Taking 3 year old daughter into Men’s Toilets

[dadtobe22]

I just wanted a sense check here as had a horrible experience earlier.

I’m looking after my 3 year old daughter today. Took her to the zoo this morning and headed to a Toby Carvery for lunch. We were having a lovely day.

On arrival I needed to use the toilet so popped upstairs to the gents and I stood at the end urinal and told my 3 year old daughter to stand next to me by the wall.

A bloke walked in and started huffing and puffing and had a massive pop at me asking if I had “no sense” bringing a little girl into the men’s toilets. I explained I was looking after her on my own today, I couldn’t take her into the women’s and I wasn’t prepared to leave her outside.

At this point he started squaring up to me telling me I was wrong. If I’d stood up to him any further he’d have probably gone for me. I was just thinking about keeping myself and my daughter safe at this point.

I walked away and walked back down towards the restaurant. I go to sit down with my daughter and he makes a menacing bee line for me, raising his voice in the whole restaurant telling me I was wrong and how I’d made him feel uncomfortable. He also started making protestations to staff. He seemed really triggered.

Again I just walked away and took a seat in a quiet corner of the bar away from the main restaurant.

The staff were sympathetic in tone but didn’t offer any explicit support (probably because they were a bit scared of this mad bloke which I
don't blame them for. I think they were just trying to keep the peace).

Was I unreasonable to take my 3 year old daughter into the men’s toilets? I’ve been doing this since she was born and have never had a problem or complaint. I would get it if she was 8 and could wait outside by herself but she’s 3?!

It’s definitely made me re think what I do in the future in this situation.

In this situation you speak to staff and ask to use the disabled toilet- its what my exh used to do when looking after my daughter. I know that's hindsight, though. He always found staff and disabled customers understanding, and ensured it didn't mean a disabled person was waiting as he was so quick.

It's where you see this sign. Not common in every place but I do see them in malls.

FGS women take their sons into the ladies all the time.

The guy was an idiot.

But use the cubicle next time.

With their backs to the room. They don't parade them about.

To the people saying that disabled toilets are just for the disabled, how long have you ever actually had to wait to get in to one? If someone is in there and they are a while, then surely they have a disability? If they are in there for a short time, again I don't see the issue.
And yes, I am a disabled toilet user. I wish I didn't have to be, but I do. I don't have an issue with others using them.

@MoonWoman69

That may well be because you can wait while someone takes their child to the bathroom, which my late FIL couldn’t, or because you don’t have an autistic child that would be bellowing DITTY NAAPPYYYY while he waited.

In both cases, if they have to queue and that means they’re distressed or soil themselves, it shouldn’t be for because they’re waiting for a perfectly able person to leave a disabled bathroom.

It’s perfectly reasonable to gatekeep disabled toilets for the disabled. That’s who they’re for.

They should be kept open for people who are truly disabled and therefore need them. A parent with a small child of the opposite sex is not in this category.

Cubicles in men's toilets tend to be rank. I think you did the best you could.

Exactly, and the other issue is that disabled toilets are often pretty vile to start with and the increased footfall won’t help with that!

disabled people face enough challenges going out. People using facilities they don’t need makes things even tougher.

You think its okay for a 3 year old girl to see other men using a urinal? That would have made me extremely uncomfortable as a child.

So they wouldn't become "distressed and soil themselves" if a disabled person was in there then?! Interesting that an elderly man or an autistic child can actually distinguish who is occupying the disabled toilet, when the door is locked! That's an amazing skill!
Sounds like @SleeplessInWherever and @bythere are the sort of people who judge as soon as the toilet door opens, regardless of whoever is coming out has a hidden disability or not!
Sadly our names aren't on the toilet doors for our sole use, therefore anyone can use them, whether you think that's right or wrong.

Of course they would, you’ve deliberately misunderstood my point.

My son will have the same reaction whether someone is using a disabled toilet because they’re disabled, or because they’re a parent with an opposite sex child.

My point is that he shouldn’t have to, when the people using the disabled toilet aren’t disabled.

Which OP isn’t, and therefore shouldn’t be in a disabled toilet. In this specific situation, I’m not judging whether someone is disabled or not - he isn’t. Neither is his daughter.

Staggering really that women (rightly) don’t want men in their single sex spaces, or their daughters in male spaces, but disabled people should just share their disability specific places with all and sundry. Hypocrisy much.

You're not in there with a man with his penis out though.

Accessible does not mean exclusive. In many places the disabled toilet is where the child changing facility is also lodged.

I’m also not 3 years old, which is equally as irrelevant.

OP should have taken his daughter into a cubicle, but beyond that - he did the right thing. How many mums take their small boys to the toilet with them, and none of us bat an eye?

What this thread highlights again is the complete disregard many people have for those with disabilities.

She didn’t need changing.. he needed a wee.

Disabled toilets are for disabled people. Baby change facilities are for children that need changing. Women’s toilets are for women (and boys up to 8, legally), same in reverse for men’s.

It is genuinely not that difficult.

I have had to wait a long time, multiple times, to use the one accessible toilet available to me.

I have wet myself twice doing that.

On both occasions the person coming out had several small (but not small enough to need baby change) children with them and apologised saying things like 'I know I shouldn't but its easier for me' - again on both occasions, all children were actually old enough to have used the appropriate facilities, it would have just taken more organisation and wrangling for the parent.

I have occasionally had to wait a while for a disabled user of the toilets but it is far outweighed by the waits for non-disabled users (again just going by the apologies and 'I know I shouldn't' comments, not judging by appearance here!).

I've also found that the mess left by people using the disabled toilets to accomodate multiple small children tends to be way worse than any other type of user - they've got more kids than they can wrangle single handed, they absolutely haven't got time to clear up all the wee, water and tissue paper thats floating around. Some are apparently so frazzled they can't put a nappy in a bin.

Accessible toilets are for disabled people. Stores may insist on putting baby changes in them, we should fight against that, because they are almost NEVER actually accessible for most disabled people (too high, wrong position), whilst at the same time getting in the way of wheelchairs. I have inadvertently removed several baby change fold down stations by turning around in my powerchair and knocking them off the wall!

Disabilities may be invisible - so the use of accessible toilets really HAS to work on trust and goodwill and that means NOT misusing the toilets for convenience because you're a bloke taking a little girl for a wee or a person with three more kids in tow than you can sensibly manage - those are YOUR life choices and your poor organisation problems, they are NOT what disabled people fought to provide facilities for and can I remind you, disabled people had to chain themselves to fucking busses to get some access. I don't recall parents with kids in buggies protesting for bigger bogs!

If you all want bigger bogs, gender neutral family bathrooms - kick up a fuss with stores, make it clear you do NOT want to misuse facilities for disabled people.

No one ever does, I've been saying this for years, but as the issue only affects folks with kids for a few years and really, a handful of times within those years, they can't be arsed. It is easier to inconvenience disabled people by misusing their spaces than to fight for your own spaces.

Agree with @WiddlinDiddlin

The whole toilet system is a bit of a pain these days anyway. I care for a male relative with special needs and it's such a farce when we both need the toilet out in public, me going in and hoping I'm either out before him or if he does finish first that he hasn't bolted or been approached by someone.

Love my local cinema that has a disabled loo and then several large unisex cubicles - makes life a million times easier!

I don't think you were being unreasonable OP, as others have said I'd probably use cubicle next time but you did what you could in the moment.

Which it shouldn't be.

I've said it before and I'll happily say it again - abled-bodied people using disabled facilities can fuck right off.

Disabled toilets are toilets that disabled people can use, but not exclusively

Yes.

But people who don't need to use them shouldn't, because that's a dick thing to do.

disabl toilets are ACCESSIBLE for disabled people not exclusively for them. No, it really isn’t that hard to understand but you don’t seem to grasp that.

All kinds of people actually do need them. And are as entitled to use them as you are.