Children and nudity

[Jonluw]

Hiya escapists.

I went to the local swimming hall recently, and it made me think.

Here's a scenario for you:

You are in a relationship and you and your partner have a 5 year old child (If you're a woman, the child is a boy. If you're a man, it's a girl)
A couple of days ago, you all decided to go to the swimming hall today, and the kid is very excited about it. Sadly though, your partner woke up today with a bad case of the flu.
What do you do?
Do you bring the child with you through your gender's locker room and showers, do you trust your child to be able to handle changing and showering on its own, or do you cancel the trip?

The reason I ask is that over here it is a pretty standard practice to take your kids with you through whichever locker room is the most convenient, but I hear other places are more puritan than that, and look at the practice with some disgust.

 

[Colour Scientist]

Bring it into the women's changing room.
If the child is 5, I'm not sending it into an enclosed room with strangers where I have no access whatsoever. You see little boys with their mothers in the women's changing room all of the time.
I assume it's the same for men and their little girls.

People who wouldn't let a child into the opposite gender's changing room are a little strange. It's not like they have sexual thoughts or anything, at 5 they wouldn't take any notice, presuming they'd seen their parent's naked at some point, it wouldn't be a shock to see people with different parts. As for people looking at the child, if I was that paranoid about it, I'd take him into a private cubicle, I'd still be much more wary of leaving him alone.
If I went somewhere and having my child with me at all times was an issue, I would leave.

 

[Korolev]

Yeah, always take the child with you - my parents did that. If my sister had to go to the bathroom and only my father was there, he'd bring her into the men's room and use a stall. When they're five years old they're not going to get freaked out by seeing genitals, nor will they remember the incident. If anyone looks at you funny for doing so, look at them funny right back.

Of course, the odds of your child being assaulted or kidnapped in a public bathroom are very rare (less than 1 in 400,000 chance if stats are to be believed). Still, it could happen and why not just take the precaution?

 

[Batou667]

A 5-year old? Change with the parent, obviously. Anybody who gives me grief over that would end up eating their swimming goggles.

Actually, I'm not sure if this a UK thing but I've noticed more swimming pools have switched from communal male and female changing rooms to just having individual unisex stalls or "family change rooms"; possibly to solve exactly this problem.

 

[JoJo]

I'm with the general consensus here, my sister still in rare cases comes into male changing rooms even though she's eight now. Nudity is harmless and it's just not a good idea to leave a child alone, even if the actual risk of kidnapping is hugely low then they may get into other problems with the lockers or the shower etc.

 

[Phasmal]

Take the kid with me.
If somebody had an issue with it, me and the kid would do a syncronised tongue-poking-out.

But, I cant swim, so I doubt my boyfriend would let me take our theoretical child swimming in the first place.

 

[Baneat]

There's actually a UK law exception that specifically allows children to come into either gender toilet for this express purpose. Nobody should ever have problems with bringing your child into the adult's gender's rooms.

 

[Auron225]

Im a guy - Id take my daughter into the male changing room with me (Im not leaving a 5 year-old to do all that by herself!)

Although for my area this isnt even a real issue. There are single changing rooms, slightly bigger changing rooms (probbaly for this exact purpose) and family changing rooms which are a fair bit bigger.

 

[Jamieson 90]

Wouldn't be a problem at my swim centre since we have stalls and lockers. If it were communal changing rooms though then I would bring my daughter (I'm male) with me, don't care what people think you don't leave a 5 year old child on their own, especially when their only wearing their bathing suit/nude

I even remember my mother taking me into the woman's toliet with her if it were just the two of us, either because she needed to go to the toliet or I did, either way I went with her until I was old enough. Of course if my dad was with us then he took me. Was never a problem and shouldn't be.

 

[sky14kemea]

Over here we just have separate stalls and stuff, so there isn't a need for separate changing rooms.

So obviously I'd be fine bringing the child with me. =P