Appropriate age for boys to stop going into the locker room with their moms at the pool?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Our pool clearly states on the door: boys 5 and up must use men's locker room and girl's 5 and up must use women's room.

I think this is too young. No way my son could have done this at 5. And I wouldn’t want my husband just sending my daughter into the women’s locker room at 5 either. My ten year old now boy would be fine taking care of himself, but for sure he would be uncomfortable seeing other older men change. He would probably do it once and then not again until 15 years old!

We use the family changing rooms. I appreciate those so much.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Are you really suggesting if you had a boy age 3-4 ("older than toddler") you would send him into a mens' changing room alone?

No, but I would have him change at home or in the car or even just under a towel, not out in the open in the women's locker room with his privates on full display. I felt bad for the kid, he was obviously embarrassed when he realize a girl from his class was seeing him naked and noticed my daughter staring. I was shocked his mother didn't care.

Why do you need to change at the pool at all? Get ready at home. Ride home in a suit after drying off, shower at home. What’s the big deal?

+100. What is with you people? You know your kid will survive a 10-minute car ride home in a damp suit, right?

If you have a 6yo or older who can’t manage to walk from pool deck to locker room in 30 seconds as you walk the same route in the women’s room and meet on the other side, you have bigger problems than damp bathing suits. If you don’t see him in 30 seconds, you can walk into the entrance and call for him, and if you don’t hear from him after another 10 seconds, you can yell in, “I’m coming in to get my son in 5 seconds.”

My kids (girls) need to have the chlorine washed off after he pool. And i dont want wet car seats. If its only daddy taking them to the pool (2 and 5) they do a deck change in a towel.

“Want” is not “need.” I swam from age 6 to age 18 and was a lifeguard. If you can’t handle a brief car ride with chlorine in your hair, you can’t handle being a part of swim culture, so you might as well quit now. Wah wah wah, wet car seats? It’s called dry off, put on dry clothes or a cover up, sit on a dry towel in the car seat if you must, but really. Picky picky precious much?

Gosh this is harsh. My child has sevee excema and will break out badly after swimming in a pool. It can be painful. Better to rinse immediately.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Are you really suggesting if you had a boy age 3-4 ("older than toddler") you would send him into a mens' changing room alone?

No, but I would have him change at home or in the car or even just under a towel, not out in the open in the women's locker room with his privates on full display. I felt bad for the kid, he was obviously embarrassed when he realize a girl from his class was seeing him naked and noticed my daughter staring. I was shocked his mother didn't care.

Why do you need to change at the pool at all? Get ready at home. Ride home in a suit after drying off, shower at home. What’s the big deal?

+100. What is with you people? You know your kid will survive a 10-minute car ride home in a damp suit, right?

If you have a 6yo or older who can’t manage to walk from pool deck to locker room in 30 seconds as you walk the same route in the women’s room and meet on the other side, you have bigger problems than damp bathing suits. If you don’t see him in 30 seconds, you can walk into the entrance and call for him, and if you don’t hear from him after another 10 seconds, you can yell in, “I’m coming in to get my son in 5 seconds.”

My kids (girls) need to have the chlorine washed off after he pool. And i dont want wet car seats. If its only daddy taking them to the pool (2 and 5) they do a deck change in a towel.

Oh, FFS, the learned helplessness. No, they do not "need to have the chlorine washed off" immediately. They can shower when they get home. Millions of other girls do it. Yours can too. Now please, be predictable and tell us that they have some kind of terrible chlorine-related disorder and although it's fine for them to swim in chlorine, it combusts immediately the moment they leave the pool.

And as for the car seats:

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:At our pool 7 and up must use their correct locker room.

Everyone should follow the rules - but understand that most places don't have a posted policy like this.

At our pool, it’s age 5. And the neighborhood mommies know perfectly well, and flout it anyway. And 90% of them live within WALKING distance of the pool. I notify the staff each and every time.

Sounds like that doesn't do anything.

Yeah, it does. They have to leave immediately. And then they can’t claim ignorance. And if they get flagged by staff, their access is removed for the rest of the season. I’m on the board. It’s happened.

Really? You have bad karma coming to you.

LOL. "Karma" is fictional and if you don't break the rules, you won't reap the consequences. NP.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Lots of people missing the points here.

First, for all the people who say, "I make him change in a stall, hold up a towel, etc." - that isn't the issue, or even the main issue. He still is around when other women and girls are changing - some of them his classmates, some of them a little older, some of them just hitting puberty. Those girls have every right to be expect to be able to change without members of the opposite sex seeing them. Like it or not, American culture prioritizes modesty from the opposite sex. Complaining that Americans are prudes doesn't change that. The rules are different for very little kids, and in my opinion, the 5 and below pools have hit it right, but regardless of where the line is, there needs to be a line.

As for "I can't send him to change in the mens room alone, what else am I supposed to do?" - holy crap. First, there are obviously options - coming in your swimwear being the obvious one. But more fundamentally, you don't have the right to flout the rules or make people uncomfortable imply because you don't like the setup. Males go one way, females go the other, unless very young. If your kid is older than the cutoff, then *you* need to figure out a way to deal with it without making people uncomfortable or breaking the rules. "I don't have a choice" is complete nonsense.

This right here. All the way.

+2

[Anonymous]

I sent my son to the men’s room alone at age 6 with a firm warning to scream his head off if anyone tried to touch him in any way. I think our local pool said opposite gender kids allowed only 5 and under. It was fine. He survived.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Are you really suggesting if you had a boy age 3-4 ("older than toddler") you would send him into a mens' changing room alone?

+1, op, you’re crazy.

Agree with others - 7 years old but I’d be standing by that door like a hawk and listening to everything going on in the men’s lockers

JFC no one is raping your kid in the bathroom. They go alone at school all the time.

It’s cute how naive you are.

[Anonymous]

At our pool it’s age 6. I have a kid going into second grade. I cannot imagine him going into the women’s changing room with me. Not appropriate.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Lots of people missing the points here.

First, for all the people who say, "I make him change in a stall, hold up a towel, etc." - that isn't the issue, or even the main issue. He still is around when other women and girls are changing - some of them his classmates, some of them a little older, some of them just hitting puberty. Those girls have every right to be expect to be able to change without members of the opposite sex seeing them. Like it or not, American culture prioritizes modesty from the opposite sex. Complaining that Americans are prudes doesn't change that. The rules are different for very little kids, and in my opinion, the 5 and below pools have hit it right, but regardless of where the line is, there needs to be a line.

As for "I can't send him to change in the mens room alone, what else am I supposed to do?" - holy crap. First, there are obviously options - coming in your swimwear being the obvious one. But more fundamentally, you don't have the right to flout the rules or make people uncomfortable imply because you don't like the setup. Males go one way, females go the other, unless very young. If your kid is older than the cutoff, then *you* need to figure out a way to deal with it without making people uncomfortable or breaking the rules. "I don't have a choice" is complete nonsense.

This right here. All the way.

+2

+3

Even when they were really little, I never took my boys into the changing area of the locker room. The setup at our facility meant that you could shower without actually going into the locker room. I used to take them right to the showers to shower and change into street clothes quickly. The one time I took my youngest son into the locker room (he may have been in K, so still “allowed”), the first person he saw was a classmate. Nope.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Lots of people missing the points here.

First, for all the people who say, "I make him change in a stall, hold up a towel, etc." - that isn't the issue, or even the main issue. He still is around when other women and girls are changing - some of them his classmates, some of them a little older, some of them just hitting puberty. Those girls have every right to be expect to be able to change without members of the opposite sex seeing them. Like it or not, American culture prioritizes modesty from the opposite sex. Complaining that Americans are prudes doesn't change that. The rules are different for very little kids, and in my opinion, the 5 and below pools have hit it right, but regardless of where the line is, there needs to be a line.

As for "I can't send him to change in the mens room alone, what else am I supposed to do?" - holy crap. First, there are obviously options - coming in your swimwear being the obvious one. But more fundamentally, you don't have the right to flout the rules or make people uncomfortable imply because you don't like the setup. Males go one way, females go the other, unless very young. If your kid is older than the cutoff, then *you* need to figure out a way to deal with it without making people uncomfortable or breaking the rules. "I don't have a choice" is complete nonsense.

I don’t think we are all missing your point. We just don’t all care about your prudish American body issues. If my swim club had rules about age, I would follow them because I want to keep our membership. It doesn’t, so this kind of thing falls into the category of “not my problem” and I’m going to do what I’m comfortable with.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Lots of people missing the points here.

First, for all the people who say, "I make him change in a stall, hold up a towel, etc." - that isn't the issue, or even the main issue. He still is around when other women and girls are changing - some of them his classmates, some of them a little older, some of them just hitting puberty. Those girls have every right to be expect to be able to change without members of the opposite sex seeing them. Like it or not, American culture prioritizes modesty from the opposite sex. Complaining that Americans are prudes doesn't change that. The rules are different for very little kids, and in my opinion, the 5 and below pools have hit it right, but regardless of where the line is, there needs to be a line.

As for "I can't send him to change in the mens room alone, what else am I supposed to do?" - holy crap. First, there are obviously options - coming in your swimwear being the obvious one. But more fundamentally, you don't have the right to flout the rules or make people uncomfortable imply because you don't like the setup. Males go one way, females go the other, unless very young. If your kid is older than the cutoff, then *you* need to figure out a way to deal with it without making people uncomfortable or breaking the rules. "I don't have a choice" is complete nonsense.

I don’t think we are all missing your point. We just don’t all care about your prudish American body issues. If my swim club had rules about age, I would follow them because I want to keep our membership. It doesn’t, so this kind of thing falls into the category of “not my problem” and I’m going to do what I’m comfortable with.

Which pool?

[Anonymous]

I was at a new pool today and brought my 6 yo into the female locker room where a bunch of tweens were changing (at my gym it’s usually totally empty). I walked right out. No way would I want those girls to feel awkward about my boy in there, any more than I would want him on display or teased. We went to the family one, but even then I felt ridiculous in there with him and told him to finish up himself. In pre-k he felt like a little boy. At k/rising first/age 6 it felt weird. If we were in a big public place with lots of unknown male adults I’d probably have him changed in the car ahead of time.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:At our pool 7 and up must use their correct locker room.

Everyone should follow the rules - but understand that most places don't have a posted policy like this.

At our pool, it’s age 5. And the neighborhood mommies know perfectly well, and flout it anyway. And 90% of them live within WALKING distance of the pool. I notify the staff each and every time.

Sounds like that doesn't do anything.

Yeah, it does. They have to leave immediately. And then they can’t claim ignorance. And if they get flagged by staff, their access is removed for the rest of the season. I’m on the board. It’s happened.

I bet you’re real fun at the annual crab feast.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Are you really suggesting if you had a boy age 3-4 ("older than toddler") you would send him into a mens' changing room alone?

No, but I would have him change at home or in the car or even just under a towel, not out in the open in the women's locker room with his privates on full display. I felt bad for the kid, he was obviously embarrassed when he realize a girl from his class was seeing him naked and noticed my daughter staring. I was shocked his mother didn't care.

Why do you need to change at the pool at all? Get ready at home. Ride home in a suit after drying off, shower at home. What’s the big deal?

+100. What is with you people? You know your kid will survive a 10-minute car ride home in a damp suit, right?

If you have a 6yo or older who can’t manage to walk from pool deck to locker room in 30 seconds as you walk the same route in the women’s room and meet on the other side, you have bigger problems than damp bathing suits. If you don’t see him in 30 seconds, you can walk into the entrance and call for him, and if you don’t hear from him after another 10 seconds, you can yell in, “I’m coming in to get my son in 5 seconds.”

My kids (girls) need to have the chlorine washed off after he pool. And i dont want wet car seats. If its only daddy taking them to the pool (2 and 5) they do a deck change in a towel.

Oh, FFS, the learned helplessness. No, they do not "need to have the chlorine washed off" immediately. They can shower when they get home. Millions of other girls do it. Yours can too. Now please, be predictable and tell us that they have some kind of terrible chlorine-related disorder and although it's fine for them to swim in chlorine, it combusts immediately the moment they leave the pool.

And as for the car seats:

I agree on this one! Too much. Why do they immediately have to rinse themselves? My daughter, 6, does just fine showering once she gets home.

[Anonymous]

By second grade, I had my older son use the locker room on his own. Before that, he would only change in the private changing rooms in the women’s, not out in the open.

Now when it comes to public restrooms, I still take my 9 year old in with me if it’s at a busy mall, sporting event or airport.