Yeah, having done janitorial work a couple of times in the past, this pretty much sums up my experience, men’s rooms are messy women’s restrooms are dirty.
Never had a problem with my sons, but did have to figure out what to do with my (then) 4 year old, very loud and boisterous neice one time, she kept shouting about how her Uncle Dork was taking her to have fun someplace. 
Uh yep! She went in to the women’s bathroom alone while I tried to not look like a predator
That’s not my experience at malls movie theatres restaurants or even most quick mart gas stations. YMMV of course but I’d say fwiw most public lavatories are not cess pools of dirt. Depends on management and leadership and the degree of public hygienic piggishness
Now in a club/ bar/ festival with crowds of inebriated customers sure the lavatories may end up stinking messy.
Yep, I went through that phase. My kid is small for her age, so the two big issues were being able to reach the sink, soap, or towels, and opening the door if it was too heavy. Several times the door would seem to have trouble opening, so I’d push (or pull) it from the outside, only to have a grown woman appear. I’d just say I was expecting my kid, and I always got a positive reaction. Sometimes a status report (“she’s washing her hands”) or a compliment (“she’s so cute”).
Occasionally I had to go in and rescue her.
It pretty much goes in this order, with the boundaries changing at various ages depending on the kid:
And, of course, my favorite: send her with Mom
What was the argument?
I always took my daughter to the men’s room. At some point, I’ll feel comfortable with her going into the ladies room alone, but it never would have occurred to me that I could take her into the ladies room.
I take her to the mens if she’s being too precious to use the ladies by herself. Normally she will go with her sister or mother so it doesn’t matter. If there’s a parents room or wheelchair friendly room I’ll take her there as first preference, mainly because there’s more room.
Father of four daughters here, and I have been in this situation many times. If there is no family/unisex restroom, I will check the men’s. If it’s filthy, as many men’s public restrooms are, I will take her into the women’s. If it’s a large restroom where someone may already be in there, I make a point to announce when I open the door what I’m doing. I have never had a woman complain, in fact, most are very welcoming and understanding.
Wow. NEVER crossed my mind to bring my daughters into a women’s room.
When my older daughter was five, long before unisex bathrooms, she was plenty old enough to go to the women’s bathroom by herself. When she was younger and not old enough she went into the men’s bathroom with me, and we obviously used a stall. Never a problem.
Well, the “it’s cleaner” argument has already been debunked upthread. But that’s one argument he made. Then he made a point about urinals.
This.
Although as soon as I think they can handle it, my girls all went into the womens room on their own and I wait outside.
Now I have an 18 year old trans son who uses the men’s room. I go myself and/or wait outside. I’m more fearful of some bigot beating up my son than I ever was of my little girls.
If a man does something like saying, before he enters “My daughter need to use the toilet so I’m bringing her in here”, in other words, he isn’t being sneaky and showing parental behavior, the vast majority of women are going to be OK with that.
A lone man sneaking into the woman’s toilet is an entirely different manner.
It’s also why most women are OK with a trans woman openly using the woman’s toilet - there’s no sneaking involved.
People in the toilet to do toilet business are not a problem.
On the other hand, if an adult male guardian of a young child is comfortable taking her into the men’s room that’s OK, too. Personally, I’m OK leaving it up to the judgement of the adult.
I would take her into the men’s room and use a stall, no worries. As others have stated, I doubt there would be an issue with either choice if done appropriately, but I see less potential for trouble doing it this way. What is she going to see in the men’s room? I have been using public toilets for about 35 years and have literally never seen someone’s else’s genitalia while doing so (is that unusual? I do make some effort not to look, I assume that’s the norm).
I’m 37, so I don’t know if that makes me more in line with the (average) ‘TikTok generation’ or the (average) ‘SDMB generation’.
There is also the problem that many women bleed from the crotch for several days a month which can really add to the mess.
My store currently has someone who, like clockwork, not only refuses to flush after using wads and wads of TP, but will leave every possible bodily waste in the bowl which, for several days a month, makes the contents of the bowl resemble a vat of borscht.
But the suggested alternative is me loitering around inside the ladies room. Which seems much more problematic that the possibility that the ladies room is cleaner.
And it’s not like the daughter is going to use the urinal – or spend time inspecting it – you go in and head for a stall.
My logic would be that the whole point of gender segregated rest rooms is that men either are, or are perceived to be, an existential threat to women, in a space where women might partly undress or be trapped in a cubicle. In other words, the point is to give women a safe space without men. As a man, I’d be afraid that invading the women’s rest room would mean: Scandal! Prison!
It’s not surprising that some women might say they have no problem with a dad helping his small child. The important question is whether the dad could assume ahead of time with 100% confidence that ALL women would have no problem with it.
Whereas, I can’t quite imagine men in a men’s room having any complaint about a woman, much less a little girl, coming into a men’s room.
That’s why it’s advisable for the man to announce his presence before entering.
As a woman who has seen this scenario play out in real life, there are several possible outcomes:
But, as I said, I trust the man to use his judgement as to how he wants to handle this situation. I can certainly see where many men might be more comfortable taking their daughter into the men’s room where they can closely supervise what’s going on.
One downside to a man taking a young girl into a men’s room is the possibility of an uniformed onlooker making assumptions, thinking the girl is being kidnapped or something else unsavory, leading to the calling of police and difficulties. More likely to happen if the father and daughter appear to be of different ethnicity.
Really, this is one reason I applaud the proliferation of unisex/family toilets, although it does not solve the problem of nosey bystander making assumptions.
It is also a reason I very firmly oppose laws criminalizing using the “wrong” toilet - it further complicates matters for parents, both in this situation and in the case of woman with young sons in tow who might need assistance to use the toilet.
For decades - at the least - adults have managed to work these problems out by communicating at the time and place necessary. Can’t we just leave it that way? There doesn’t seem to be anything broke about this that needs fixing.
I have a son. I never had a problem wirh restrooms, but locker rooms could be a problem. We did seim lessons at the local university, and their indoor pool 1) could only be accessed through locker rooms that were large and complicated and 2) had 1 unisex restroom that was locked and complicated to get unlocked (only one key) and 3) had no other restroom.
It was a real problem for people with kids who were like, 5-8. My 7 year old son was pretty intimidated to have to find his way through a new locker room full of strange college kids changing clothes and showering (and it was a maze, or at least the women’s room was), but he was way too old to walk through a women’s changing room. I am sure he would have made some people uncomfortable. The same would have been true for dads with daughters, though there were at least female staff to walk the girls through. The days we went there were no male staff.
And there was absolutely no where to change, except the unaccessible family changing room.
Yet another reason why gendered public restrooms are a ridiculous, silly idea.
At 5 my daughters (now 8 and 6) would use their own gender bathroom themselves. Before that, I took them to the men’s room.
I take my daughter to the men’s room.
The general convention my wife and I seem to follow is we take the child to the restroom that matches the gender of the adult taking them.
I suppose the logic is that an adult in the wrong restroom is more off-putting than a child. And the child will likely be using a stall anyway