A question I stole from Tiktok. Thought I’d ask it here and see what the older folks think.
These days, i look for the unisex bathroom. They are getting more common. I notice my supermarket just has two stalls, labeled “restroom” now, instead of a men’s room and a women’s room. (That’s a recent change.) I see the same at restaurants. And airports always have a “family and handicapped” bathroom these days, which isn’t restricted by gender.
Depends on the 5-yr old, the layout of the bathroom, and the type and number of users. If it is the kind with an opening rather than a door (so I can stand outside and - if needed - call out “Everything oK?”), and isn’t too crowded, I’d let her use the women’s. But lacking a combination of those, I might just rush her in/out of the mens’.
My daughters are older now, but both of them were, at the age of 5, comfortable being on their own in a public women’s restroom. In many cases, depending on where we were (e.g. a sit-down restaurant), at this age they’d find a staff member (e.g. a server) to ask about the location of the toilet, and get themselves there and back unaccompanied.
Only one time did this turn into a minor crisis. At a museum in Cologne, we realized it had been a while since our daughter had gone. We went to the restroom, and we found the stall door’s latch was stuck and refusing to open, and our daughter was crying inside because she didn’t know what to do or how to inform us of the problem. After the custodian came and forced the door, our daughter hugged us, and then promptly forgot about it, and we went back to the usual practice thereafter.
Womens room. We won’t mind. I’ve seen it happen.
By 5, my kids used the bathroom independently. Earlier than that, if there were no unisex bathroom, I took them to the men’s room.
The family bathroom wasn’t always free of issue, though. One time we stopped at a rest stop when my daughter was about three, and she was tired and stressed from the drive and got it in her head that the sound of the toilet flushing was terrifying. The family bathroom had a little waiting area inside it, and I asked her to sit there while I used the bathroom. She was crying and stressed, and when I warned her that I was about to flush, she screamed and ran out of the bathroom.
So there I was, a guy in my thirties frantically zipping my pants while chasing a terrified screaming toddler out of the bathroom.
Good times.
Exactly my current situation. I use the men’s room, after consultation with my wife about what would be best. This is in Japan. (NB I still have to be in the stall with her at this stage, as is the same with the OP I presume).
My daughter is now 7; but she’s been going into the ladies since she learnt how to wipe her bum, around age 4. I just hang out outside the door like a weirdo stalker.
Before that I would take her to the toilet with an attached nappy changing station, which tend to be unisex.
My son is five and I send him into the men’s unaccompanied… but still the same weirdo stalker behaviour (hard to keep track of two kids in different toilets without that)
Actually, I’ve only had boys that are grown now. But I’ve always assumed I’d just take my would be daughter into the men’s room. But the guy I saw on TT made a good argument for bringing them into the ladies room.
And was surprised most of the women responders were basically: “Yeah, we don’t care if a dad comes in”. As @SuntanLotion points out.
I was wondering if that was a generational thing or not.
Huh, i would certainly have defaulted to “take her to the men’s room, you are an adult man, she’s a little kid”.
Just last month I took my not-quite-3-year-old granddaughter to the men’s room. No issues.
Yeah, this is my view as well. I (man) took my daughter to the men’s room stalls until she was capable of going by herself to the ladies room, and would never enter a women’s room. Maybe times have changed.
I remember once her pointing at the urinals hanging on the wall and asking “Dad, what’re those for?”
It has been decades, but my vague recollection is of women bringing boys who IMO looked too old into the women’s restroom/changing rooms. But, maybe that more reflects that back then fewer dads took their young kids out alone.
As I recall, we were regularly looking for ways to allow the kids to experience independence. A relatively clean bathroom in a relatively safe situation was just such an opportunity.
Yeah, this was me. When I took my son who was 6ish at the time to the movies. He said he needed to use the restroom in the middle of the movie. I started to follow him, but then he gave me that look like: “Don’t embarrass me dad”. So I let him go alone.
I’d probably have CPS called on me if I tried that today.
I’m an uncle but when my niece was like six, I took her to a movie and she needed to use the toilet after. I sent her into the ladies’ room while I stood just outside, looking directly in. I had this crazy fear of someone taking her out a back door.
I take her to the men’s room. It’s never been an issue, and nobody’s ever said anything about it.
I could probably let her go by herself, but considering she mounts the toilet by putting two flat palms directly on the toilet seat and hoisting herself up, I just can’t bear it. So I accompany her just to lift her onto the seat myself. Plus, you never know when the toilet paper is mounted too far for her reach or in an unfamiliar mechanism or if the door doesn’t work quite right. Not to mention my little girl has resorted to crafty means in the past to avoid washing her hands, so you gotta be on your game when it’s time to wash up.
I would take her to the women’s restroom because they are usually cleaner than the men’s.
Assuming that “5yo” should be read as “young enough to not be able to use the bathroom unsupervised” (whatever age that may be for the individual child), I’m going to pick the option that won’t get anybody arrested. If there’s no unisex room, then I’ll take her into the men’s room.
And yeah, women probably wouldn’t mind a father taking his daughter into the women’s room. Probably. But it only takes one crazy witness and one crazy cop to listen to her.
Have you tested that IRL though? Most of my (granted, mostly anectdotal) data indicates that women’s rooms are typically the dirtier of the two. Many women have a tendency to “hover” and they can’t exactly aim with precision. Knowing this, other women also hover because the first group of women pissed all over the stall, and so on.
Lol, I was unaware of that, blissful ignorance.