naked toddlers showering at the public swimming pool

[Danthe4th]

At our local swimming pool it is glass sided and the showers are in full few of the veiwing area, and the car park at a push.

I take my 4 year old for his swimming lessons on a wednesday morning, they also have the mums and tots class. I sit watching my sons class and the previous class are using the showers.

Why do mums strip their children off so they shower naked. I'm at the point when i'm going to say something, but do I say it to mum or management.Several children do this.

There are often workmen, strangers, dads whoever wondering about. I just don't think its necessary to strip children naked, why can mums not leave their costumes on.

I find myself scanning the area to see if anyone is looking, it just worries me.Am I being unreasonable.

There are only poolside showers at our new pool - I suppose it's to stop everyone using them to wash in. Bit weird but hey ho. I strip my DS naked - would never occur to me not to.

OP YABU

Lol @ "they need to know that" yes, because indignant insistance that they are in the wrong is the best tool to arm yourself with

I am quite sure the Peadophile in your town is sat thinking "oh no, don't touch those kids because their mum has put me in my place with her words and actions"...yeah, right.

TH I think that the anti anti-peadophile reaction is as silly as the anti-peadophile one. Yes there are people who over-react to risk (if you look at my first post you will see what I say about myself in that capacity). However as a backlash to that behaviour and the Daily Mail type behaviour thre are all these people saying things like "there is almost no risk, carry on, they are wrong not you" and the likes and refusing to change their behaviour because of the increased risk/perception of risk. However one of the things these people are missing is that they are statistically more likly to end up in trouble than the paronoid ones...

ie if 95% of a street are on high alert and keep their dc covered, won't let them play out alone etc then it is the 5% left who are "carrying on as normal" who are more likly to be targeted - simply because they could be easier to get to. The fact that the daily mail people are behaving the way they are and you are not is increasing the risk of your dc being targeted rather than them.

Katiestar, if you had been responsible and repoted the person leering at your child you could actually have contributed towards catching an offender. Just because he only looked at your child does not mean that was all he would do to others, for all you knew he could have been sat there waiting for an unaccompanied child to take off to the loo - or he could have been going home to look at his stash of child porn. If you are so sure that there was no mistaking the look on his face then you were negligent in not reporting and I hope, for your sake, that his face does not turn up on the front page of your local paper having done something awful. I hope that your life not being ruined was worth the potential cost.

OMG - You are SO hugely unreasonable and tbh if you confronted me with this I would almost certainly tell you that. So what if workmen and dads etc are wandering about as you so nicely put it - they arent paedophiles - they are parents like you going about their business. Four year old kids are not sexual beings and there is no reason not to strip them to get the rancid chlorine out of their skin. How incredibly sad that you have such a warped, over sexual, paranoid view of men and society.

Prettyfly, being a parent does not make you not a peaodphile, it is perfectly possible to be both.

I would think it's a stupid idea for the swimming pool to have publicly visible showering arrangements.

Ridiculous.

OP, I wouldn't worry, it is up to the individual parents concerned whether they regard their children showering naked as a risk.

There are people at ours who shower naked themselves, I wonder if they would do so if the showers were visible from the viewing area. I wouldn't, but then I don't anyway.

Oh for god sake - hesaysshesays. Yes, if you lock your child up, never letting them experience anything and wrap them in a bubble of cotton wool nothing bad will happen to them. Nothing good will happen either. I CANT believe that and I hope to god I NEVER become so insanely paranoid that I want to lock my children in the house rather then consider the risk of letting them out.

What do you think would have happened if Katie HAD called the police - they would have arrested the man for looking at her daughter? Put him on a register? No... and nor should they or paranoid mentalists like you would have ALL of our men locked away "just in case".

Bloody madness.

agree with flight - what idiot designed the pool?

Picesmoon

Your post about the Islamic reasoning behind the burkha is ignorant to say the least. Any chance to slate Islam eh..

What has that got to do with the OP?

OP I think you are being unreasonable because it's up to the parents to decide if they want to shower their own dc in public view. None of your business frankly.

I don't follow the argument that paedos won't see naked dc as being sexual just cute They are that way inclined so it follows they will.

I find men attractive therefor will sneak a peak, very much enjoy looking at a naked showering man> in theory.

I shan't read the other posts, I shall just c and p my stock reaction to such wittery.

"as we all know, the hooooooooge majority of sexual abuse comes from within the family, or from close friends, not from the poor bloody workman trying to do his job outside the public baths."

etc

ad nauseum

yawn

Don't forget your industrial quantities of cotton wool when you go out!

Very well-deserved flaming for the op on this thread.

When my dc were toddlers I often used to strip them in the shower at the pool. I wanted to get the swim nappy off them ASAP - not because it was dirty, just because it prevents them from getting dry and warm.

I cannot do anything about if a pervert gets off on seeing a toddler in a swimming costume or getting changed. However, I can supervise my children and keep them safe.

There are far more risks to a toddler at the swimming baths than perverts. ie. deep water. That is the main reason why young children require extra supervision when at the swimming pool.

Themild of course it would piss most of us off. I find nekkid toddlers sooo cute but it's the reality of the world we live in.

I probably wouldn't shower my dc in public view because of this

What are these Peadophiles? Do they have an unhealthy liking for legumes. I know what pAEdophiles are, but not heard of the other ones

PF, who said anything about locking children up? Now you are being one of those over-reacters.

WRT Katiestar, well, it depends, you see... if there was really no mistaking the look and she reported it - and so did any other people who had noticed it, eventually the police will build up a profile of someone. If that profile adds up to (eg) seven concerned parents over the course of a weekend, every weekend for the last two months then they may feel it is worth investigating further, however if all of them just shrug their shoulders and say "ooh sicko" and absolve themselves of all responsibility then who is there to help?

You are being quite silly to suggest that I am makeing a case for having everyone locked up and it is exactly what I was saying about the anti-anti backlash. Because I am disagreeing with you you have jumped to the conclusion that I must be some kind of extremist who only allows my dc to open their curtains once a day for an hour, however I am not, my views are not extreme and I actually find those kind of extreme views as ridiculous as anything else.

Wasn't the sick person in Plymouth a woman?

It's terrible that children can't be naked without someone worrying about perverts, that said I wouldn't allow my school aged children to be naked in public but would shower my toddler.

No, HeSaysSheSays, take it from me, your views are extreme.

And if you're going to rant about paedophiles as much as you do, for goodness' sake, learn to spell the word properly!

By Danthe4th on Mon 19-Oct-09 21:34:01
Its about protecting the children hester, recently a friend was followed for over a mile by a strange man at the same pool and its just got me worried

Eh? Did your friend get followed for a mile. What, swimming in the pool. Are you sure he wasn't just, like, lane swimming?

Plus, lol at the workmen madness. Must tell DP (builder) to watch out for mothers shielding their toddlers from his pervy gaze whilst he is out and about wearing his hi-vis jackets.

OP is a loon.

The fact is that this is kind of the same argument as the "women who wear short skirts..." argument, it is fundamentally flawed becuse the society we are in assumes that young children have a basic right to go naked in some situations - the same as women have a basic right to wear a short skirt.

Of course children have the right to be naked and parents should not feel awkward about it, however I do feel that vilifying someone for saying that they are uncomfortable and concerned is not the way to build any bridges or understanding between sides here.

The sad thing about all this is that there seems to be two raging armies with no middle ground allowed. I am actually very middle of the road in my views compared to most people I tend to be cautious but not paronoid and understanding of other peoples view points, however whenever I express my views I get painted into one role or the other by those I am speaking to. Not because I am that way but because people simply cannot seem to see that there is a middle ground here, it is possible to play both sides of the argument and make that work for you.

Scary, just out of interest, why should I "take it from you" is there a good reason or do you just like to assume queendom?

As for spelling, really, is that the best you can do?

Have a read of the other posts HSSS. This thread has 122 posts. About 3 agree with your POV. Ergo you are on the outer reaches of what most mums feel about this kind of thing.

And re the spelling - was a serious point underlying that. Do you not remember the paediatrician who was attacked by a baying mob because they didn't understand what the word meant?

Sad times indeed

'The fear of naked toddlers otoh is recent and, in northern Europe, pretty well confined to the UK' - I was asked by a lifeguard in a German swimming pool to put clothes on my naked toddler because 'there might be paedophiles around'. This was on a day when the pool was pretty much empty apart from us! And in Germany of all places, where people love to be naked in public.

My dad was taking photos of dd having fun in the pool though so probably looked a bit suspicious..

Lol, yeah because getting an a and an e mixed around is the same as that example

Seriously, read my posts, read what I have actually said, forget numbers (which is a silly argument because most people dare not say what I say on here as they get treated like the op and me).

I have not said, keep dc inside, I said, if some people are keeping dc inside that increases the risk for those outside - it is simple maths. I have not said anything extreme at all, I have used examples of the things some people do but no-where have I advocated doing them.

If you press CTRL and F then type in my name you can read through my posts in isolation, read them properly and you will find that they are NOT extreme, they are not advocating a cotton wool mentallity, most of them are simply pointing out the flaws in other peoples arguments.

My friend and I were flashed at aged about 8 by a guy in the swimming pool, we had new goggles and were swimming around underwater and he kept waving something at us.

Actually now I am horrified but at the time we were just curious and had a look.

Anyway we werent showering naked or anything like that, it just happened.