When your children are babies there is a lot to remember before you can even consider leaving the house.
The food, spare clothing, favorite toy, pacifier, spare pacifier….oh and diaper bag of course. What you shouldn’t have to worry about is finding somewhere clean and suitable to change your baby.
So when one dad knows his screaming daughter’s diaper needs changing while he’s out with his family, he wasn’t expecting the only option to be a disgusting bathroom floor. Now he’s ready to highlight this very unfair issue.
Chris Mau was out with his family when his 8-month-old daughter started to get fussy. He knew she was due a diaper change so headed to the nearest facilities to change her.
He went into the bathrooms of a nearby fast food restaurant assuming they’d have a changing table as the playground built into the area signaled it should have been a kid-friendly environment.
“If the kids are in distress, it pulls at every fiber of my being to do whatever I can to remedy it as quick as possible,” Chris said.
He went into the washroom, assuming he’d be able to change his daughter, but instead found no changing area. He had no option but to change her on a dirty bathroom floor; luckily he had his emergency towel with him.
“I was immediately frustrated with the ignorance of the facility,” Chris said. “With Kali crying I had to make the hard choice between either making her wait until we found a facility that had a changing station, or ease her discomfort and change her in the bathroom anyway.”
Chris said this wasn’t the first time that as a father he’d struggled to find a suitable place to change his kids.
“I felt like they honestly don’t think a father is responsible for diaper changing or whatnot, and I recalled times in the past where we had traveled and run into similar situations where the public restrooms did not have changing stations resulting in the hassle of trying to change a diaper in the car, on a floor or looking for another place to try, hoping they had one.”
When he and his family returned home Chris wrote about his frustrating experience on Facebook, which has been shared by many people, equally horrified at the conditions he was forced to change his daughter in.
“I’m getting pretty sick of having to change my daughter on a disgusting floor because the only changing table in the place is located in the women’sbathroom. It’s crazy to imagine, I know, but there are guys who take care of their kids too,” he said.
No parent (male or female) should have to change their baby on a bathroom floor!
Is this something you’ve experienced as a parent or feel strongly about? Please share your thoughts in the comments section on Facebook.
