AIBU to think a 9-year-old boy can use the ladies with mum?

[aliceyyyy2654]

An AIBU on behalf of a friend who told me this story today.

my friend was out with her two children (DS aged 9 and DD aged 6). She took both with her into the ladies loo in her shopping centre. When she was done and the kids were washing their hands an old lady came up and told her it was unacceptable for a ‘young man’ to be in the women’s toilets as he was not a girl. This kid is 9!!

She was rather upset and embarrassed and hurried out and her son asked her why she was being shouted at.

When she told me this story I told her to ignore it and to continue taking her young children into the women’s with her when their dad isn’t present.

AIBU to think that a 9 year old boy should be able to go into the women’s with his mum as it is much safer than going into the men’s alone?

Not if you're disabled and can't access the disabled toilets. I think a lot of disabled people do frown on it when there are probably several toilets able in the adjacent women's toilets.

The old lady was amazing at being sure the boy was nine. Some eight year olds look older than some nine year olds.

Actually one of mine is now classified as disabled - but I have never left a disabled loo even once in over 50 years and found a queue of people in wheelchairs and zimmer frames.

I will ask this again as nobody seems to answer: those who don’t want an 8/9 year old boy and his mum near and around your toilet cubicle - do you avoid unisex toilets

I've seen grown women posting on MN that they don't like unisex toilets because a man might hear them unwrapping a sanitary towel. But in this thread a ten yr old girl is supposed to be ok with a boy her own age hearing it.

And yes I do avoid unisex toilets. Not because of the cubicles but because they don't all have sinks in the cubicles and the shared sink area is often completely closed off from the outside. How do Muslim women manage in those circumstances?

I have two boys ages 7 and 10 both go into the men's due to age and obviously wanting too. I do wait outside and call out but the amount of creepy comment's i get and once I felt generally unsafe ( he told me I should go in then winked ) I cant help but find it sad that to make women feel safe not being around a 7 and 10 yr old in toilets I have to deal with the above. Not to mention the risk to my boys. Men or the issue not boys tbh

That's not the same as saying it's illegal for a man or boy to be in the women's toilets. You're mixing up the requirements imposed on places like shopping centres to preserve single sex spaces with illegality on the part of individuals. They're not the same thing. Even where a shopping centre has to evict a man who is using the women's toilet, it still doesn't mean the man has done something illegal.

Unless ASN, no.

my five year old is frequently mistaken for being 7 or 8 because he is enormously tall. No doubt he would be the cause of much mumsnet hysteria if they saw him accompany me to the ladies, but hey ho.

She would be in a cubicle. And generally in primary schools they are used to having to having just one area with a couple of cubicles and shared sinks anyway aren't they?

I really don't care about primary aged children using loos with their parents.

For safety reasons presumably? I think we should afford that to all our children. I have a daughter too so can see both sides. Safety first however!

So the extremely low possibility of a boy being attacked or assaulted in a men's toilet is always more important than the guaranteed loss of dignity for all of the women and girls in what should be a same-sex space (except for genuinely very small boys)?

I think, with all the talk of men doing something as mundane as using a urinal 'exposing themselves', some women must have it in their heads that danger and assault are a foregone conclusion every single time somebody enters a men's toilet. If that's the case, I wonder where the men go in the presumably extremely rare event that they don't actually want to threaten or attack somebody at all but simply need a wee or a poo or to wash their hands?

My 11 year old son was abused in public toilets. No way be on earth would I let a 9 year old boy go into men’s toilets alone and I don’t care how many frothing MNers have an issue with it.

Thank you.

Absolutely fine.

Do not minimise how catastrophic abuse is or dismiss safeguarding. Abuse wrecks lives . I’d urge any parent to go with their gut instinct and ignore threads like this. Your child’s safety comes first.

Couldn't not quote your ridiculous post.

1. Reducing women's minds who have a different opinion from you as 'tiny'. Mothers protecting their children no less. How very misogynistic of you
2. Yes men commit the most crimes, so you are happy to send pre-pubertal vulnerable children to the men's alone?
3. Why are you inventing signs to attempt to justify your point? Signs saying 'no over 8 males allowed' in front of a ladies toilet do not exist.

I’m sorry to hear that.

He's a child. My opinion is that it's absolutely fine for him to go in the women's toilet with his mother. It seems perfectly normal and acceptable to me.

9's about the age where to their mums, boys still feel like a young child, but to a stranger could look older and out of place in a woman only setting.
At 9 my DS's were using the mens toilets and changing rooms. If it was just me and them I'd be hovering outside and calling in to them.
I probably wouldn't have said anything to your friend, but I'm physically able and don't have young daughters so can understand other women feeling less comfortable about their presence.

Disgusting isn’t it.

so they’d rather risk an actual sexual assault than a female has a child hear her do a wee/change a sanitary pad?!

these are our children.

Well leave him at home then. Women and girls privacy isn't collateral damage or a solution. N.O.

Because a 15 year old boy can be abused in a men's toilet too, and I don't see how you can justify a 15 year old or even 13 year old being in the women's.

Yep. Ignore. Safety comes first and literally nobody can do anything about it. It takes less than 5 minutes to do a wee. Literally nobody is going to find anybody to turf you out in that time and the majority of women are mothers who don’t care and want the safety of children put first.

No i don’t, at age 9 unaccompanied in a men’s loo. I wouldn’t send my child in alone. No thanks any weirdos about. Jeso a young child can do the toilet within a cubicle within the ladies. Male attendants work within them. MN gone mad again

A changing loo combined with a disabled loo is for a baby to be changed....not for an entire family to take turns in.
Please leave the disabled loo for disabled people.
Queuing for ages and an entire family coming out of the disabled loo boils my pee pee

Your empathy is overwhelming. 🙄Nope I’ll keep my child safe thanks and literally nobody can do anything about it.Women and girls have plenty of privacy in cubicles. I simply don’t care.