Mum shocked after stranger complained about her 8yo at pool

"I don't know what their problem is!"

Laura Jackel

3 min read

June 6, 2024 - 3:20PM

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Taking your kids to the pool for their swimming lessons is a standard activity for many parents, but this devastated mum may have to stop going to the pool after a surprising complaint.

Writing in a popular parenting group, the mum said she was “aghast” by what happened to her at her local private swimming pool.

“I took my little boy for his swimming lessons as we do every week,” she posted in the forum.

“We've never had a problem before, but today a member of staff told me they'd had a complaint about my son coming with me to the women's changing rooms, and he'd have to use the men's one on his own!

“He's only eight years old!”

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Image: iStock

"I do NOT feel safe"

The solo mum went on to say that she was totally shocked by this complaint and the implications it might have on her ability to take her son swimming in future.

“I do NOT feel it's safe for him to be naked in a large room with men at that young age,” she wrote.

“He's still a child! The women's changing room has individual cubicles, so other women can have all the privacy they want, and he always changes in a cubicle, so no one sees anything. I don't know what their problem is.

“I'm a single mum and his dad's not involved, so there's no one to take him in the men's. If he can't come in the women's with me, I feel like I just can't take him swimming at all, and he'll miss out massively.”

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"Am I being unreasonable to complain about this?"

She ends her post by asking the group for advice on how to proceed.

The pool does not have a family change room facility but told her these are “The rules” and instead offered her and her son the use of the disabled toilet which has no showering facility and at some distance from the pool.

“Am I being unreasonable to complain about this, and insist my son comes in with me next time? Or should I just walk in with him as I always do and hope they don't notice?”

The dozens of replies were mostly as upset about this scenario as the original poster.

“I'd be taking my eight-year-old with me,” one mum said.

“And if the gym insisted that they had to go to the men's changing room . I would cancel my membership.”

Another mum emphatically agreed.

“No, you’re not being unreasonable. I take my eight-year-old son in the women’s changing room with me. The staff should be supporting you and gently explain to the person making the complaint that whilst they are sorry she might be uncomfortable, children’s safety is more important and therefore if anybody should be using the disabled change room, it’s her.”

"I don't want to see an eight year old in there!"

But some felt it was perfectly fair for her eight-year-old son to be left to get changed alone.

“Aged eight, in most situations, is old enough to change by himself,” the user writes.

“Why assume that men will harm him? If you’re worried you could get walkie-talkies so there is constant conversation?

“Also changing in the toilets isn’t awful. You can shower at home. There’s not a chance I’d want to see an eight year old boy in there ... for him, myself and other little girls.”

Finally, this user had some practical advice that the solo mum could consider.

“I totally understand your concerns, eight is still so young and vulnerable,” she writes.

“Unfortunately, I think the policy for most swimming pools is that once they're eight, they have to use their gendered changing room, even if that means they're not with their adult.

“You might struggle to find anywhere else that has different rules, but I suppose they may have a family changing room. Otherwise I would just teach him how to get changed as quickly and easily as he can.

“Has he got a towel with a hole for his head so he can have that over him to cover him while he changes his trunks? Then you're waiting just outside the whole time for him.”