AIBU to be upset when Mum's have been banned from my child's team tour?

[Momoftwoscallywags]

I have previously posted that my DS (13 years old) plays a team sport and that his team have had some new coaches this season.

Recently, the usual tour details were posted by one of the new coaches and it was stated that Mum's shouldn't be going on tour, as apparently this is traditional in this particular sport? And that if Dad's couldn't go, and you didn't want your child going alone, then an appropriate male guardian would be acceptable in their place.

Well, as you could image this has caused an up roar and did lead to a last minute change of heart by the coaches but I get the impression that the coaches didn't do this willingly and that they were told to do so by the club, but I am not 100% sure of this.

So now there are no Mum's on this tour and, shockingly, some of the kids haven’t been able to go on the tour because of their personal circumstances.
And, setting aside all the gender discrimination in this situation, it is this which I truly think is the most upsetting part of it all, as team sport should be for all kids and the coaches should be bending over backwards to make this happen for every kid, regardless of circumstances.

Yes it is sad that women are so sensitive about not being included in everything..

"If it was girls ... ?" - well, it's not girls, is it? There are valid concerns about some men sexually abusing 13-year-old girls. The number of middle-aged mothers who might want to sexually abuse 13-year-old boys must be almost vanishingly small!

Well, it is.

Its really important for boys to have strong male role models.

It’s also an opportunity for young men to build strong relationships with male role models who they then feel comfortable to reach out to if they’re struggling mentally (which is common amongst young men) but apparently some mums can’t stand that

Well that is true but irrelevant to this tour discussion.
One size doesn't fit all.

Don't see the problem here, they are creating a single sex environment for a sports trip away. If it was for a girls team I would also support banning the dads from that.

I don’t feel aggrieved by single sex groupings and activities. Dads and mums can organise these.

Where a club plans an annual tour, there are many reasons, including the law, for not excluding parents (and, in turn, their children) because of their sex.

My DS doesn’t have a dad, I’d be fucking raging about this. Not only the misogyny but also it being highlighted to him that he’s one of the only ones without a dad whilst watching all the other kids with their dads. I’d be pulling him from the whole team and telling all the coaches to go fuck themselves (or the precious team dads)

So if there were to be a girls only tour you’d presumably be as up in arms?

Just say you identify as a man. They can’t stop you.

You are assuming the coaches are always going to be the same sex as the team. This an outdated view.

What a load of bollocks. Noone is stating that only mums are real parents. You are really reaching. However, many mums have as much right to share in and bond with their sons over their sports as male parents and in a time when 1/3 of children are raised in single parent homes or alternating at weekends between parents post divorce, excluding either parent on the basis od their sex ultimately means the child suffers.

Oh, and further to another PP’s comment above… within both the amateur and professional game, there are LOTS of female coaches in rugby, football and cricket. And many refs/umpires are female too. Mind-blowing, right?

Yes!

Yes it is - but excluding mothers from accompanying their sons on sports trips is not the only way to provide them, is it? Not is it the role of a single sports coach to decide how that male role modelling is provided to children that are not theirs.

But if it was girls and mums only nobody would be batting an eye!!

That’s not correct…..there has to be an aim that is met through the provision being single sex.

So, a single sex refuge had the legitimate aim of enabling women to have a space away from people of the sex who have harmed them.

A single sex library would not be legal because there is no legitimate aim for this to be female or male only.

My DC's have done multiple tours in different sports in the UK and abroad and there has NEVER been a one sex coaching team. The organising can be quite difficult and costly so where any extra help or support is needed it has always been any help or support is accepted regardless of sex.

The issue with this 'dads only' set up is that this is a club with male coaches who has already shown a complete disregard for safeguarding.

It's not remotely a positive single sex set up.

It's a man with no regard for safeguarding cutting out more parents (and in the OP's case a parent who has already raised issues and been downplayed) and having more unsupervised access to children.

It is basically inevitable that more children will not have a father able and willing to go with them on this trip. So, was the safeguarding disregarding coach one of the possible allocated chaperones for unaccompanied children?

The wider picture of this club and their set up needs reported to the sporting authorities and parents need to wise up and remove their children.

Let's be honest, there has never been any investment or respect for female sport. You can't compare because boys have always had the better deal as far as sport is concerned.

Whichever new coach/coaches came up with this idea, be very wary around them. You should be suspicious of any man that clearly is trying to get more unsupervised access to children.

So are mums banned from all attendance at this club?

There's quite a range between allowing a coach private access to your child and not allowing personal relationships with other people.

For what reason?
What if one child had lost their mum and only had her dad.
That's such a terrible attitude

Facts don't care about fairness or feelings.

Statistically men are the biggest sexual and violent abuse threat to women, children and actually other men too.

Decent men understand why safeguarding considers men more of a risk to women and children, and they don't whinge because they don't want men like that (of which there is a horrifyingly large number) near their families either.

So now we should forbid males from single sex spaces for two thousand years to make it equal?