‘I used the women’s toilets at Maccas with my 5yo and they called the cops’

“I didn’t know what else to do… I couldn’t send my daughter in by herself, and there was no family toilet,” the dad says.

The dad had no choice but to use the women's toilet with his daughter. Photo: iStock

As parents we’ve all been in situations where we’ve had to make questionable judgements, and sometimes even had to break the rules.

Often this has to do with kids needing to go to the toilet in public places.

My kids have done countless bush wees in parks, on nature strips and in a pinch, hidden behind the car in a carpark.

When you gotta go, you gotta go.

John* and his five-year-old daughter Carrie were at McDonalds when nature called.

John took Carrie to the men’s toilets but found it in a revolting state.

“One of the toilets was clogged and s**t water was on all over the floor,” he said in a Reddit post.

“It also had a prominent s**t smell filling the air, so we went to the women’s bathroom.”

That’s where the trouble started. Since there was no one in the toilets, John decided he would do a wee as well, in the next stall.

Want to join the family? Sign up to our Kidspot newsletter for more stories like this.

The dad had no choice but to use the women's toilet with his daughter. Photo: iStock

Dad uses women’s toilets with daughter

That’s where the trouble started.

“I heard her pulling the toilet paper so I asked out loud, ‘You doing OK in there?’” he said.

A woman had walked in and wanted to know why a man was in the women’s toilets.

“Sorry, just in here with my daughter but we will be done in a sec,” John told the woman. He washed his and Carrie’s hands and they left.

Outside the toilets were a group of McDonald’s employees, “looking pissed”.

They said they would call the police.

“It’s not my problem if the bathroom is dirty and she needs to pee,” he told the employees.

“I told her there was no family bathroom or handicapped bathroom so I had no other option.”

One staff member said John had to wait for the police to arrive so they could escort him out.

John was having none of it. “They tried to stop me from exiting and I had to get a little hostile to get them to move, but regardless I left the building with my daughter.”

Carrie was quiet on the way home. John felt bad, and tried to assure her that the police and the staff had no power, and he wouldn’t have been in trouble.

He wanted to know what other dads might have done in the same situation.

“Am I supposed to tell her she can’t pee and she has to wait? Should I just force her to pee in the street like some kind of animal?”

RELATED: Boy, 12, told not to use the women’s toilets

RELATED: The ‘hard choice’ that led to this dad changing his baby next to a urinal

RELATED: Toilet training with public toilets

Reddit weighs in on dad’s problem

Most people were supportive.

“I’m a woman and a mother,” one person said. “You do what you need to do to take care of your daughter. I wouldn’t even bat an eye at a father taking care of his daughter in the women’s bathroom.”

“There is so much stigma against fathers it hurts to see,” said another mum.

“The responsible party here is McDonalds. They need to provide a family washroom,” said a third person. “It’s actually pretty shocking they don’t given they are a kid-oriented place.”

Originally published as ‘I used the women’s toilets at Maccas with my 5yo and they called the cops’