Picture this: Lucy O’Brien is at swimming lessons with her dad.
She’s only five-years-old and after a full day of learning, playing and having to fend for herself at Big School, she’s ready to drop.
The lesson is over. Lucy is cold, tired and fed up.
But Lucy is five now, and the world worries about five-year-olds being around grown men alone. So instead of Lucy being allowed to go into the showers with her loving dad, she’s sent to the women’s change room and left to fend for herself.
Lucy can hardly write her name. She can’t read yet as she has only started school. She has trouble opening her lunch box, and at night she still wears a pull-up nappy, “just in case”. She can’t tie her own shoe laces.
But society tells her, “you are five now, Lucy, it’s time to grow up.” In a world of overparenting of the “marshmallow generation” the latest installment is playing itself out right before our eyes.
A Sydney swim school is under fire from parents for its ban on primary school-aged kids being in the same change room as the opposite sex.
Let’s be clear: “primary school children” in NSW can mean anyone from four-and-a-half to 12 years old.
That’s four-and-a-half year-olds being sent away from their parents, as there are concerns they may be sexually aware of the bodies of others in the dressing rooms.
Top Comments
Are there family change rooms (as there are in literally every single swimming pool I've ever been to in Australia)? If so then these stupid women need to shut up.
It's women who complained about young boys going in, it's women complaining now. Can you women do something other than bitch?
I definitely would rather my daughter get changed in the mens change rooms with her dad than in the women's change rooms alone. I don't know what that cut off should be? 8-10.
Actually, I don't think their SHOULD be a cut off. It should be a case by case basis. If you have a special needs kid there is a good chance that age would be higher than for other children. If its going to be a concern for the pool then they absolutely should offer a Parent's room.
I don't know if my local pool has a limit on these things. My daughter does swimming lessons privately, so there's no concerns there, most kids are just stripping off pool side and no one bats and eyelid. However, the public pool DOES have a parent's room, but it's basically inside the womens change rooms, so it doesn't offer a solution with men and their daughters. Maybe there is one in the mens change room though... I've never thought to ask.