AIBU to question a pool asking my four-year-old daughter to cover up?

[ChampagneLassie]

I took my two daughters, aged two and four, swimming at Nuffield Health. My four-year-old was wearing swimming bottoms but no top.
A staff member told me she needed to wear something “more appropriate” — apparently a bikini top or one-piece. I asked why, as a four-year-old boy would presumably be allowed to swim topless.
I said I felt this was sexualising a pre-pubescent child. The staff member replied, “I’m a mother. I’m not sexualising children.”
When I asked about the actual policy, she could only say that children had to wear “appropriate clothing”. I’m planning to contact Nuffield for clarification, but I’m interested in other parents’ views.
AIBU to question this? Would you expect a four-year-old girl to have to cover her chest?
I used AI to help make this post more readable.

You are going to be horrified when you learn what paramedics (some of whom are male 😱) might have to do if you ever need CPR or a defibrillator 🤦‍♀️

see i think that basing what girls and boys should do and how they should behave on social expectations IS harmful.

Because I always thought it was a sexual type of clothing, to hide a woman's hair?

Edit
What is another type of modesty? (Apart from not being boastful)

Wow, really? Do you really think this will be my first thought when a lifeguard is performing a life-saving intervention on my child? Have a word with yourself.

Fun fact, women are less likely to receive bystander CPR than men. Do you know why? Because of the fear of touching breasts. So sure, let's now make everyone believe that a chest of a 4-year-old is also on par with the chest of adult female. See how it pans out in terms of life-saving interventions they are likely (or not likely) to receive.

For @DNLove :
Previous research has shown that more than 8,200 women in England and Wales could have survived a heart attack if they had been given the same treatment as men, according to an analysis of data from between 2003 and 2013

https://www.theguardian.com/society/2024/oct/16/uk-women-who-suffer-cardiac-arrest-in-public-less-likely-to-get-cpr-study-finds?CMP=Share_AndroidApp_Other

Yeah that's absurd. I don't even know how the staff member knew what sex your child was? I mean they could've been in pink with bows in their long hair and wearing earrings but that doesn't even mean the kid is definitely female in this day and age.

Probably because it has to be done fairly soon so may as well get them used to it young.
I'm another in the camp that thinks bikini tops look silly on prepubescent girls so it was either a swimsuit or just bottoms for my girls and in a swimming pool as opposed to a beach a swimsuit would be more appropriate.

I wish super high cut one piece costumes with thong type bum straps were banned in my local pool. I’d prefer not to swim behind that.

Harmful or pointless some expectations may be, I already said I'm ok with the topless part.

Sexualising it is not, and that is what I'm strongly disagreeing with. You can click three dots "see all by Kingdom". I've already said my dd sometimes went topless. What i think is outrageous is the op casting awful aspersions on the staff member and even others on this thread

What if the male life guard liked men…should he have to declare he can’t come to the rescue? This is an utterly weird response…digging deep into sexualising a preschooler

I think there is a hygiene reason for that

I can't think of a persuasive reason why a four year old girl should be required to wear a top and a four year old boy not. But it also sounds like the staff member didn't make that distinction either, so necessary to check what the actual rules are before proceeding with a protest or objection.

Perhaps the solution should be that everyone is expected to wear a top? That saves the venue from setting an arbitrary age where a sex-based policy would be enforced, takes the pressure off staff to try to figure out which children are boys and girls and how old they look in order to apply a sex-based standard, and protects the children against sun exposure.

You are joking, right?

At four, I don't see any more issue with a little girl being topless than a little boy.

No biggie in most of Europe.

Why does a 4 yr old need a top for swimming girl or boy is irrelevant.
Doubt they even make bikinis for kids (at least I’d hope not) as that really is fucking weird! Should have told her to mind her business there’s no way that’s written in a pools/health centres policies.

It’s absolutely not the same. I’m an adult and the most off putting part of going swimming is wrestling myself out of a clingy wet tight swimming costume (and putting it on, but it’s definitely worse when wet). I’d swim topless and in baggy swim shorts if it was in anyway socially acceptable.

Do you think 4 year old boys should cover their nipples too? And if not, what’s the difference? I’d have been inclined to say my daughter was a boy.

We do swim lessons at Nuffield and I’ve never seen a little girl with no top on. You can argue as to why it’s not the norm- but it 100% isn’t. In the same way you could say “why can’t adult females only wear shorts/ why isn’t that the norm? Regardless of physiology/ Why does it matter? Logically it doesn’t/ however it does

Modesty can involve gaze, speech, behavior, sexual boundaries, and an inward sense of dignity and restraint.

A discrimination case? Are you saying the 4 year old has decided she is non-gender and told her mother to tell people that?

Unfortunately they do make them. Creepy.

With improved nutrition girls are now starting puberty and periods etc at a younger and younger age. There’s regular threads on Mumsnet of various mums whose child is starting puberty in year 3/4.

the “problem” with setting an age is that it’s not actually an age thing. It’s a “at the point you develop breasts you should be covering them in public”

Or get an ECG for any operation

Sorry how do you tell young girls and boys apart? Other than by their name or asking them? They do not look inherently different at all.

Yes, but isn't it better to just set some age (eight? seven? or even six) than police 4 yo in this case and something like18 month old in one recent thread?

I doubt anybody would find it offensive, they would find it hard not to pay attention to as it’s unconventional. And the pool reserves the right to say they don’t want to deal with that, just as much as a shop will put a notice up saying they don’t want sweaty ass men coming in without a top on in 35 degree heat. Nobody is sexualising them.