Me? I was about 9 or 10. It was a weekend and I rode with my father to pick up something from his office. We walked past the restrooms and the door was open for some reason (cleaning maybe?). I could not believe what I saw in there. I think there were at least two comfy chairs and a small love seat. There was a small table between the two chairs with magazines.
I was floored.
When and how did you find out one of women’s best kept secrets? Maybe I am one of the few that DIDN’T know this from birth…
I know this was mentioned in “The Office” as well.
I’ve got to pipe up and say this is not universal. Neither of the women’s rooms in my current workplace have any furniture. The last place I worked, of the 10 (it was a complex of 3 interconnected buildings) only one had a couch, and one had a small dresser, but that restroom also had a shower - we were allowed time on the clock to work out. Thinking back further, I’d say fewer than half of the places that I worked had bathroom furniture.
I can’t imagine taking a nap in any of them - ugh!
For those who were unaware of it, the couches/chairs in the women’s room aren’t generally in the same room as the stalls themselves, but in a sort of antechamber between the door marked “Women” and the bathroom proper.
The purpose is primarily to give nursing mothers a comfortable, out-of-public place to breastfeed, but they’re also used for other things.
They are not nearly as common as they used to be, as it becomes more socially acceptable to breastfeed in public and as square footage becomes more valuable. They’re most likely to be found in middle-to-higher-end places like hotels, more expensive restaurants, and department stores.
I’m failing to find a YouTube page about the SNL skit concerning this. I remember the ladie’s room in it having a harpist, a jacuzzi, and people feeding grapes to the women.
My older brother was a security guard at a huge Depression-era factory that made springs for the automotive industry.
I often would stop by the factory on weekends and he would show me around as he did the rounds. This grand tour included the ladies’ facilities. I remember him opening the door and saying with a flourish “Behold, the great difference between men’s rooms and women’s rooms: Couches.”
Most women’s washrooms around these parts do not have furniture of any type. Toilets, sinks, tampon machine, mirror. That’s it.
Washrooms that also double as ‘Mothering Rooms’ have a chair or sofa or something to sit down while breast feeding, and likely a change table.
However, last time I was at the downtown Bay in Winnipeg, the woman’s washroom, which hadn’t been renovated since the 60s had two entire banks of make up tables with chairs and mirrors.
So, I think perhaps ‘furniture in the woman’s washroom’ is sort of on the way out.
When I was a little kid, my best friend was the son of our school/church janitor, and we used to help him with minor maintenance and repairs in both church and school. So, I’d been in the ladies’ room from an early age. I never understood why their bathroom was so much nicer than ours.
Then again, I couldn’t imagine why anyone would WANT a couch in the men’s room- I never wanted to spend 1 second longer in the men’s room than necessary!
In my workplace, both the faculty restrooms have a shower. Both also have an outer cloakroom, and they are furnished identically, mirror images of one another. There’s a wooden bench to sit on while you put on your boots, but no couches or anything else you’d want to spend time lounging on.
It’s been quite a while since I’ve seen a women’s restroom with any furniture more than, perhaps, a single chair, and even those are rare. I’m not saying they’re not still around, but they’re not as common as they used to be.
It was in grade school for me. The girls were joking about how their bathrooms had chairs and couches and stuff. The boys, of course, didn’t believe them. I too just assumed they were joking, but always wondered if there was some truth to it. At some point later in life, I learned that it was actually true. In college I remember walking into the bathroom and going “Couches? Chairs? Condom machine…I don’t remember a condom machine being in here, oh, that’s a tampon mach-oh shit” In my defense, it was a men’s bathroom a week or two earlier, but it was right next to one of the offices that probably had a lot of women in it, so they must have changed it over. That was my first time seeing it.
Now, as I type this out, I realize that those girls in grade school, that were joking about the furniture in the girls bathroom, had probably made their way into one of the faculty bathrooms.
They also come from an era where women might need to lie down because they were lightheaded from corsets and girdles. As well as all those “that time of the month” headaches. Now, our clothes are looser and we have something other than aspirin. Also, they provided a retreat for women in restaurants for that “post dinner gentlemen’s conversation” - long ago, women were SUPPOSED to finish dinner and then traipse off together to give the menfolk a chance to talk. It only takes women a minute to pee - so you fix your makeup and maybe have a small gossip in the ladies lounge before returning to the table.
The first corporate job I had did have a “couch” in every women’s restroom. In most bathrooms it was the first space you came into, a few were set up for “mothers” and had their space in the back behind a curtain.
Now, corporate mother’s rooms are usually a space independent of the bathroom..
I think I snuck a peek in the ladies’ room (accompanied by a girl) when I was pretty young, but I don’t remember the exact age. The 6-10 bracket sounds about right.
I learned at a very early age. I’m not sure of the exact age, but I was younger than six. When I had to use the public restrooms, my mother took me to the bathroom with her. As a matter of fact, I didn’t learn that men’s public restrooms didn’t have furniture until later.
