Public toilet etiquette has been a popular topic for many years especially for parents who find themselves in a situation with their kids who need to use the restroom while out and about.

 

We’ve all been there; we’re out with the little ones when they need to use the bathroom but the question recently is which bathroom do you use, the men’s or the women’s.

It’s a fairly obvious answer when mothers are out with their daughters or fathers out with their sons, they use gender appropriate facilities or when possible family restrooms with changing facilities. But what happens when a father is out with his daughter and she needs to go. What should he do?

That is the question that has divided opinion lately after a father took his 4-year-old daughter to the women’s bathroom as opposed to the men’s room, which according to his own wife was the wrong decision.

Taking to www.mumsnet.com one mother asked her peers for advice. “Help dh(darling husband) and I with a disagreement, please. When dd(4)(darling daughter) needs the loo in a public place, he takes her to the ladies’ loos. I told him that women don’t like that and he should take her to the men’s loo. Aibu(am I being unreasonable) or is he?”

It seems her question was more than valid with hundreds of responses, 536 currently to be exact, from other parents and adults alike. “He is. I’ve never seen a man do this before….ever” said one person, while others added that the father was “out of order” or “he is wrong”.

However, not everyone agreed with the concerned mother and jumped to the father’s defence. “I understand the conflict, but I would rather a father in the ladies – individual cubicles – than a four-year-old girl being taken into the gents with no idea what she might see. (And I’ve wandered into the gents accidentally a couple of times, they’re not nice places! Smelly, grubby…..)” wrote one person. “Definitely prefer a young girl.in the ladies than going into the men’s with open urinals,” said another.

Nevertheless, the glaringly obvious answer here is to use to ‘Disabled Restroom’ which is most often equipped with baby changing facilities, making it the most family-friendly of all bathroom options.

However, that leads to an entirely different debate and the need for more family bathroom facilities in public, so parents don’t find themselves in such a position.

What is your opinion on this? Do you think there’s a need for more family bathrooms, do you think there should be a “Father and Daughter” or “Mother and Son” facility? The possibilities are endless and it is no doubt a debate that will remain ongoing.

Children’s safety is of paramount importance here, and I personally believe that a parent should feel safe and comfortable taking their child to the bathroom, wherever that may be.

It’s definitely a hot topic and you can follow all of the responses over here, on the original story.