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I have 3 kids as well. It was far easier to go to the bathroom at home with the door open than to close it. If the kids did not open it, one of the cats would. Or the dog. Or the kid would ride the dog while I was in the bathroom. Etc.
Soooooooo many crisis were averted by simply peeing with the door open. No one was traumatized. (except maybe the cat).
When we went places (which was often - I was a SAHM who took my kids to many museums, library story hours, zoos, etc. etc etc.), if someone had to go to the bathroom, we either used a family restroom, or we all fit into the handicapped stall. It truly was NO BIG DEAL.
Im pretty shocked people are making a big deal about these things as well. We all went into the largest stall or family bathroom. What kind of headlines would I have pinned to me if I left my 1, 2, 3, 4 y/o outside the bathroom while I went. Good lord knows moms have to potty too. And then the following to the bathroom...not one of my many, many mom friends havent shared the same event happening in their lives. Be it potty or shower or brushing your teeth, every one is there!
I have 3 kids as well. It was far easier to go to the bathroom at home with the door open than to close it. If the kids did not open it, one of the cats would. Or the dog. Or the kid would ride the dog while I was in the bathroom. Etc.
Soooooooo many crisis were averted by simply peeing with the door open. No one was traumatized. (except maybe the cat).
When we went places (which was often - I was a SAHM who took my kids to many museums, library story hours, zoos, etc. etc etc.), if someone had to go to the bathroom, we either used a family restroom, or we all fit into the handicapped stall. It truly was NO BIG DEAL.
One of the only times I was alone was when I used the bathroom or showered. I wasn't about to give that up too!
If I was out alone with my son, he went in the stall with me in the ladies room until a bit after the age of 10, end of discussion. Never once did anyone say anything. I'm not embarrassed about normal bodies and their normal function at all and the only time anyone would even know he was there is when we were washing our hands at the sink. I couldn't even tell you if I've seen older boys with their mothers in the bathroom, because I'm not looking around to have a conversation while taking care of business.
My brother (as an adult) has twice walked into a public bathroom (once at a Target, once at a Macy's) and heard (and in the case of Macy's, saw) sexual activity going on between two guys. A former neighbor of ours growing up was arrested for sexual activity in a bathroom at a MALL, of all places. It happens, likely more often than most people realize.
There wasn't a chance in hell I'd be okay with a child under 10 walking in to that, alone.
I use urinals all the time and never have I been unable to keep my penis's modesty intact. Nor have I been affronted by another's penis in a public restroom.
While I agree that girls of that age are old enough to wait outside, I would not be as scandalized as the OP at relieving myself in that situation. In fact, by the time I got home and logged into City-Data, I would probably have forgotten all about it.
Apparently adults' feelings don't matter anymore. If you aren't comfortable being stared at while changing, you have the problem, not the other way around.
Wait a minute here. It is ok for a parent to bring a young girl into the men's locker room and look at naked men..BUT if she saw me peeing behind a bush I would be a sex offender.
Hah yes! I started locking the toilet door when my kid turned 3 as then I can get some peace! Take a book with me too....
Up until I was ten years old or so, our house only had one bathroom. On school mornings in was not at all uncommon for my older sister to be at the sink brushing her teeth with my little brother and I in the shower and having my dad come in to take a pee. That bathroom door was almost never shut- only when my mother was taking a bath.
As far as out in the public though, I never recall my mother taking me into a woman's restroom or locker room. Ever. If my dad wasn't there, she would wait by the door. This past Sunday's experience at Nordstrom was the first time in my life I had ever seen a father bring his daughters into a men's room. It sort of blew me away having two little girls staring at me while I was at the urinal- and this was the men's room nearest the store entrance so there was a constant stream of men entering and exiting.
"Historically, shared public latrines have been a feature of most communities, and this continues to be true in developing countries such as Ghana, China, and India," note Olga Gershenson and Barbara Penner in their 2009 book of essays Ladies and Gents: Public Toilets and Gender (Temple University Press). "Private, sex-segregated lavatories were a modern and Western European invention, bound up with urbanization, the rise of sanitary reform, the privatization of the bodily functions, and the gendered ideology of separate spheres."
Quote:
Unisex bathrooms "relieve a number of anxious dilemmas, such as that of a mother sending her young son alone into the men's room without her, the adult son waiting outside the door of the women's room for his Alzheimer's afflicted mother to emerge, and the wheelchair bound husband left to navigate the handicapped stall in the men's room without the help of his wife," Case notes. Not to mention women who routinely face longer public restroom lines, men whom "potty parity" laws have left with longer wait times, and anyone who's ever been inconvenienced because their assigned bathroom was undergoing cleaning with no alternative available.
I'm rather gob-smacked by many of the responses on this thread and as to how inconsiderate of the privacy of others is so disregarded by selfish, molly-coddling parents. Why should you and your kids be allowed special rights over others? How many of you media-manipulated paranoid helicopter parents considered the nasty world - where other people (gasp) live - you were about to bring your precious kids into before you had them in the first place?
I myself appear to be unable to see anyone seeking "special rights" for anything. They are a public restroom and no one has impinged on the privacy of anyone. Over react much?
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