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.

Little boys can't use urinals either - they might be too high on the wall for them or they can't yet co-ordinate themselves to do so without making a big mess of their clothes.

What happens if a little lad who doesn't need a wee has to stand near to urinals whilst his dad has a wee? Or should they both just use the all-welcoming disabled toilets too?!

No I didn't say that.

But nobody can guarantee finding a working loo anywhere, or that there won't already be a disabled person in one, and it seems rational to believe that all people who have incontinence issues will be wearing pads like I do.

And would therefore not have much greater need for very quick access to a loo than anyone else.

No, it's just think anyone with potential incontinence issues is likely to be wearing pads anyway in case the loos are busy, broken, or non existent, like I do myself.

That reminds me of the old joke about the elderly lady who calls the police complaining that she can see the man in the opposite window naked.

When the officer comes around to her house to investigate thoroughly and says "But Madam, you can only possibly see him from above the waist from wherever you would stand", she screams "Jump up and stand on the chest of drawers!!"

Why on earth would she be glancing deliberately to see men's penises? Obviously she wouldn't be trying to use a urinal to be looking sideways in the first place. And anyway, her dad is there to gently steer her away, as well as any decent men who would turn away from her so that she couldn't see anything.

A non-existent or out-of-order toilet is a very different scenario from one that works perfectly, except it's unavailable because of all the people who could use a standard toilet but have nevertheless decided to ignore the sign and use that one instead.

It seems that no matter what choice the OP had made then he could still be here in AIBU.

Even if he uses a cubicle his daughter still has to pass through the urinal area, and depending on the layout of the toilets it could be close to the urinals themselves. Okay, some people suggest covering her eyes, so that looks fine on the way in, but in the way out it seems somewhat unhygienic, covering her eyes with a hand that has just been touching various bits of a toilet cubicle.
Also he could still encounter a man who objects yo the little girl being in there at all, we seem to have one poster on this thread who falls in this category.

So trying to avoid issues of using the mens he goes into the disabled loo, on leaving he is then lectured by a person with a disability for using those.

Well then, he leaves his daughter in the care of a woman, when his wife finds out he left their daughter with a stranger she gives him a more than cheerful earful.

Once we have solved this conundrum, which is starting to make Star Treks Kobayashi Maru test seem child's play, add in a second young girl and the only cubicle in the gents out of order, answer for this one on a postcard posted to me in the past.

I’ll be honest and say I think it’s different with men’s than women’s because of the urinal set up. I find it baffling that men’s loos are still set out like this, why do you all have to pee next to other men with minimal privacy? It’s very weird. You should have used the cubicle imo or the disabled loo even. My dad was a single dad so we came across this issue lots, he always took me into the disabled loos.

I would have taken her into a cubicle, but for her sake so she didn't see any other men using the urinal. No idea what that guy's problem could have been.

Most people don't get embarrassed or see it as any kind of privacy issue when other people can see their backs as they walk past.

The other man just sounds to me like one of these people who goes around looking for things to berate random strangers about, in order to validate his own low self-esteem.

He may well also be one of these tiresome people who can't just sit in a long line of traffic muttering "Come on!" in frustration, like everybody else; but rather he feels the need to honk his horn loudly, just to let everybody else know that HE personally doesn't like having to wait, whereas they presumably are loving it.

Two separate issues here. Firstly the man you encountered was clearly deranged. Sorry you experienced that and I hope your daughter wasn't too scared by him. Secondly, you were right to take her into the men's toilets, NOT the disabled, but next time, use the cubicle. Disabled toilets are for disabled people, not children with an opposite-sex parent.

The sort of people who are happy with little girls around urinals will likely be the sort to congratulate themselves for being so progressive with they take their kids to libraries so that "Flo Job" can read to them.

The girl was with her father and safe.

OP the fault lies not with you but with society's assumption that women will always be the main carers. I remember my widower friend facing many of these problems twenty five bloody years ago and bugger all has changed since.

No way would I take my little child into a disgusting men's cubicle. There should be standalone parent and child cubicles everywhere.

That bloke was a knob.

Safe from what?

Not the same.

You tell me. You're the one who thinks it's wrong for her to be there.

And while you're at it, would you mind explaining the "what you cheer for" comment from last night? It made no sense at all

Queuing to use the toilet while at a council meeting I was told, by a staff member, to use what I've known to be called the disabled toilet.

There's no such thing was their reply, those toilets are mearly accessible to those who find using a smaller cubicle difficult and are open to everyone.

Got me questioning them that what if someone with a disability needed to use it while I was in there, their reply was it's no different if I was using it or a person that has difficulty was using it, its still in use at that particular moment and pointless for anyone waiting for a cubicle to become available or peeing yourself while there's a toilet in front of you being unused.

FFS, if a 3 year old is already familiar with her dad’s pee equipment, she’s not going to freak out at seeing others.

And the word is KNOBS!

A ‘nob’ means a ‘toff’.

Which is a nonsense, selfish argument.

It's the same argument used by people parking in disabled bays who don't have blue badges.

No its not.
Its just a different view to yours.

However, using a parking space is selfish if you haven't been awarded a blue badge.

It really isn’t.
Those toilets are labelled accessible for a reason.

Wow, that's a stretch!! There's nothing new about parents taking little children with them into the toilets that correspond with the sex of the parents, even if the child is the opposite sex - it's been happening since forever.

Urinals aren't some perverse sex toy that filthy men use for a thrill; they're just a boring old toilet and nothing more. Unless they use a bucket or a hole in the ground, everybody uses toilets. It won't harm a little girl with her dad being in a room of toilets, some of which only men can use, any more than it will harm a little boy with his mum walking down the sanpro aisle in the supermarket.

Can someone please explain to me why it’s not appropriate for a 3 year old girl to see naked men, but it’s fine for a 3 year old boy (and older) to see naked women in changing rooms?

I don’t see why male bodies are deemed inappropriate for children to see, but female bodies aren’t.

What's not the same? Being unable to see something private because there's a whole person shielding it or being unable to see something private because there's a block of wood shielding it?