An inconvenient truth

We’ve touched a few times recently on the importance of creative activity for young people. Well I think we could start the creative learning process much earlier if we designed really clever, entertaining and educational ‘stuff’ into children’s toilets, lots of empty wall space we could utilize in most of them don’t you think?

Eh?  Children’s toilets? What are they?

Exactly.

What’s the problem with children? © John MacPherson

I’m a home dad, looking after a small boy, for three years now since William was 5 months old.

Its been an interesting experience and in many way surprising. What has astonished me is the desperately poor provision of changing facilities for parents with babies, and the apparent lack of concern when I’ve complained.

I’ve no mercy though. I am more than willing to cause a loud and embarrassing scene. Consequently I have changed William on his change mat on the bar counter in front of the po-faced owner of a posh Norfolk country pub after she told me I should use the filthy toilet floor in the gents to change him, and managed to wangle the use of  a rather nice bedroom with starched towels in a 3 star “family hotel” (their words on their signs) in Bucks in which we’d just had a meal, after I threw a full-on Scots git hissing fit in their front hall when they told me I could balance William on a sink if I didn’t want to put him on the toilet floor to change him. What!

I’m only too aware there’s stuff in here that might be catching, thats why I’m not smiling. © John MacPherson

And dont even start me on the Scottish family ‘fun’ park that had a window sill with a board roughly nailed on the side in a corridor as a baby-changing facility, with the clear glass window facing the full view of the queuing families outside, AND facing south so the sun was so intensely hot and blinding that I’d to cover my distressed child’s face with a towel. It’s just not good enough.

Maybe I’m just unlucky. But I dont think so. Small children, and their needs, just seem to be an inconvenience. Mums – you have my respect and empathy.

To be fair, there are some great places, obviously carefully conceived and managed, but you just stumble onto them by chance rather than find them as a common occurrence.

And what’s with this combining baby changing facilities with disabled toilets? Whose bright idea was that?  What message are we giving with that piece of utter nonsense. That disabled people are like children?  That because children need assistance with the toilet they have a disability?

I’ve been in several tourist attractions, including a few NT properties, which proclaim good disabled access (top marks for that – excellent stuff) and lots of people with disabilities come to visit (well you would wouldn’t you), and then they end up having to queue in a giant line for the one single disabled toilet, accompanied by mums (and dads) with toddlers wearing poop-filled pads all wanting to use the drop-down change shelf that’s been ‘thoughtfully’ located in the disabled toilet.

Very sociable though – I’ve had some great conversations, really lovely interactions with wheelchair-bound folks, and they’ve loved the blether with William – he’s a very forthright child – so there’s a lovely silver lining to the ‘problem’. Bit of a shame though that to get ‘integration’ we need to devise a cack-handed system like this.

But come on, raising children, and needing to use the toilet, these are pretty basic things, but ones that seem unfeasibly hard to provide for.

The thing is - they're only children © John MacPherson

The thing is – they’re only children © John MacPherson

And what these service providers seem not to realize about children, is that there’s more on the way, lots more.

Don’t say I didn’t warn you.

Author — John Macpherson

John MacPherson was born and lives in the Scottish Highlands. He trained as a welder in the Glasgow shipyards, before completing an apprenticeship as a carpenter, and then qualified as a Social Worker in Disability Services. Along the way he has cooked on canal barges, trained as an Alpine Ski Leader & worked as an Instructor for Skiers with disabilities, been a canoe instructor, and tutor of night classes in carpentry, stained glass design and manufacture, and archery. He has travelled extensively on various continents, undertaking solo trips by bicycle, or motorcycle. He has had narrow escapes from an ambush by terrorists, been hit by lightning, caught in an erupting volcano, trapped in a mobile home by a tornado, kidnapped by a dog's hairdresser, rammed by a basking shark and was once bitten by a wild otter. He has combined all this with professional photography, which he has practised for over 35 years. He teaches photography and acts as a photography guide & tutor in the UK and abroad. His biggest challenge is keeping his 30 year old Land Rover 110 on the road. He loves telling and hearing stories.

Discussion (3 Comments)

  1. duckrabbit says:

    John, your son looks super cute.

    Being a stay at home Dad is a tough, but rewarding job.

  2. Aye its good fun! Thanks to the papoose and backpack William started coming out with me on photo jobs when he was 6 months old. Ans started listening to me ranting at people shortly afterwards!

  3. Ah yes, I’ve also been a stay-at-home dad, still am, having looked after two sons from 5 months, now 6 and 4. The worst place I found in London was the National Maritime Museum. The staff in there have been openly hostile to me. I was shouted at for having one son on my shoulders so he could better see a machine – Health and Safety he explained.

    Another time in the cafe I was spoon feeding mushy food to the 1-year old who was strapped into a high-chair when the 3 year-old says “Daddy, I need a WEE!”. If you’ve had the care of infants you’ll know that at 3 yrs old, you only have about as many minutes to get to a toilet. So I discreetly had him wee into a small bottle, always carried for just this eventuality. In less than a minute an officious woman appears, like Mr Ben, ‘Please take you child to the toilet next time!’. I asked her, ‘You haven’t got kids have you?’ to which she sheepishly replied she hadn’t.

    All the other big museums in London have very discreet friendly staff who don’t seem to take against a father with children. In my experience, the Maritime Museum is best avoided as a father-and-child destination. Rubbish.

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