Help there’s a man in the changing room!

I recently started taking my daughter to a mother, sorry parent and toddler swimming group. I love it. I don’t love having to step out in public in my swimming costume. But we sing songs and do lovely games and it is a really positive mummy and baby experience. My little girl absolutely loves it. So much so, she goes on and on (and on) all week about putting her Charlie and Lola swimsuit and her pink armbands on.

Up until this week, it has been an all mummy affair. However this week, there was a collective gasp as a daddy entered the room.

I have to explain at this point that this is a small private pool. It nearly bankrupts us to send the children for swimming lessons there, but the teachers are fantastic and the groups are really small, so we find the large sum of money from somewhere every ten weeks. There is a small room where you change and or watch the children, a small shower and an even smaller toilet. In other words, there is absolutely nowhere to hide.

So in walks the unsuspecting daddy with his gorgeous little boy. There was a momentary silence as we all think; “Oh god, it’s a man!”. Then a collective scurry and grabbing of towels and clothes as we all realise that we are in the middle of getting changed. Poor man! He clearly hadn’t been before and didn’t know where to look. The teacher popped her head round the door and diplomatically suggested he pop in the shower cubicle to get changed.

When he finally braved it into the pool, you would have thought that these women had never seen a man before.  There was much splashing and showing off, with one or two of the ladies vying for this poor man’s attention.  He was great once he had recovered from his initial shock.  He joined in wholeheartedly with the singing and games and evidently enjoyed the time with his son.  He politely smiled at the ladies who kept grinning inanely at him.  I overheard him tell one of the other mums that his wife was busy that day and she had told him that he had to take his son for a swimming lesson, he thought he would be sitting on the side.  With a child under two??

Our lovely little swimming session ended and we all started to look at each other nervously again and I think its safe to assume that we were all thinking the same thing?  Help, there’s going to be a man in the changing room!  Could we all fit into the tiny shower cubicle?  There was a bit of a stampede into the changing area and those through the door first grabbed their stuff and ran into the shower and toilet.  Luckily, the swimming teacher once again was way ahead of us and asked him to stay in the pool for five minutes to give the ladies a bit of privacy.

I have to say fair play to this daddy, it can’t be easy for dad’s to join into these often mummies orientated classes.  I have done quite a few different pre-school classes over the years with my children and whether it be sport, swimming, music or just toddler groups, there have never been many daddies there.  I know that my husband would have loved the opportunity to take his children to these sorts of things and I think he would have been great, but I imagine it can be very intimidating at times, especially if you are the only man in the group.  According to recent reports, the number of S.A.H.Ds has increased by over ten per cent in the last ten years.  You only have to look in on the world of social media such as Facebook and Twitter and read parent blogs to see these men in action.  It is great that so many men are choosing to stay at home and that either parent can take little ones to these group experiences, so I hope that I see lots more daddies at the toddler groups and sessions that I go to in the near future.

I did smile to myself when I left the swimming pool.  In the car park, two of the mums were obviously discussing the arrival of the daddy and were saying how shocked they were.  It was a dad at a swimming class, not an alien; that would be shocking!  Then they were moaning about the fact that he had had extra time in the swimming pool!  Would it have been better for him to have a ringside seat, watching us all heave our post children bodies out of soggy swimsuits?  There really is no pleasing some people.