07/21/2013
I was up bright and early today(for me) and we made it to the gym for Daniel’s 9am class. My dad showed up 45 min in and so I joined him on the handbike next to him for a chat. We decided to all go to Red Robin for lunch. Daniel just had to go and take a shower…
So Eliana was very happy. She has said she wanted to eat there for weeks now. I had a burger with no bun, wrapped in lettuce. It actually is quite tasty but hard to eat.
We came home and told Eliana if she took a nap we would go to Busch Gardens. I ended up zonking out but she didn’t. So around 5ish we went to Adventure Island. I wanted to see how bad the crowd was at the end of the day. I figured people would be tired of being there all day long.
No deal. I mean, I am sure it wasn’t as bad as it was at say 2, but still too many people. We still had fun going here and there.
How old do you feel is too old for a boy to go into the womans bathroom to change. There is a big open changing area, where of course I am not going to change, but I do change Eliana. There were boys that were like 11, 12. I just felt that they were too big. I understand mothers being cautious but the one was almost as tall as I am. And who in the world is going to bother a boy when there are a ton of fathers around? I know Daniel would lay some guy low if he tried to harm a little boy and he was around. Anyway, I don’t mind the preschoolers, or even the K kids, but there has to be a point….
(I changed her, then traded her with Daniel, who had gotten dressed as well, and then changed in the toilet area. WHY in the world placed don’t have real changing rooms is beyond me!)
For dinner we went to sweet tomatoes and had a lot of twigs and leaves. Eliana fell asleep on the way home.
And now, I am here instead of cleaning. It seems to be a theme.
me
I think the cut-off should be about 7 for children to go into an opposite-gender bathroom with a parent. I’m not sure, but I think our public pools actually have an age limit listed by the locker rooms, too. (It’s been awhile.) The mall has a family bathroom and I know that’s unusual; I wouldn’t think twice about going in together at a place like that, but otherwise by 7 they should know how to wipe themselves and I’ll go stand at the entrance door and fret quietly thank-you-very-much. I think this question comes up at GF from time and I just stay out of it, lol. RYN: Me too! I’m up to 3 cover letters to send out when I get home and can tweak my resume, so that’s something at least! And I could just faint – Gabrielle was wearing the blue apron dress like Eliana had yesterday – the one I got as a GF freebie and am expected to give away next year and she got cherry juice all down the front of it! Yikes! I soaked it right away and Patrick didn’t check when he hung it to dry today, but it went in the wash and I’m majorly crossing my fingers…
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11 or 12 is just insane. They have change rooms in Europe, don’t ask me why, cause they are the biggest nudists going. Btw .. I love Red Robin, but I honestly believe that they have some of the least healthy food going on anywhere. Hope you have a good week ahead. Take care.
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I have to admit that I would be one of those extremely cautious mothers who WOULD take a 12yro boy into the womens’ bathroom – much against his own will, I’m sure. BUT….. this is WHY I think that there needs to be, like, a waiting room in womens’ toilets. It’s only fair. And not just cos of boys but because women tend to go to the toilets in groups anyway. Jayel and I tend to use the disabled toilets when either of us has to take Leah to the toilet. It just makes it so much easier with all the room in there, to put bags down etc. I think that I would do the same if I had my 12yro boy with me.
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12 is too old, I think.
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I don’t know what I’m going to do about this when Kyle reaches an older age, because I won’t be able to leave him anywhere alone. I don’t know how others will react to me taking him in to a changing room. Am I going to have to stick a big sticker on his head that says “Can’t be left alone because I’m autistic and can’t speak”? I don’t know..
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Bathrooms can be such a pain. I’m really not sure. I already don’t want the girls in the mens room with me, which occurred to me as a problem if I were to take either one of them with me for very long without Sara… double digit ages do seem particularly old, but I’m really not sure what a single parent of opposite gender is to do!
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Yeah – I think the cutoff should be somewhere around 5-7. Anything older than that is definitely too old. I recently was chatting with a coworker about this. A few months back when Freeze was away for the weekend I was saying I’d like to take the boys to the Y for free swim, but at 7 and almost 9 I felt like they were too old to come in the changing room with me, and I felt a little iffyabout letting them go into the men’s changing room by themselves. You’re right about fathers being there, and two boys together/the buddy system would most likely be safe *but* I still felt weird about it. So I didn’t take them. She said that the reason she switched from the Y to her kind of expensive fitness club is that the club has no age restrictions on boys in the bathroom with their moms, and her Y had a cutoff of age 6 (ours doesn’t to my knowledge). Apparently she regularly brings her 10 year old into the locker room with her. It definitely does get tricky when you have boys that aren’t pre-teens yet, but are older than kindergarten. I personally wouldn’t bring them into the changing room with me, but in my case that meant we didn’t go at all.
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With single moms, it’s hard to say. I remember having my boys go in with me. But when they got to be about 6 or 7 I had to start letting them go in the men’s room. I’d stand outside the door. I’ve even opened the door and hollered in to make sure they were ok. and once I even went in when my son didn’t answer me. You just have to trust your judgement, but yes, it is unfair to little girls.
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I don’t know – the question is really at what point are you comfortable sending your child in alone? I like the way the gym I’m at has it – the women’s locker room has two sections. When you first walk in there are lockers and two big restrooms/family changing rooms. If you have a boy with you, you use those. Then to the left you walk in through two doors and there is the women’s section. Everybody gets what they need.
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10-12 is way to old for boys to be in the women’s dressing room… I think your first noter is correct..around 7 is plenty old…
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