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Reposted from:
http://www.nzherald.co.nz/section/st...ectID=10391874
Readers' Views: Child nudity ban at pools
Wednesday July 19, 2006
A Christchurch pool has banned parents from changing their children in
public, citing offence taken by some swimmers and concern about
paedophiles photographing naked children. We asked readers what was an
unacceptable age for children to be changed in public. Here are some of
the responses:
Why not ban all men from public pools? And ban them from living within
a 10km radius of primary schools.
Isn't this the hidden agenda for all these silly rules, that men are
all evil and should be eliminated from the face of this world?
- Arnel de Guzman.
I think a good age to stop poolside changing would be around 8. There
are a lot of factors to take into consideration, such as if a parent is
watching other family members and it is the only way to do both things
at the same time.
- Heather.
I feel so sad for our society that this mother gets treated so badly,
when her children are probably safer getting changed at the pool-side
than alone in the changing rooms. Our son is 7 and he is getting to the
stage where he is a little self-conscious about getting changed in
public.
But a bit of common sense is needed here. Older children just need a
towel. That mother needed support, not judgment. She should be
congratulated on having the kids involved in a healthy activity and not
in front of the TV.
We need to get real.
- Arda van Kuyk.
We go to QEII in Christchurch, where they have family change rooms that
are often taken by middle-aged, overly modest women, so I frequently
have to take my 3 1/2-year-old and 18-month-old girls to the men's
changing rooms.
As for changing at the poolside, I see it a lot at QEII. It just seems
to be laziness on part of the latte-sipping parents who don't want to
take their kids to the change rooms. The idiots at QEII don't like my
wife breast-feeding at poolside but they let women wear white T-shirts
in the pool. This is not PC stuff, just typical Kiwis wanting to do
their own thing.
- Arni.
Are these women all idiots? I have children and I would never think of
changing them in public with all the perverts and sickos around these
days.
Yes, it is inconvenient to have to go into a change area but would this
woman prefer some paedophile was looking at her child?
It is not 1950 any more. The statistics on child molestation,
paedophilia and child pornography are so high these days, why would
anybody risk it? Stop whinging and think about it for a minute.
- Stacey.
This is PC gone mad. Some small-fry manager is being a Hitler for no
good reason. The maximum age for kids to get changed at the poolside
should be about 6 or 7.
- Ron.
I live in Germany. As often as not adults change by the pools in the
open and women are comfortable bathing topless. The kids tend to not
wear bathing costumes. Most, if not all, swimming places have nudist
sections.
New Zealand needs to get a bit more liberal. If we weren't so caught up
with not showing too much nudity then possibly there would not be so
much interest in the nudity itself.
- Matt Herriott.
I am just grateful that pool manager Ann Bergman does not have
responsibility for our public conveniences.
- Bella McMahon.
Naked babies. What next? Ban all naked baby photos as well, I say. My
mother showed me one taken of me sitting naked in the bath at 9 months.
The shame! I think the rule should be no children in public places.
That way those poor paedophiles and other sensitive adults will not be
tempted and required to exercise any restraint. Maybe we should ban
children from now on to avoid any opportunity for people to be
offended. The possibilities are endless.
What really offends me is seeing young children inadequately dressed
for cold weather.
- Christine.
I am a father of four. Their safety is my absolute priority. Changing
the younger ones in public while keeping an eye on the older ones is
the safest option when family changing rooms are not available.
They can give me as many notices as they like. I will not put my
children at risk by following this ill-informed policy.
- Steve Aschebrock.
I understand that this woman may have had issues with too many children
to attend to with getting them changed, but wouldn't you say that their
safety is more important?
Okay, we don't want to believe there are paedophiles out there, but the
truth is that they are everywhere. I wouldn't want my child at risk of
being watched by someone like that if I could simply get up and go to
the changing room.
This mother could have taken all her children into the ladies' changing
room and attended to them all. I realise there are young women in there
who may not have wanted male company, but isn't this an issue that
should be looked at by the pool owners? She could have sent her boys
into a toilet area while she changed the younger one.
Either way there were better ways to look after her children than
expose them to potential paedophiles. I believe there was no
overreaction by the pool staff and this mother should take a reality
check.
- Renee.
Who makes the rules at these aquatic centres? Maybe it is management
types who have never had kids to change at the poolside. Next they will
make rules that will stop people changing their kids in the changing
rooms just in case someone gets offended.
- Ben.
Children naturally reach a stage where they become self-conscious about
their bodies. Schools and parents, hopefully, bring about and encourage
this awareness of privacy as the child ages. Children who fail to
develop this self-awareness by the age of 7 should be gently encouraged
to change in private.
- Cicelia.
Children generally set the standard of when it's unacceptable to change
in public. My 5-year-old daughter is already preferring privacy. And if
Jerry Collins can pee on the rugby field, a child should be able to
change by the poolside.
Equally, if this is a paedophilia issue, shouldn't we be concerned with
reducing their rights, not ours?
- Philip.
The age is determined by the child or the parent. It's that growing
stage in a parent and child's life. The child gets to an age where he
or she feels uncomfortable being changed in public and grabs a towel to
cover up and the parent knows.
Who are the ashamed and embarrassed ones? Are they the ones with no
children or with children but who lack the loving intimate parent-child
parental skills?
- Colin.
So where is it going to stop? Kids being changed on the beach, mothers
breast-feeding in a cafe? Are we about to see a proliferation of
modesty police?
- Bruce Holm.
I think the Kaiapoi pool took a ridiculous stance over the mother
changing her 16- month-old child at the poolside. How can there be
offence in a baby's nudity?
The pool's attitude is the offensive thing here. It is probably
reasonable to expect children of 7 or 8 to change in the changing rooms
but even then, if parents and child were happy to do so in public I
cannot see what there is to be offended about.
- Maureen Sheldon.
I am gobsmacked to read that the PC nonsense brigade has invaded
swimming pools now. The pool manager needs to take a close look at the
policy and pull her head out.
My own children changed by the swimming pool until they were about 4.
Children seem to naturally tell you when they are past the age for such
things. Most are happy to follow mum or dad into the changing rooms to
see what it is all about when they are ready.
Does the pool concerned now provide extra qualified lifeguards to watch
the older children who are unattended while a mother heads into a
changing room with a toddler.
What about the mothers who have their sons or fathers with their
daughters? Are they to take the child into their own changing shed,
with adults who are naked, who are not related to them? Does not a
closed-off area pose more threat from all these villains in
Christchurch than the open public area.
Paedophiles are not found lurking behind every bush and to use this as
an excuse is small-minded. Let's get New Zealand back from the idiots.
- Paul.
While we're at it, we should ban bikinis and all sorts of revealing
clothing - they are strong magnets for the eyes of unsavoury people.
- John.
Sorry, but this made international news and I thought it was a joke,
until I read the article. This is something I'd expect to find here in
the US, but not in a country like New Zealand where people seem (at
least they used to) more relaxed to simple nudity.
Children changing by the pool is something you see in just about every
country, and when they are young there is no problem with it. This
mother should not have been given a hard time. The policy is stupid.
- David Meyer.
In an ideal world everyone ought to skinny-dip, but perhaps the obesity
epidemic needs to be considered. How old is too old? Say, 21 for
females, 18 for males.
- George D. Henderson.
It would depend on the facility's locker room rules. My local YMCA has
a posted rule that says "Children aged 5 and over must use the locker
room of their same gender."
So in this case I would suggest that 5 would be the unacceptable age.
Having a 4- year-old would allow the child to become undressed in
either the men's or the women's locker room. So, if either sex could
see them there, either sex can also deal with a naked kid by the pool.
- Kevin.
Common sense must prevail. Under present pool layout, infants up to 5
years who are with their parent or guardian should be allowed to change
at the poolside. My experience is that then, the school child will want
to go to their changing rooms.
An alternative is a glass room adjacent to the pool where children can
be changed and the parent can still see their other children in the
pool.
- Peter McAulay.
Innocent children should not be the subject of adult hang-ups. We think
a reasonable age for this rule at pools should be about 6 to 7 years.
- Anna Thompson.
I think 7 years and under, if the child isn't modest, is a reasonable
cut-off age for public changing. And if a woman has four children the
pool attendants aren't going to be able to supervise them while she
leaves the pool to change an infant.
On the other hand, try getting a 7-year-old and a 4-year-old out of the
pool and into a family changing room just because you have to change
the baby. I don't think so.
- Christine.
If I had been the parent approached by the staff at the pool in
Kaiapoi, I think I would have taken my own clothes off and then told
them that now they could tell me to leave.
What age child nudity? The real question should be what age adult
nudity. Last time I checked, we pretty much looked the same.
If paedophiles do lurk in swimming pools taking photos, they are not
really that intelligent and neither are the staff. All a grubby
paedophile would have to do is wait for summer, sit at a beach with a
telephoto lens and click away like mad.
With that in mind, I would like to suggest a ban on cameras with
telephoto lens at beaches during the summer.
- Shane Mason.
I cannot believe a child-changing rule would apply to a 16-month-old
baby. Have the people who formulated this rule never tried to care for
a number of young children in this situation?
What is safer? Sending a 5-year-old to a changing room by themselves
while caring for the others? Anybody who has been in this situation
avoids having one child standing shivering while dressing the other.
I would say a minimum age of 5 for changing at the poolside. Even at
that age it would concern me if the changing rooms did not allow for
family rooms and the child had to go into the male dressing rooms by
himself.
- Pam Hollis.
I agree with the pool rules to ban child nudity. The woman who is
surprised to be advised by an attendant not to change her children by
the pool cannot be 100 per cent certain her children weren't recorded
and pictures published on paedophile sites. Naivety is not an excuse
not to protect our children's innocence in every way possible.
- Annette Ashley.
Anyone of any age should be allowed to change by the poolside.
- Erling.
There are no changing rooms at the beach and we all seem to cope.
At the pool I think it's up to the mother to judge the individual
circumstances. It's more appropriate to have pool staff on the look-out
for adults acting strangely than to put some kind of a ban on children
getting changed.
It's the same kind of issue as people being offended by breast-feeding.
- Karen Hunter.
I think up to the age of 4 or 5 is okay as long as the child is taught
proper behaviour and is not running all over the place. If this woman
in Christchurch had to change her baby by the pool because the change
room was full then maybe the facility needs to look at making more
space.
- Sara.
When my grandson was 3 months old my daughter and I took him to a pool
in Blackburn in Britain for a special tots and parents session. I had a
waterproof camera and was taking pictures of him (clothed) in a part of
the pool where there were no other people present.
I was threatened with eviction if I didn't hand over my dangerous
weapon. I thought then how sad it was that society is so threatened by
what are a very few perverts in our presence.
Lately I visited New Zealand and Australia. In Cairns there is a
promenade walk with fountains and pools designed for children to have
fun and frolic in the sun and be kids.
I commented to my daughter on the number of kids with no clothes on.
Shock, amazement and no lurking paedophiles.
After that we were in Andorra. My grandson returned his life vest to
the guard and said in heavily accented Spanish "gracias".
The guard was delighted and spontaneously leant down and cradled my
grandson's head in his hands and planted an appreciative kiss on his
head. My grandson giggled.
And then we return to the UK and we read of a vicar with an exemplary
record being asked to resign for showing the exact level of spontaneous
affection to a 10-year-old.
- Kay.
I am totally with Amanda Crozier on this one. I don't think it's
necessary to get officious about deciding what age is appropriate for
children to stop changing in public.
In my experience kids will reach a level of self-consciousness on their
own. I've known 5-year-olds who don't want to get changed in the open,
and kids closer to 10 who are still fine with it.
- Carol Stewart.
I think it's fine to change by the pool. When my kids were younger my
daughter wouldn't go into the men's with me to get changed because she
said it was for men and boys.
- Glenn Scott.
I think the appropriate age is one where both parent and child feel
comfortable with the situation. I'm concerned that the right of the
parents to raise their kids in a fair and decent manner is being put
under threat by a bunch of paranoid idiots.
The risk that a child will be harmed by changing in public, under adult
supervision, is extremely low.
Of far more concern is the need to encourage parents to raise their
children in such a manner that they grow up to be capable, responsible
and self- disciplined adults.
- John.
There are far more risks to a young unaccompanied boy of any age in a
male changing room or toilet than beside a pool. A mother cannot attend
to her son in a male changing room as it is male only, yet she cannot
change her son in a female changing room after a certain age either, as
it compromises some women's privacy.
I think that a child under 7 should be able to change beside a pool.
I would ask this pool owner if they can assure parents there is not a
paedophile lurking within their changing rooms. The mother cannot enter
that room to access the safety of that environment. The pool owner
cannot give this assurance.
How do you establish if the person in the changing room is a
paedophile? The owner's rule is flawed and dangerous.
Unless the owner wishes to employ early childhood teachers to oversee
the safety of changing rooms, then the owner is asking parents to put
their children in unsupervised and unsafe environment.
- Anita Brown.
As long as it's done fairly discreetly, I can't see why children can't
be changed in public up to the age of 8 or so. I've always changed my
children poolside if I needed to.
I would imagine it would be obvious if someone weird was hanging around
watching or photographing naked children and that's who the pool
attendants should be concentrating on, not the mothers and their
children.
- Vicki.
When I was growing up in the 1950s we all became rather self-conscious
around the age of 7 or 8. Kids today probably prefer more privacy a bit
earlier, but let that happen naturally. If we regulate anyone it should
be those sad people who find the age of innocence offensive.
- Carol.
Let those who mind seeing children without clothes swim in the
evenings, when there are no children at the pools.
Get tough on those who use the pool unwashed and with their underwear
on - that is a real health and safety issue.
- Thomas.
I am a citizen of the United States, so I'm pretty used to silly rules
designed by the prudish who overreact to "protect the children".
I'm pretty used to people jumping at nudity as a great evil that must
be stamped out. Heck, I live in what may be the most prudish "modern"
country in the world.
Or so I thought. After reading this article, I have come to the
conclusion that I could be doing much worse. Instead of living in
Tennessee (one of the more prudish parts of the US) I could be living
in New Zealand.
- David
Google Groups "Social.Family.Nudism" group.
Reposted from:
http://www.nzherald.co.nz/section/st...ectID=10391874
Readers' Views: Child nudity ban at pools
Wednesday July 19, 2006
A Christchurch pool has banned parents from changing their children in
public, citing offence taken by some swimmers and concern about
paedophiles photographing naked children. We asked readers what was an
unacceptable age for children to be changed in public. Here are some of
the responses:
Why not ban all men from public pools? And ban them from living within
a 10km radius of primary schools.
Isn't this the hidden agenda for all these silly rules, that men are
all evil and should be eliminated from the face of this world?
- Arnel de Guzman.
I think a good age to stop poolside changing would be around 8. There
are a lot of factors to take into consideration, such as if a parent is
watching other family members and it is the only way to do both things
at the same time.
- Heather.
I feel so sad for our society that this mother gets treated so badly,
when her children are probably safer getting changed at the pool-side
than alone in the changing rooms. Our son is 7 and he is getting to the
stage where he is a little self-conscious about getting changed in
public.
But a bit of common sense is needed here. Older children just need a
towel. That mother needed support, not judgment. She should be
congratulated on having the kids involved in a healthy activity and not
in front of the TV.
We need to get real.
- Arda van Kuyk.
We go to QEII in Christchurch, where they have family change rooms that
are often taken by middle-aged, overly modest women, so I frequently
have to take my 3 1/2-year-old and 18-month-old girls to the men's
changing rooms.
As for changing at the poolside, I see it a lot at QEII. It just seems
to be laziness on part of the latte-sipping parents who don't want to
take their kids to the change rooms. The idiots at QEII don't like my
wife breast-feeding at poolside but they let women wear white T-shirts
in the pool. This is not PC stuff, just typical Kiwis wanting to do
their own thing.
- Arni.
Are these women all idiots? I have children and I would never think of
changing them in public with all the perverts and sickos around these
days.
Yes, it is inconvenient to have to go into a change area but would this
woman prefer some paedophile was looking at her child?
It is not 1950 any more. The statistics on child molestation,
paedophilia and child pornography are so high these days, why would
anybody risk it? Stop whinging and think about it for a minute.
- Stacey.
This is PC gone mad. Some small-fry manager is being a Hitler for no
good reason. The maximum age for kids to get changed at the poolside
should be about 6 or 7.
- Ron.
I live in Germany. As often as not adults change by the pools in the
open and women are comfortable bathing topless. The kids tend to not
wear bathing costumes. Most, if not all, swimming places have nudist
sections.
New Zealand needs to get a bit more liberal. If we weren't so caught up
with not showing too much nudity then possibly there would not be so
much interest in the nudity itself.
- Matt Herriott.
I am just grateful that pool manager Ann Bergman does not have
responsibility for our public conveniences.
- Bella McMahon.
Naked babies. What next? Ban all naked baby photos as well, I say. My
mother showed me one taken of me sitting naked in the bath at 9 months.
The shame! I think the rule should be no children in public places.
That way those poor paedophiles and other sensitive adults will not be
tempted and required to exercise any restraint. Maybe we should ban
children from now on to avoid any opportunity for people to be
offended. The possibilities are endless.
What really offends me is seeing young children inadequately dressed
for cold weather.
- Christine.
I am a father of four. Their safety is my absolute priority. Changing
the younger ones in public while keeping an eye on the older ones is
the safest option when family changing rooms are not available.
They can give me as many notices as they like. I will not put my
children at risk by following this ill-informed policy.
- Steve Aschebrock.
I understand that this woman may have had issues with too many children
to attend to with getting them changed, but wouldn't you say that their
safety is more important?
Okay, we don't want to believe there are paedophiles out there, but the
truth is that they are everywhere. I wouldn't want my child at risk of
being watched by someone like that if I could simply get up and go to
the changing room.
This mother could have taken all her children into the ladies' changing
room and attended to them all. I realise there are young women in there
who may not have wanted male company, but isn't this an issue that
should be looked at by the pool owners? She could have sent her boys
into a toilet area while she changed the younger one.
Either way there were better ways to look after her children than
expose them to potential paedophiles. I believe there was no
overreaction by the pool staff and this mother should take a reality
check.
- Renee.
Who makes the rules at these aquatic centres? Maybe it is management
types who have never had kids to change at the poolside. Next they will
make rules that will stop people changing their kids in the changing
rooms just in case someone gets offended.
- Ben.
Children naturally reach a stage where they become self-conscious about
their bodies. Schools and parents, hopefully, bring about and encourage
this awareness of privacy as the child ages. Children who fail to
develop this self-awareness by the age of 7 should be gently encouraged
to change in private.
- Cicelia.
Children generally set the standard of when it's unacceptable to change
in public. My 5-year-old daughter is already preferring privacy. And if
Jerry Collins can pee on the rugby field, a child should be able to
change by the poolside.
Equally, if this is a paedophilia issue, shouldn't we be concerned with
reducing their rights, not ours?
- Philip.
The age is determined by the child or the parent. It's that growing
stage in a parent and child's life. The child gets to an age where he
or she feels uncomfortable being changed in public and grabs a towel to
cover up and the parent knows.
Who are the ashamed and embarrassed ones? Are they the ones with no
children or with children but who lack the loving intimate parent-child
parental skills?
- Colin.
So where is it going to stop? Kids being changed on the beach, mothers
breast-feeding in a cafe? Are we about to see a proliferation of
modesty police?
- Bruce Holm.
I think the Kaiapoi pool took a ridiculous stance over the mother
changing her 16- month-old child at the poolside. How can there be
offence in a baby's nudity?
The pool's attitude is the offensive thing here. It is probably
reasonable to expect children of 7 or 8 to change in the changing rooms
but even then, if parents and child were happy to do so in public I
cannot see what there is to be offended about.
- Maureen Sheldon.
I am gobsmacked to read that the PC nonsense brigade has invaded
swimming pools now. The pool manager needs to take a close look at the
policy and pull her head out.
My own children changed by the swimming pool until they were about 4.
Children seem to naturally tell you when they are past the age for such
things. Most are happy to follow mum or dad into the changing rooms to
see what it is all about when they are ready.
Does the pool concerned now provide extra qualified lifeguards to watch
the older children who are unattended while a mother heads into a
changing room with a toddler.
What about the mothers who have their sons or fathers with their
daughters? Are they to take the child into their own changing shed,
with adults who are naked, who are not related to them? Does not a
closed-off area pose more threat from all these villains in
Christchurch than the open public area.
Paedophiles are not found lurking behind every bush and to use this as
an excuse is small-minded. Let's get New Zealand back from the idiots.
- Paul.
While we're at it, we should ban bikinis and all sorts of revealing
clothing - they are strong magnets for the eyes of unsavoury people.
- John.
Sorry, but this made international news and I thought it was a joke,
until I read the article. This is something I'd expect to find here in
the US, but not in a country like New Zealand where people seem (at
least they used to) more relaxed to simple nudity.
Children changing by the pool is something you see in just about every
country, and when they are young there is no problem with it. This
mother should not have been given a hard time. The policy is stupid.
- David Meyer.
In an ideal world everyone ought to skinny-dip, but perhaps the obesity
epidemic needs to be considered. How old is too old? Say, 21 for
females, 18 for males.
- George D. Henderson.
It would depend on the facility's locker room rules. My local YMCA has
a posted rule that says "Children aged 5 and over must use the locker
room of their same gender."
So in this case I would suggest that 5 would be the unacceptable age.
Having a 4- year-old would allow the child to become undressed in
either the men's or the women's locker room. So, if either sex could
see them there, either sex can also deal with a naked kid by the pool.
- Kevin.
Common sense must prevail. Under present pool layout, infants up to 5
years who are with their parent or guardian should be allowed to change
at the poolside. My experience is that then, the school child will want
to go to their changing rooms.
An alternative is a glass room adjacent to the pool where children can
be changed and the parent can still see their other children in the
pool.
- Peter McAulay.
Innocent children should not be the subject of adult hang-ups. We think
a reasonable age for this rule at pools should be about 6 to 7 years.
- Anna Thompson.
I think 7 years and under, if the child isn't modest, is a reasonable
cut-off age for public changing. And if a woman has four children the
pool attendants aren't going to be able to supervise them while she
leaves the pool to change an infant.
On the other hand, try getting a 7-year-old and a 4-year-old out of the
pool and into a family changing room just because you have to change
the baby. I don't think so.
- Christine.
If I had been the parent approached by the staff at the pool in
Kaiapoi, I think I would have taken my own clothes off and then told
them that now they could tell me to leave.
What age child nudity? The real question should be what age adult
nudity. Last time I checked, we pretty much looked the same.
If paedophiles do lurk in swimming pools taking photos, they are not
really that intelligent and neither are the staff. All a grubby
paedophile would have to do is wait for summer, sit at a beach with a
telephoto lens and click away like mad.
With that in mind, I would like to suggest a ban on cameras with
telephoto lens at beaches during the summer.
- Shane Mason.
I cannot believe a child-changing rule would apply to a 16-month-old
baby. Have the people who formulated this rule never tried to care for
a number of young children in this situation?
What is safer? Sending a 5-year-old to a changing room by themselves
while caring for the others? Anybody who has been in this situation
avoids having one child standing shivering while dressing the other.
I would say a minimum age of 5 for changing at the poolside. Even at
that age it would concern me if the changing rooms did not allow for
family rooms and the child had to go into the male dressing rooms by
himself.
- Pam Hollis.
I agree with the pool rules to ban child nudity. The woman who is
surprised to be advised by an attendant not to change her children by
the pool cannot be 100 per cent certain her children weren't recorded
and pictures published on paedophile sites. Naivety is not an excuse
not to protect our children's innocence in every way possible.
- Annette Ashley.
Anyone of any age should be allowed to change by the poolside.
- Erling.
There are no changing rooms at the beach and we all seem to cope.
At the pool I think it's up to the mother to judge the individual
circumstances. It's more appropriate to have pool staff on the look-out
for adults acting strangely than to put some kind of a ban on children
getting changed.
It's the same kind of issue as people being offended by breast-feeding.
- Karen Hunter.
I think up to the age of 4 or 5 is okay as long as the child is taught
proper behaviour and is not running all over the place. If this woman
in Christchurch had to change her baby by the pool because the change
room was full then maybe the facility needs to look at making more
space.
- Sara.
When my grandson was 3 months old my daughter and I took him to a pool
in Blackburn in Britain for a special tots and parents session. I had a
waterproof camera and was taking pictures of him (clothed) in a part of
the pool where there were no other people present.
I was threatened with eviction if I didn't hand over my dangerous
weapon. I thought then how sad it was that society is so threatened by
what are a very few perverts in our presence.
Lately I visited New Zealand and Australia. In Cairns there is a
promenade walk with fountains and pools designed for children to have
fun and frolic in the sun and be kids.
I commented to my daughter on the number of kids with no clothes on.
Shock, amazement and no lurking paedophiles.
After that we were in Andorra. My grandson returned his life vest to
the guard and said in heavily accented Spanish "gracias".
The guard was delighted and spontaneously leant down and cradled my
grandson's head in his hands and planted an appreciative kiss on his
head. My grandson giggled.
And then we return to the UK and we read of a vicar with an exemplary
record being asked to resign for showing the exact level of spontaneous
affection to a 10-year-old.
- Kay.
I am totally with Amanda Crozier on this one. I don't think it's
necessary to get officious about deciding what age is appropriate for
children to stop changing in public.
In my experience kids will reach a level of self-consciousness on their
own. I've known 5-year-olds who don't want to get changed in the open,
and kids closer to 10 who are still fine with it.
- Carol Stewart.
I think it's fine to change by the pool. When my kids were younger my
daughter wouldn't go into the men's with me to get changed because she
said it was for men and boys.
- Glenn Scott.
I think the appropriate age is one where both parent and child feel
comfortable with the situation. I'm concerned that the right of the
parents to raise their kids in a fair and decent manner is being put
under threat by a bunch of paranoid idiots.
The risk that a child will be harmed by changing in public, under adult
supervision, is extremely low.
Of far more concern is the need to encourage parents to raise their
children in such a manner that they grow up to be capable, responsible
and self- disciplined adults.
- John.
There are far more risks to a young unaccompanied boy of any age in a
male changing room or toilet than beside a pool. A mother cannot attend
to her son in a male changing room as it is male only, yet she cannot
change her son in a female changing room after a certain age either, as
it compromises some women's privacy.
I think that a child under 7 should be able to change beside a pool.
I would ask this pool owner if they can assure parents there is not a
paedophile lurking within their changing rooms. The mother cannot enter
that room to access the safety of that environment. The pool owner
cannot give this assurance.
How do you establish if the person in the changing room is a
paedophile? The owner's rule is flawed and dangerous.
Unless the owner wishes to employ early childhood teachers to oversee
the safety of changing rooms, then the owner is asking parents to put
their children in unsupervised and unsafe environment.
- Anita Brown.
As long as it's done fairly discreetly, I can't see why children can't
be changed in public up to the age of 8 or so. I've always changed my
children poolside if I needed to.
I would imagine it would be obvious if someone weird was hanging around
watching or photographing naked children and that's who the pool
attendants should be concentrating on, not the mothers and their
children.
- Vicki.
When I was growing up in the 1950s we all became rather self-conscious
around the age of 7 or 8. Kids today probably prefer more privacy a bit
earlier, but let that happen naturally. If we regulate anyone it should
be those sad people who find the age of innocence offensive.
- Carol.
Let those who mind seeing children without clothes swim in the
evenings, when there are no children at the pools.
Get tough on those who use the pool unwashed and with their underwear
on - that is a real health and safety issue.
- Thomas.
I am a citizen of the United States, so I'm pretty used to silly rules
designed by the prudish who overreact to "protect the children".
I'm pretty used to people jumping at nudity as a great evil that must
be stamped out. Heck, I live in what may be the most prudish "modern"
country in the world.
Or so I thought. After reading this article, I have come to the
conclusion that I could be doing much worse. Instead of living in
Tennessee (one of the more prudish parts of the US) I could be living
in New Zealand.
- David
Google Groups "Social.Family.Nudism" group.
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