# Mamas, don't follow your babies into the men's room **URL:** \ **Category:** The BBQ Pit\ **Created:** [August 13, 2009, 3:32pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/mamas-dont-follow-your-babies-into-the-mens-room/506294 "2009-08-13T15:32:03Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 20\ **Page:** 13
**Author:** ![fessie](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/f/c37758/32.png) [@fessie](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/fessie)\ **Post date:** [August 17, 2009, 4:18am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/mamas-dont-follow-your-babies-into-the-mens-room/506294/241 "2009-08-17T04:18:41Z")
> [@Indistinguishable](#): > > What’s a family restroom? [ADA Accessible single-stall restrooms are important for visitors with visible and non-visible disabilities, or with other words for people living with “special needs”. These restrooms allow people with special needs to visit museums, parks, theaters, libraries and other public places. Family style, unisex, or single-user restrooms (often called handicapped restrooms) offer flexibility: males or females, and one or more individuals (i.e. family members), of the same or opposite sex, can use them. They can also provide such amenities as two toilets, one for adults and one for children, and a changing table. People with visible physical disabilities are not the only users of single-stall handicapped washrooms. The single-stall washroom (whether it is called family style or handicapped washroom) provides a higher level of privacy than the multi-stall public restrooms and it provides a solution for people with shy-bladder and those in the transgendered community. In addition, people using an ostomy pouch often prefer the additional access space and increased privacy of a unisex restroom.]([http://www.americanrestroom.org/family/index.htm](http://www.americanrestroom.org/family/index.htm)) ---
**Author:** ![MsWhatsit](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/eb8c5e/32.png) [@MsWhatsit](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/MsWhatsit)\ **Post date:** [August 17, 2009, 5:11am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/mamas-dont-follow-your-babies-into-the-mens-room/506294/242 "2009-08-17T05:11:23Z")
> [@fessie](#): > > Statistically unlikely? Sure. Exactly. ---
**Author:** ![Freudian\_Slit](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/f/5daacb/32.png) [@Freudian\_Slit](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Freudian_Slit)\ **Post date:** [August 17, 2009, 5:15am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/mamas-dont-follow-your-babies-into-the-mens-room/506294/243 "2009-08-17T05:15:47Z")
It just seems like if you want to protect your kid, you shouldn’t be so worried about the bathroom, but rather more worried about making sure they know to tell you if it does happen when you’re not around. Chances are it won’t happen in the five minutes they’re in the bathroom and you’re right outside, but when they’re alone with someone they know well enough to be trusted with. ---
**Author:** ![SteveG1](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/bb73d2/32.png) [@SteveG1](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/SteveG1)\ **Post date:** [August 17, 2009, 5:17am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/mamas-dont-follow-your-babies-into-the-mens-room/506294/244 "2009-08-17T05:17:24Z")
> [@Jackmannii](#): > > No, it’s far better if we all just adapt the advice quoted in the OP - everyone, _adults included_ should relieve themselves before venturing out in public places, so we can avoid the horrors of public restrooms, including the hazards of disease which may be transmitted by paper towel litter. I plan to use the lobby. They have those nice absorbant carpets. If I have to sit for a doo doo, they’re nice and warm and soft too. ---
**Author:** ![wierdaaron](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/w/eada6e/32.png) [@wierdaaron](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/wierdaaron)\ **Post date:** [August 17, 2009, 5:33am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/mamas-dont-follow-your-babies-into-the-mens-room/506294/245 "2009-08-17T05:33:08Z")
Child gets murdered in a bathroom, keep children from bathrooms. Child gets murdered in an ice cream store, keep children away from ice cream stores. It’s unbelievably horrible, but that was one seriously messed up dude. If the aunt had gone into the bathroom with the kid, the guy might have just killed her, too. He wasn’t caught until a few days later when he stabbed a woman. He says porno movies in his hotel room spoke directly to him, and that god told him to kill someone pure. You can’t protect everybody from every deranged, mentally ill murderer out there. What the aunt did was perfectly reasonable. I’ve got no problem with family restrooms, though. In fact, they’re a perfect solution. I dont think they should be required by business owners, however. Parks and public facilities, why not? ---
**Author:** ![Dangerosa](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/22d042/32.png) [@Dangerosa](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Dangerosa)\ **Post date:** [August 17, 2009, 11:57am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/mamas-dont-follow-your-babies-into-the-mens-room/506294/246 "2009-08-17T11:57:51Z")
> [@fessie](#): > > Statistically unlikely? Sure. > > But mothers are haunted by such things. > > We just are. > > Family restrooms are an excellent solution and are becoming more commonplace. They also provide more space, so they’re helpful for adults with disabilities, particularly those who are being assisted by an opposite-sex family member. I’m not. Any more than I’m haunted by the thought my kid will get cancer and die - like one of the boys in my son’s class. Or that a household fire will kill my kids - like one of the kids in my daughter’s class. Or that they will drown in a bathtub, like a coworkers daughter. Or struck by lightening like my cousin. I am, however, disturbed - not haunted - but disturbed - by eight year old boys peeking through stall doors while I pee. Which in my experience is much more statistically likely than having my kids molested or murdered. ---
**Author:** ![Left\_Hand\_of\_Dorkness](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/left_hand_of_dorkness/32/7156_2.png) [@Left\_Hand\_of\_Dorkness](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Left_Hand_of_Dorkness)\ **Post date:** [August 17, 2009, 12:06pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/mamas-dont-follow-your-babies-into-the-mens-room/506294/247 "2009-08-17T12:06:16Z")
> [@TruCelt](#): > > Exactly, it was an example of the type of information you didn’t have. Information without which you ave no right to make sweeping statements about how I am parenting my child. It would take hours to type out all the ways that you are wrong about that, so I tried to just slip in what might clue you to how wrong you just might be. TruCelt, I was wrong about it **because you left out that important detail**. My comments about your parenting are based on your insane statements in this thread. I fully expect that in real life you’re not quite as much an idiot as you’re making yourself out to be here–but all I have to go on is your words here. Why would you put forth such a stupid hypothetical (sending a 2-year-old alone into the bathroom)? Why would you leave out such an important detail (the age of the kid)? Both are moronic actions. ---
**Author:** ![Left\_Hand\_of\_Dorkness](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/left_hand_of_dorkness/32/7156_2.png) [@Left\_Hand\_of\_Dorkness](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Left_Hand_of_Dorkness)\ **Post date:** [August 17, 2009, 12:13pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/mamas-dont-follow-your-babies-into-the-mens-room/506294/248 "2009-08-17T12:13:59Z")
> [@fessie](#): > > Statistically unlikely? Sure. > > But mothers are haunted by such things. > > We just are. **fessie** , as others have said, this is both horrific and singular–and it’s extraordinarily unlikely that Brandon Wilson would have been foiled in his attempt at murder by the existence of family bathrooms. He simply would have found a victim elsewhere–a child riding his bike through a neighborhood, a child on a playground, a child alone in the toy aisle of a store. And then we’d have the Joey Scarborough Act that prevented children from riding bikes in neighborhoods, or the Lisa Simmons Act that required playgrounds to have razor-wire fences and armed guards, or the Dylan Manns Act that required toy stores to have video camers on every aisle. And then Brandon Wilson would have gone somewhere else, and killed a child somewhere else. **We cannot eliminate the danger of insane killers**. Unless you figure out how to prevent this sort of insanity entirely, there’s just no way to do it. What we can do is choose not to live in fear, to realize that these insane killers are incredibly rare. We can choose to act rationally about risk, paying more attention to more significant dangers to children (poisons, car accidents, and the like). We can appreciate the fact that children today have a lower mortality rate than at any other time in the history of our species. Brandon already has a home on death row. Don’t give him a second home in your head. ---
**Author:** ![fessie](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/f/c37758/32.png) [@fessie](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/fessie)\ **Post date:** [August 17, 2009, 12:37pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/mamas-dont-follow-your-babies-into-the-mens-room/506294/249 "2009-08-17T12:37:04Z")
Oh, I agree completely **Daniel**. The only reason I know about Brandon Wilson is from my own online debate with mothers. My argument was that they should be FAR more worried about driving their own children in their own car than anything a stranger might do. The NISMART database and the U.S. Gov’t’s figures paint a very clear picture - strangers are NOT roaming through backyards across the country, seeking 2-yr-old’s (it only happens about 20 times/yr). And crazed murderers are NOT lurking in every men’s room. Kids are FAR more likely to be injured or die with a parent at the wheel. Even teen suicide is a MUCH bigger problem. But it’s really difficult to erase the visceral response. Particularly for women with small children - our protective instinct is powerful. We’re not rational about it, we don’t have time to be; we’re programmed to respond based on intuition and anecdotal data. And sometimes we go a little nuts. It’s the same obsessive behavior that lets us nag our children to wear their coats, eat their vegetables and look both ways before they cross the street even though we already warned them 572 times because on the 573rd time they’ll dash in front of a car (as my son did just the other day). I was 38 years old before I became pregnant and in my experience motherhood changes everything. I watched a documentary on Meryl Streep recently, and I still can’t get the ending of _Sophie’s Choice_ out of my mind. Horrific imagery involving children lingers. It haunts me now. That didn’t used to happen. ---
**Author:** ![Left\_Hand\_of\_Dorkness](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/left_hand_of_dorkness/32/7156_2.png) [@Left\_Hand\_of\_Dorkness](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Left_Hand_of_Dorkness)\ **Post date:** [August 17, 2009, 12:44pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/mamas-dont-follow-your-babies-into-the-mens-room/506294/250 "2009-08-17T12:44:06Z")
> [@fessie](#): > > But it’s really difficult to erase the visceral response. Particularly for women with small children - our protective instinct is powerful. We’re not rational about it, we don’t have time to be; we’re programmed to respond based on intuition and anecdotal data. > > And sometimes we go a little nuts. Fair enough–I think it helps that you realize it’s not a rational response. FWIW I have no problem at all with family restrooms (I’d have to be an asshole to have a problem with them, natch, but I figured that needed saying). I think they serve a real purpose–I just don’t think the purpose they serve is preventing murders. Sometimes moms go a little nuts. Sometimes moms go a lot nuts. A good mom realizes when she’s being overprotective and backs off a bit, IMO. If a mother is still taking her son into the women’s room at the age of nine, then the mom needs to realize that her desire to protect her son from a nearly nonexistent danger is subjecting him instead to regular, nontrivial humiliation. ---
**Author:** ![fessie](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/f/c37758/32.png) [@fessie](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/fessie)\ **Post date:** [August 17, 2009, 12:47pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/mamas-dont-follow-your-babies-into-the-mens-room/506294/251 "2009-08-17T12:47:23Z")
I agree. I send my 5-yr-old into the bathroom on his own…and my heart pounds the whole time. There’s this fear that I’m inviting disaster by tempting fate. But the city in which we live is small and safer than most – one of those places where it’s the basketball coach or the youth pastor who’s more likely to molest. ---
**Author:** ![fessie](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/f/c37758/32.png) [@fessie](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/fessie)\ **Post date:** [August 17, 2009, 1:03pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/mamas-dont-follow-your-babies-into-the-mens-room/506294/252 "2009-08-17T13:03:30Z")
It’s kind of funny that this thread is up at the same time as “Men like boobies”. Women aren’t the only irrational beings. 😉 **Dangerosa** , I’m curious to hear if your response has changed over the years. You have an 8- and a 9-yr-old, IIRC (or are they 9 and 10?). I’ll bet the bathroom paranoia thing depends a lot on how old one’s children are. I’ll bet that women with 6-yr-olds who are the oldest of 3 are much more on guard than those with 6-yr-olds who are the youngest of 3. I once seriously toyed with the idea of complaining to the parks district because the playground (in the woods) was full of walnuts _which were a clear choking hazard_ to my 17-month-olds. 😃 I did come to my senses before acting. ---
**Author:** ![Left\_Hand\_of\_Dorkness](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/left_hand_of_dorkness/32/7156_2.png) [@Left\_Hand\_of\_Dorkness](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Left_Hand_of_Dorkness)\ **Post date:** [August 17, 2009, 1:05pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/mamas-dont-follow-your-babies-into-the-mens-room/506294/253 "2009-08-17T13:05:59Z")
> [@fessie](#): > > It’s kind of funny that this thread is up at the same time as “Men like boobies”. Women aren’t the only irrational beings. 😉 Boy howdy. ---
**Author:** ![Dangerosa](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/22d042/32.png) [@Dangerosa](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Dangerosa)\ **Post date:** [August 17, 2009, 1:20pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/mamas-dont-follow-your-babies-into-the-mens-room/506294/254 "2009-08-17T13:20:25Z")
> [@fessie](#): > > It’s kind of funny that this thread is up at the same time as “Men like boobies”. Women aren’t the only irrational beings. 😉 > > **Dangerosa** , I’m curious to hear if your response has changed over the years. You have an 8- and a 9-yr-old, IIRC (or are they 9 and 10?). I’ll bet the bathroom paranoia thing depends a lot on how old one’s children are. I’ll bet that women with 6-yr-olds who are the oldest of 3 are much more on guard than those with 6-yr-olds who are the youngest of 3. > > I once seriously toyed with the idea of complaining to the parks district because the playground (in the woods) was full of walnuts _which were a clear choking hazard_ to my 17-month-olds. 😃 I did come to my senses before acting. No, I’ve never been a paranoid mom on the issue of stranger danger. (Almost 10 and 11 already). My kids were heading into the bathroom in ‘safe’ places alone at 4 and 5. And I haven’t dragged my son into a bathroom with me since he was six - my daughter has been using the ladies room by herself when she is with her dad since she was four consistantly. I have passed on a few “dicey” bathrooms since that time - passing up the dicey truck stop for the less dicey McDs. ---
**Author:** ![miss\_elizabeth](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/838e76/32.png) [@miss\_elizabeth](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/miss_elizabeth)\ **Post date:** [August 17, 2009, 1:22pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/mamas-dont-follow-your-babies-into-the-mens-room/506294/255 "2009-08-17T13:22:33Z")
> [@twickster](#): > > [bolding mine] Not exactly a strong statement – and what are Tatar’s sources? > ETA: Plus the second bolded statement refers to the death of the parents, not the abandonment of the children. Honestly, it is this kind of thing that makes me think “Cite?” is really a way of starting an argument. You asked for a cite and he had one. This isn’t GD, it’s the pit, and this isn’t even the subject. If it bothers you so much, start a fucking GD thread about it, but shut the fuck up about it in the pit. He had a fucking cite! Where is _your_ cite saying that it didn’t happen? Fuck! ---
**Author:** ![Fear\_Itself](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/fear_itself/32/19637_2.png) [@Fear\_Itself](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Fear_Itself)\ **Post date:** [August 17, 2009, 1:30pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/mamas-dont-follow-your-babies-into-the-mens-room/506294/256 "2009-08-17T13:30:42Z")
> [@Dangerosa](#): > > I have passed on a few “dicey” bathrooms since that time - passing up the dicey truck stop for the less dicey McDs. See, this is the problem with mother’s intuition versus statistical likelihood: why is a truck stop more dicey than a McDonalds? I would think the McDonalds was much more dangerous, because predators know \*that is where the children are! \*They could stake out a truck stop bathroom for days without seeing a child, whereas a McDonalds is a virtual smorgasbord for pedophiles. The truly paranoid mother would never, ever take her child to a McDonalds. ---
**Author:** ![Dangerosa](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/22d042/32.png) [@Dangerosa](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Dangerosa)\ **Post date:** [August 17, 2009, 1:48pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/mamas-dont-follow-your-babies-into-the-mens-room/506294/257 "2009-08-17T13:48:31Z")
> [@Fear\_Itself](#): > > See, this is the problem with mother’s intuition versus statistical likelihood: why is a truck stop more dicey than a McDonalds? I would think the McDonalds was much more dangerous, because predators know \*that is where the children are! \*They could stake out a truck stop bathroom for days without seeing a child, whereas a McDonalds is a virtual smorgasbord for pedophiles. The truly paranoid mother would never, ever take her child to a McDonalds. Truck stops aren’t necessarily dicey due to the pedophile quotient. They are dicey, in my experience, because they are less clean than McDonalds - and - I hate to say it - you are more likely to find people actually having sex in a truck stop or bar restroom (seen both!) than in a McDonald’s restaurant (never come across that yet.) For me “protecting my kids from bathrooms” is less about molestation, and more about things like “clean,” "not likely to be harassed by roving bands of teenagers (Mall of America), and "not going to be exposed to the most interesting vending machines in the world until I’m ready to explain “love juice’” ---
**Author:** ![fessie](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/f/c37758/32.png) [@fessie](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/fessie)\ **Post date:** [August 17, 2009, 2:03pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/mamas-dont-follow-your-babies-into-the-mens-room/506294/258 "2009-08-17T14:03:02Z")
> [@Dangerosa](#): > > and "not going to be exposed to the most interesting vending machines in the world until I’m ready to explain “love juice’” My kids were at McDonald’s with their friends this past June, climbing all over the habitrail and having a blast. Their favorite spot is the circular room at the top, it’s their “clubhouse.” I was chatting with their friends’ mother, she’s one of my best friends. “Mom! MOM! \*\* MOM\*\*!!! What’s this word?” my son yelled at the top of his lungs from an opening in the clubhouse wall, his voice echoing off the ceiling. “What does …F…U..” “NEVER MIND DON’T READ THAT!!!” I yelled back. So of course his twin sister and her little girlfriend took an interest. They started collaborating, one little girl deciphering the letters and the other little girl standing on tippie-toes, yelling through the holes in the clear plastic wall. Their sweet little voices wafted down from 20’ up: “What…does…P…U…” (and I’m thinking, did she say ‘P’ or ‘F’?)…S.S…" At this point I was laughing so hard I couldn’t breathe. ---
**Author:** ![twickster](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/t/ec9cab/32.png) [@twickster](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/twickster)\ **Post date:** [August 17, 2009, 2:03pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/mamas-dont-follow-your-babies-into-the-mens-room/506294/259 "2009-08-17T14:03:40Z")
> [@miss\_elizabeth](#): > > Honestly, it is this kind of thing that makes me think “Cite?” is really a way of starting an argument. You asked for a cite and he had one. This isn’t GD, it’s the pit, and this isn’t even the subject. If it bothers you so much, start a fucking GD thread about it, but shut the fuck up about it in the pit. He had a fucking cite! Where is _your_ cite saying that it didn’t happen? Fuck! He made a claim stating that the world isn’t the way most of us understand it to be, so he’s the one who has an obligation to provide a cite backing up that claim. If the cite he provides doesn’t prove what he seems to think it does, I’m going to go ahead and point that out. I’m under no obligation to prove anything, since I’m not the one making sweeping claims. This is, of course, all moot at this point, since **Smashie** has been suspended and thus is in no position to respond – not that he was showing any indication that he was planning to do so prior to his suspension. ---
**Author:** ![Jackmannii](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/jackmannii/32/311_2.png) [@Jackmannii](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Jackmannii)\ **Post date:** [August 17, 2009, 2:13pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/mamas-dont-follow-your-babies-into-the-mens-room/506294/260 "2009-08-17T14:13:29Z")
> [@fessie](#): > > My kids were at McDonald’s with their friends this past June, climbing all over the habitrail and having a blast. > [@Vigilant Mom (from the OP)](#): > > Children have been violated in a matter of seconds in the play areas of fast-food restaurants with the parents right there. See, you _must not_ allow your child in the play area alone. You need to crawl up into that habitrail with them. And if you get stuck - well, that’s what the Jaws Of Life are for. [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/mamas-dont-follow-your-babies-into-the-mens-room/506294.md?page=12) [Next page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/mamas-dont-follow-your-babies-into-the-mens-room/506294.md?page=14)