster, who point out that this is what they're doing (using a pithy phrase or not).

You might find it uncomfortable that people do this, and also find it unhelpful the rates at which it is done (my own experience is, although as you say not as common as racism itself, it is not vanishingly rare either) - and so do I. But it's no good trying to shut down acknowledgment of the fact it does happen as a recognisable phenomenon. It simply breeds more resentment, greivance and sense of unfairness when one type of bad behaviour is not allowed to be acknowledged.

Well, I don't know what it is like these days, as all of my children are now adults, but when I was a child at school - we had a school swimming pool in the grounds of the (secondary age) school - we were all expected to shower naked and get changed back into our uniforms in a single sex changing room.

The P. E. (Physical Education) teacher used to be in there with us all of the time, telling us to hurry up, etc. I would have much preferred my best friend's mother to be attending to us there, than the teacher who none of us knew personally, and who we, therefore, had no idea about, including her personality and predilections...

This is the problem that ‘changing villages’ rather than female changing rooms cause tbh. The mother of the child will have decided it’s less of a safeguarding risk to have her child in with the family rather than on her own in a cubicle where random men are free to walk around.

I don't think you did anything wrong, including having your DD's friend in with you. Can you imagine if she had been in a cubicle on her own with that woman banging on the door and screaming? She'd have probably been evicted bodily from the cubicle in a state of undress while the woman ransacked it looking for the jacket.

oh that must have been so horrible for you and your kids, I’m sorry you’ve experienced similar ☹️

i definitely had no idea of her race as it all started with the door shut and locked. Her rattling, banging and shouting at the door and then more when I opened it were what I found intimidating, not the colour of her skin.

More fool her for buying an expensive jacket for a child

You did nothing wrong. The woman sounds like a nutjob and incredibly manipulative. It's not on to behave like a nightmare and then pull the race card when people respond accordingly. It devalues the problem of actual racism when people cry racist for no reason. Well done for protecting your girls.

There are lots of lockers - always one free, not the same with the busy cubicles. So I’m guessing she’d left her stuff in one and someone had moved it out in order to change and break the “hogging” of a changing room for the whole session. Someone earlier in this thread explained this better than I am. And that does come with the risk that your stuff is vulnerable to being taken.

I think both of these things are true- am certainly not going to deny that rascism remains a big problem which a lot of people experience and shouldn't have to.

However, the race card is most definitely a thing- I've been involved in an imcident or two over the years where race had absolutely no relevance what-so-ever, but the other party started accusations of rascism in a bid to get their own way. (In a really nasty one which I still feel shaken about 20 years later, a older receptionist went to my boss and accused me (a student work placement) of being racist - my crime was politely asking her to arrange to order a printer, which someone else had asked me to do as it was her job. She had a reputation for being snarky with young female staff members, and so it was written off quickly, but left me in tears and going over and over every interaction I'd ever had with her for weeks on end to try to work out whether I had ever done or said anything insensitive- I've genuinely never been able to come with anything apart from me being polite).

In the same way, as I've gone through life, I've also seen people play the mental health card to get out of disciplinary action and someone who repeatedly attempted to play a female/motherhood discrimination card because I couldn't bend a policy to give her what she wanted- she just wanted everything to bend to her will without any compromise at all.

Many of us will have multiple experiences of people who attempt to force a situation by playing whatever card they have to manipulate the other party.

Absolutely, rascism is a major issue alongside misogyny, homophonic etc etc, but unfortunately there will also always be people who will "play the card" in situations where they are in the wrong- and the worst part is they end up undermining their own cause by doing it as well as it means "playing the race card" is now a recognised phrase which could downplay actual rascism.

I know you didn't. Overall as I said originally, you had the girls in with you. You were feeling scared / vulnerable and wanted to just keep them safe and get dressed. Hopefully you are reassured that most people would have felt and reacted the same. I just balance it a little by trying to find some empathy for the other person rather than others suggesting they are 'deranged' and 'playing the race card' etc

You seem to be overly concerned about shouting in front of your children. There is nothing wrong with shouting at appropriate times.

If you feel you were being attacked and wanted to assert your presence, why shouldn't you shout?

My local everyone active has this set up. I should image most swimming pools do. Can't understand why you don't know what a cubicle is. It's a private changing room you just use to change. You do not store your clothes in it.

Oh give over. I’d of told her to fuck right off and given her a hard shove. How’s that for handling it badly? 😂

Served her right if something got nicked, then.

There are only a few cubicles at my David Lloyd (I don’t do ‘communal’ changing) and more than once someone has ‘bagged’ one by leaving their things inside. I’ve been tempted to take them out and stick them in an empty locker, but have resisted so far!

But a neighbour who works at the front desk of the local police station told me the other day that they regularly have complaints about thefts from the DL changing rooms.

Mobile phone

Your literally in a cubicle not the pool unless you leave your phone in the car 🤷‍♀️ I always shove mine in my locker so it would be with me when I was getting changed

Sounds as if she did indeed have the wrong cubicle. Or perhaps has mental health issues?

I wouldn’t have opened the door but I get why you did. Awful situation would leave anyone unsettled.

Just to say on this point I’m sad to say I’ve seen cynical fabricated accusations of racism when not getting one’s own way a number of times. I gave an example that happened at my leisure club in my earlier post. Last entry up to that point had always been 9:10pm and still is to this day. The entry doors to the leisure club won’t open with a swipe card after 9:10pm.

The member (and you can read about what an abusive and inconsiderate person he’d been on a separate occasion in my earlier post) kicked off when the lady covering reception wouldn’t let him in. He was trying to access the gym from 9:25pm and the place shuts at 10pm. He wasn’t getting his own way and was making a commotion, which I could see and hear from the gym. I subsequently found out he accused the lady on reception of being racist for not letting him in.

The sometimes is no signal where I am. And with our local leisure centre there is no reception number. It'll all go to a big off site call centre. It's a Better leisure centre. But I would like to think if I was shouting for help someone who works there would come! Sounds scary for the OP.

Quite obviously you weren’t being U and you Know you weren’t. And of Course you’re not mortified about the kids hearing you shout. I’m so puzzled as to why you’ve posted this aibu but it feels very disingenuous.

I agree with this.
I think this phrase is often used when somebody has behaved badly and instead of addressing or admitting their own bad behaviour pretends that they can't help it because of their race. I wonder if they realise how degrading they make their race appear?

If you don't like the phrase 'pulling the race card' what would you like used instead for those who aren't willing to take responsibility for their own bad behaviour but prefer instead to pretend it's because of their race that they can't be held to the same standards as others?

I'm amazed at the people who've never Been in a pool with changing rooms before - ive lived all round the country and theyre absolutely the norm in my experience other than private gyms

She sounds like a loon and probably found it in her car when she went back.

So how exactly would you describe the behaviour of someone aggressively trying to get into a changing room with two naked young girls and calling an innocent women a thief and then lying and saying she was a racist? What empathy exactly are we meant to have here?

The poster who used the phrase "the race card" ought to be ashamed of herself - it implies that people making false accusations of racism is a widespread phenomenon - which undermines the reality that in fact, racism is the widespread phenomenon

Actually it’s the people who make false accusations who are undermining the genuine complaints.

Not allowing someone to barge into a cubical where there are people who are half dressed to look for a jacket that isn’t there is not racist 🙄

Oh hilarious the virtue signallers have arrived! Saying the op should “be kind” to an aggressive unreasonable random!

Used to be quite a thing on here. A poster would explain an upsetting scenario like this one and most normal posters commiserate then the virtue signallers arrive and berate the op for not being more understanding and they themselves would have bought the mad random to lunch or invited them to live in their house. Too funny!