I think I started letting my boys go by themselves around five or so. I gave them the speech about potential creeps in the bathroom and that was that.
It’s funny I can remember I took my oldest to go see Harry Potter. About ten minutes before the movie starts (we got there early) he wanted to go to the bathroom.
So we get up from our seats, which he then looks at me with an incredulous look on his face and says “I can go by myself.” I was still pretty much on the fence as to weather or not I should let him go alone. But then I thought, it’s the early afternoon and not many people in the entire complex so I told him to go ahead.
He took a little longer than I would have expected but when he got back he told me that on his return trip from the bathroom he walked back in to the wrong theater. He then told me “Yeah, I was going to cry because I couldn’t find you but I figured I go into the next theater to see if you were there first.”
He gave me a chuckle and a slight heart attack at the same time.
But Lordy, at twelve I was droping my oldest son and his friend off at Hurrican Harbor (A water park) by themselves unsupervised.
I think you did exactly the right thing, and don’t worry about it. But another potential solution (this is what Mr Aspy does usually) is to find a disabled toilet. As well as providing unisex privacy, also the toilets themselves tend to be lower down (round here anyway) which is a big help for short people.
We had a doper here a couple years ago who claimed she took her twelve-year-old son into the stall with her if she had to use the bathroom in public. This was for fear that he would be abducted by strangers, otherwise. Many dopers supported her.
I agree. As the father of two girls (now 3 and 7) you were completely in the green zone, there. Let it trouble you no further.
As for the age thing. We started sending the older one into the ladie’s room on her own sometime when she was five. We’d walk her there and then wait. But ever since she was late 6 or just 7 she can go on her own, pretty much if we can see it (say in a restaurant or something). She’s an independent sort.
All it points out is the sad state of things that women are always taking children to the bathroom but people are unaccustomed to seeing fathers with little girls being parents. Be proud! Hold her up and show her how to pee standing up!
I regularly chew out business owners who put a changing table in the women’s room but not the mens’ room.
Okay, I don’t “chew out” anyone IRL, I’m far too wimpy for that. But I do ASK them, eyebrow askew, if they don’t think it’s a little ridiculous that her father has to change a diaper in the middle of the floor when I’m not with them - or would they prefer he use the ladies’ room instead? Or perhaps their office? :dubious:
Yeah, no doubt. I think my son was about two before I even realized there even was such a thing. I told my wife: “You know there actually putting changing tables in the bathroom now?”
She came back at me with a dubious look on her facer and says “Haven’t they always?”
A female friend of mine started letting her two sons go into the men’s room by themselves at age 5, but she demanded that they sing very loudly the whole time they were in there. “If you stop singing, I’m coming in to see why.”
It’s amazing what people think are their business. At 3 there’s no question that she should be accompanied by an adult and I’d tell the old biddy to mind her own business. The real dilemma is when they get older…
My boyfriend’s dad does this sort of… well, it’s more of a war-cry when he pees. “Pee PEEE!” The BF says when they went to Disney he was standing outside the bathroom and could hear it from there.
5 and above can go into their appropriate-gender restroom by themselves, IMHO, with an adult lurking outside the door (that is, completely outside the whole bathroom suite) as needed depending on individual child.
Occasionally, I’ll take my thirteen-year-old nephew and eight-year-old niece to the movies by myself. If my nephew has to go to the bathroom, I’ll go in with him and hover near the sinks while he uses the urinal. When my niece needed to go, I sent her into the ladies room and hovered right outside, looking into it (big ladies room with lots of walls), watching to see her head as she went from a stall to the sinks. And I was fully prepared to go in if she had any problem, no matter how weird that might look.
That said, I’ve seen a “family restroom” in some public places, which could be used by an adult and opposite-gendered child or a disabled adult who needed assistance. I think you can lock the door and get privacy and security. I think this is a good idea.
I’m seeing quite a few places that have a separate changing room, now. I always think “yay for them!”
Most of the places that have a koala in the ladies’ put it there as an afterthought… before those, babies would get changed on the slab where the washbasins are, or on a toilet’s cover (I’ve seen women do both when I was a kid).
The new public pool in town has sets of mens’-ladies’-diaper rooms, as well as changing rooms for women, men and “family/disabled”. The only time I’ve seen someone use the family rooms is groups including someone disabled; I’ve seen adults of both genders bring kids of both genders into any of the “single gender” changing rooms.
I was responsible for bringing my 10yo and 7yo cousins, 5 and 3yo brothers to the movies when I was 11. Nobody died, but I’m sure that lady in the OP would have freaked out too.
6 is first grade, right? They’re going on their own at school, so I’d say that’s around the age where they can go in alone depending on the kid and the circumstances.
