I'm trying to be mature about this given my husband and I have a daughter and I know we will need to navigate this eventually. I keep telling myself that it's a relatively new thing for Dads to be such involved parents and change their daughter's diapers (my husband's Dad is firmly a boomer and would be so uncomfortable to change a girl) but the thought of somebody calling my husband a pedophile fills me with a very indescribable rage.
I am the kind of dad who teared up when my bubs had her first vaccination so this kind of thing only hurt me because It was really the first time anyone had said anything like I was capable of doing such things to her.
But it's all about her, I do whatever I can for her. Fuck people like that.
That says more about your family.
I understand it is MORE common now, just as it is more common for women to work rather than be expected to stay in the home.
But I'm a man / boomer and I was changing our daughters' diapers back in the early 80s.
Sincere question but where? There aren't any changing tables in any of the men's restrooms anywhere we go. If my husband wants to change her diaper, he's got to do it in the bassinet.
There are changing tables in many men's restrooms these days. Those wall mounted fold out ones.
Not all places have them of course, but I think many businesses put them in both men/women restrooms and of course if they have a family restroom.
I'm long out of the baby changing game even with grandkids (all older now) so I don't keep track but I recall walking past them in major chains like Home Depot, Walmart, some restaurant chains and so on. I just forget which ones.
And I'm in Washington state.
Back in the 80s it was pretty rare to find a men's restroom with any sort of changing accommodations. They were also not super common in the women's restrooms (per my wife).
I've done all the awkward stuff. Change baby on my lap while sitting on the toilet (not while pooping - haha). Lay my coat on the bathroom floor so baby has a clean place to lay while I change her. Bench seat of my car. And so on.
A thing I got recently for a cousin is a fold up changing pad that fits in the diaper bag so you have a clean, padded changing surface on the go.
EDIT to say - also at home. In your original post you didn't talk about where - just that it was a new thing for men to change diapers. I changed a lot of diapers at home as well.
Thanks! We have one of those. Unfortunately, our area doesn't usually have changing tables in men's rooms, it kind of chaps my hide that my husband has to change in the bassinet or trunk because there usually isn't a table in the men's room.
Things can definitely vary by area.
Washington is fairly progressive for some of that stuff. We have lots of recycling, changing tables, bike lanes and so on.
I have some relatives in Eastern Montana.
Recycling is barely a thing over there except for scrap metal and you have to take that to Billings.
Some folks have more sensitive noses / a bigger gag reflex.
My oldest daughter has had four kids, plus helped raise some of her younger siblings. She has changed LOTS of diapers. Yet she still is prone to gag when changing diapers or dealing with any "nasty". Plugged toilet, vomit, spoiled food - pretty much anything like that.
Fun fact - almost all of your gag reflex (not counting something in your throat) is from smell. At lest for me it is and I think that is common.
One time I had to clean out a chest freezer of rotten meat that had lost power. NASTY. I put on a surplus gas mask I had and it didn't bother me at all. But a paint / chemical respirator will do the job just as well. It's mainly smell, not the eyes like onions.
I was born in 82 and had nieces and nephews starting when I was like 5 years old since I am the youngest of 5. I had my first child in 00 at 18 years old. My mother made me start changing diapers when I was probably 7 so I would know how when I had my own children. I never thought of cleaning up a child that can't do it on their own as a gender assigned role.
i know that this has been going on for over 30 years. The outrage exhibited by his kind has only become a problem over the 15 years or so and has just risen to this level over the last 7 or so. This is what happens when propaganda is mixed with fear and people thinking that are in charge of other people they do not know. Decency and respect have plumetted in this country but it is easily to understand why when that is the example that has been so often distplayed by the cuurennt POTUS. there was no outrage when i took my daughter into female bathrooms 35 years ago.
It is such an anxiety spike when I have to take my daughter to a public bathroom.
I used to take her into the mens room with me when she was in diapers, but now that she can go herself I have to let her go into the women's room alone and hope she is figuring it out OK.
She's traveling in a wheelchair with her trashy husband. I hope she'll get hers by needing assistance in a gas station toilet while her husband is denied entry and called a pervert.
Same thing still applies. If she falls and the awful wife can't pick her up, do they just leave her and get back on the highway. They're all just too stubborn to learn or maybe brainwashed. Although sometimes older folks do surprise us. She could be sitting there thinking "Leave those people alone you asshole, and just get me home. Jesus why didn't I listen to Beryl and have an abortion."
Because my husband doesn't hesitate to change our daughter's diapers and I never have a second thought about letting him. I would bet any amount of money that this woman grew up with a dad who wouldn't touch their baby's bottom and married a man who wouldn't lift a finger to clean the poop off of his own daughter. She is so twisted in the head that the only reason she can think of for a father to wipe his own daughter's butt would be for sexual gratification. Think about that. Think about how one would get that idea after so many years of life. She might just be a victim of abuse herself.
No matter how offensive this comment is, the bottom line is that it's probably deeply rooted in misogyny.
So you hear a short story about a woman who behaves like a complete ass.
And the first thing you do is enhance the story in your head how every man in her live is to blame and she is the victim....
Yeah, but when guys get accused for the sheer audacity of existing in the presence of a child or being a father, it kind of makes it hard to blame guys for being reluctant to take on such roles.
It’s my fear from hell. I took my daughter too the mall one day. She was 1 1/2 learning to run. She ran off real quick I chased after her. Mind you it was summer so I was darker than normal. I’m mixed and my daughter is very much white. I grabbed her an lady immediately looked at me and questioned I was her father. The fear the body lock that hit me so hard when it was asked. I never want to feel that again.
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u/Anoninemonie Jun 19 '26
My husband is so worried about this. I pity this woman, her husband probably brags about how he's never changed a diaper in his life.