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?

Boys are being disempowered by being made to use female toilets.There is no higher risk in a male toilet than there is anywhere else. Most of this thread is pure fabrication and scaremongering.

In a pool changing area isn’t the same as at the hand basins in a busy toilets

Surely situational, one thing in toilets where indeed you can stand outside and hover another in eg large sports arena or busy mainline train station? On a different note I am apparently archetypal “safe looking middle aged woman” so much so that pretty much every time I use the Waterloo station loos a harassed looking father with daughter of about that age asks me if I can keep an eye on /take his daughter in! It’s a very aging thought thinking how I must project!!!

I think 9 is getting a bit old to be in the ladies tbh.

Why the need for the sneery tone?

I am absolutely not making it up that my male cousin was raped in a shopping centre in the 90’s. That is hand on heart true.

so you’d be fine then, if your daughter was desperate and it was a long queue, to send her in the gents? If not, why? There’s no more risk of a paedophile who rapes girls being in there than there is a paedophile who rapes little boys then, is that the case? You’d be fine to send her in?

Oh ffs why on earth can’t he be in the ladies ? He's not going to harm anyone? There’s no way id send an unaccompanied child into the male toilets !

A fair few people are saying this, so where do you think the line is? Ie is 8 the correct cut off in changing rooms? What should it be in loos?

If it was purely for the safety of boys, the mums with older boys at our swimming pool would use the mixed gender changing area. But nope, they prefer to be in the ladies one, its more convenient to bring their boys in there, and they are a bit nicer. It's in no way essential.

There are instances when I fully agree it may be necessary - a service station in a rural area when dark outside - I'm not sure any parents would want their child going in alone. But a busy changing room during a family swim time at a leisure centre - nope.

At 9 I think he is old enough to go to the men’s toilet. But I wouldnt be bothered either way.

There's always going to be a cut-off age at which it's inappropriate for boys to use the women's facilities, with or without their mother, and the venues themselves usually stipulate what this age should be.

A 9-year-old boy in the men's loo is not going to be at any more risk than a 10-year-old, so there doesn't seem to be much of a case for exceptions.

Fortunately the great majority of boys would be too embarrassed to go in the women's when other boys their age are using the men's.

There isn't one single cafe with a solo cubicle toilet?

That doesn't change my perspective though. That might be a shopping centre you need to only make short trips to until your ds is ready to go to the toilet alone.

I realise that's a little inconvenient, but the solution isn't to ignore the rights of girls to a single sex toilet.

Says who? The majority of young boys are taken in to the women’s with their mothers. Disempowered? Because they had a wee with their mum at aged 9.

Jesus wept.

I’ll be honest, I had absolute heart failure every time at swimming when he was 8 and had to start using the men’s side. In practice what I did was have both son and daughter in onsies or oodies with costumes underneath, they swam at same time so I’d go in female area with daughter, yank her cossie off and get her in the onesie, then go to the door of the gents and yell in for my son to hurry up. I hated it! It was dads in there with other boys but I’m sorry - I trust no one. We changed pools (not because of the changing rooms) and they had individual cubicles so that solved that.

In my local shopping centre you need a key for all disabled toilets. There are no other unisex toilets available.

Most coffee shops, eg Costa, have single cubicle, accessible, unisex toilets. Also branches of Waterstones that have coffee shops.

Public libraries sometimes do too. (They have loos, and some are unisex.)

I'm talking about a shopping centre though....

Would she be likely to run into a male class mate in the loos in a shopping centre?
And if she did at that age the liklihood is that she would be with her mum or other adult relative. Ditto the boy.
It's entirely different in a school setting where only children have access to those loos. Then of course they should be strictly separate. Boys. Girls.
But in any public place the risk to children from men is real.
Boys are frequently assaulted or approached by unsavoury men in public loos.
They hang around and watch for that very purpose.
Boys need protecting too.

I'm talking about a shopping centre though....

Are there no coffee shops in your shopping centre?

I remind you, this is not about changing spaces which I agree is a far more complex issue. This is about a 9 year boy going into the ladies with his mum for a wee so that he doesn't have to go into the men's alone and risk his safety.

I agree. Dispicable poster, completely dismissing the safeguarding of a child. Abhorrent quite frankly. Makes you wonder what sort of nonces are on this site advocating for little boys to enter a public toilet alone. 🚩

9 is too old

Wonder what she’ll do when her daughter is out with dad and desperate for the loo? By the time dad has tracked down Costa, looks like we’re going home with wet knickers.
i don’t want girls staring at my boy when he’s washing his hands in the gents toilets, or commenting on his horrendous farts - it’s demeaning and unseemly. That father had better not bring her in the gents…..

Meant to quote the post saying a 9 year old girl would be discomfited by glimpsing male class mate in a public loo.

You are woefully uninformed and outdated.