No Boys Allowed

By this point, it's probably pretty clear that I'm a father. And with parenthood comes a whole host of new and exciting experiences, most of which revolve around the excretion and subsequent removal of several fairly disgusting bodily fluids. Despite living in a civilised society, babies frequently refuse to hold off on such excretion until they can find a toilet, and will gladly urinate all over the floor if you let them. This is because babies are disgusting, and you should be ashamed of having ever been one.

Truly, truly disgusting.

Since babies are so rude, however, we've invented special disposable underpants that they can soil as often as their gauche little hearts desire. And they do. Frequently in public because, again, babies are awful. This means that all right-thinking shopping centres are forced to come equipped with special rooms in which you can hide your infant's shame. And since people in shopping centres already do their best to pretend babies don't exist, even bottle-feeding parents are exiled to the same tiny poop-rooms to feed their young, driven by a fusillade of sideways glances and whispered comments (which, as we know, are the hallmarks of a properly civilised society).

It was on my way to one such room that I spotted this sign.

Parents’ room: Dads welcome. Once you look past the total absence of punctuation, it's actually pretty sweet: I originally took this photo just cause I thought it was super-neat that the centre went out of its way to make Dads feel welcome.

But then I started thinking about why they needed to. It says right there on the sign, “Parents’ Room.” Dads are parents too: aren’t we, by definition, included? I mean, it’s not like there’s so many different types of parent that we have to differentiate which ones are and aren’t allowed: you’re not getting mothers, fathers, and wuggloo’s milling about wondering which of them are allowed to drain their larvae’s venom sacs in this particular toilet. By going out of their way to single out one specific type of parent out of a possible two, aren’t they being just a tiny bit redundant?

But I let it go and moved on: their heart was in the right place and, let's face it, it's just a sign.

Then this happened.

“Mum, is that a boy or a girl in there?”

The girl asking was about four. She and her mother had come into the parent room to take advantage of the little and big toilet, a facility for those children old enough to use a loo, but too young to do so on their own. I was sitting in a cubicle while I fed the baby, half obscured by the stroller and waiting for Tiff to join me.

“Don’t be silly, sweetie, only girls are allowed in here.” Confident, breezy, dismissive. Final. Only girls are allowed in here.

“Actually, I am a boy,” I said, and at the first sound of my voice I could watch this woman’s face wrinkle with shock and disgust.

“I’m sorry,” she sneered. “I was under the impression that only women were allowed in here.”

She then took her daughter out of the room, despite tiny complaints about still needing to use the toilet. Clearly it was no longer safe for her to do so: after all, there was a man in the room and all men, unless suitably restrained by a woman, have a solid ninety per cent chance of being uncontrollable rape-machines.

Pictured: a group of sex offenders, plotting their next crime.

Now, I’m not trying to be controversial. Clearly, there are dangerous men out there: nearly all cases of sexual assault brought before a court involve men. And clearly children need protection from such abominations.

On the other hand though, perhaps the guy quietly feeding his baby is less a rampaging threat to your little girl’s life and more, oh I don’t know, a parent. Now, again, normally I’d let this go: one woman being a jerk is less “blog post” and more “snarky facebook status.” But while this was pretty much the worst, this is by no means the first time I’ve felt unwelcome in a parent room. Glances ranging from the confused all the way up to the openly hostile have come my way when I’ve been alone in a parent room. I’ve seen mothers stop and wait to change their baby until I’m safely out of sight, and on one memorable occasion turn around and leave, screaming baby in tow, as soon as they notice me.

Again, I’m not trying to make headlines. I’m not some crazy men’s rights guy, ranting about the female emasculation committee trying to steal my vital juices. I’m willing to admit to a fair whack of confirmation bias on my part as well: only noticing the women who act poorly and letting those who are perfectly lovely slip from my memory. Heck, I’ll even admit that there are some places where men probably aren’t welcome on their own: if I saw a guy just standing around Bras ‘N’ Things, not doing much, I’d think he was a little creepy as well.

But are parent rooms really one of those times? Should we really need special signs to say that males are allowed? Shouldn’t we, as parents, be able to feed or change a baby without needing a female chaperone to prove that we haven’t stolen it?

Now, if you’re reading this you’re clearly not one of these ladies: anyone reading my blog is obviously a stellar individual (seriously, please don’t leave me). But to any girls out there: if you have kids, now or in the future – and if, upon entering a parents’ room, you happen across a guy on his own, just doing parent stuff – please don’t be mean.

Dads are parents too.