KIDS IN THE LOCKER ROOM DISCOMFORT OVER MIXED NUDITY AT THE Y
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I'm undressing. Now I'm naked. Nearby are several little girls.
A few are as old as 6, going on 7. Some are naked, too. There are little boys around, and older boys. A few of them are naked, fully or partially. There are also other men around, and -- you guessed it! -- they are big and hairy and naked.
The little girls, some nearly chest high to a man, often appear very interested in all this. They peek or, sometimes, stand and openly stare. Sometimes the little boys and girls gaze at each other, particularly when they're taking showers together, naked. Their dads are there, too -- sometimes naked, though frequently dressed and gingerly attempting to adjust the shower knobs for their kids without getting soaked.
This is not a tale of ancient Rome or even of one of those horrific child abuse cults. It's the typical scene Saturday and Sunday mornings at my dear old neighborhood YMCA in Silver Spring, as parents bring their kids in for swim classes.
For years I never gave it much thought, except to cover myself with a towel or modestly turn sideways in the shower. But after that nationwide ruckus last September over a 6-year-old North Carolina boy kissing a girl on the cheek in school and getting suspended for it, I started wondering.
What's going on at the Y?
Clearly my own slight discomfort, I realized, isn't the significant question here -- I'm an adult, I'm not being damaged, I can deal with it.
But what about the physical, mental, emotional and spiritual well-being of the children? If their schools are concerned about sexuality, how healthy is this locker room experience for them? First I decided to ask a few dads.
"I haven't ever had any problems with it," said one father of 4- and 6-year-old daughters whom he'd just dressed. "It's just one of those necessities. I guess it makes some people uncomfortable: I think men have more trouble dressing in front of little girls than the girls have. My one daughter -- she's 6 -- will have to make the transition next year My wife is here today, but most days I'm the only one who can do it."
Another YMCA dad -- he doesn't take his 6-year-old daughter into the men's locker -- had a different view.
"It's inappropriate," he said. "It seems weird."
"It's awkward," his 12-year-old son said.
"It seems out of step with our society," his wife said.
I called Dave Cotten, the ever-cheerful director of the Silver Spring Y. "We get occasional complaints, mostly from the women's side," he said. "Older women complain . . . saying they feel uncomfortable having the little boys in the area when they're showering. So we put up shower curtains in the gang shower area." He said there are fewer complaints from the men, and no shower curtains have been installed in their locker.
Dave added that although the 6-year-old rule is "pretty much the standard in our YMCAs nationally," he considers not having "an alternative place for people to change . . . a problem. Maybe times have changed, maybe there are more single parents who have to deal with both kids, or parents are coming separately. . . . We've tried to figure out what we could do create a room for families to change in, but . . . it would be a big expense."
He said newer rec centers, like Montgomery County's Olney Indoor Swim Center, are being built with family changing rooms -- so I drove out Georgia Avenue to have a look. Indeed there's a small room, separate from the lockers and equipped with a toilet and shower, but since a woman was in there with her kids I had quite a wait to get in.
Clearly it would be slow going to suit up an entire swim class there, and while waiting I noticed a sign by the nearby locker room doors: "CHILDREN 6 YEARS OR OLDER MUST CHANGE IN THE APPROPRIATE LOCKER ROOM." At least they've shaved a year off the Y's standard.
"Little kids in locker rooms are my specialty," joked Steve Hockensmith, a spokesman for the YMCA of the USA headquarters in Chicago, when I phoned. He said the Y's national council has "no policy" and "no recommended guidelines" on age limits for opposite sex locker room use in the 2,168 YMCAs nationwide. He said it could not readily be determined how many of these facilities have a 6-year-old rule like the one in Silver Spring.
Steve faxed me an internal briefing paper on the matter prepared for him by the YMCA of the USA's research and planning department. "There isn't any one right answer to this one -- no magic age to pick that makes the problem go away," the paper says. " . . . You need to make people feel included in the policy-making process and especially make accommodations for all parties. Don't let someone feel like a loser.
"The typical case: A woman complains that a 5-year-old boy is looking all around the locker room with eyes like saucers. . . . No one should feel ogled at the Y. There may not be much privacy in a Y locker room, but there should be freedom from being ogled. . . .
"One complication: Some of the people who may complain about children of the opposite sex in the locker room really don't want any kids at all in the locker room. The good news is that the Y's that have listened to all parties and tried to make accommodations accordingly say that whatever their response was, the issue isn't a big deal."
I phoned Evelyn Fine, vice president for marketing and communications of the YMCA of Metropolitan Washington, who said the other six Y's with pools in our area have the same rule as Silver Spring's. When I asked Evelyn what impact mixed locker rooms might have on children, she admitted she wasn't sure.
"I'm not a child psychologist," she said. "I'd be interested to hear what a child psychologist would say." "You're not talking about showering naked at the same time! I didn't know that's in existence!" exclaimed Joan Kinlan, one of the two psychiatric experts in child and adolescent development to whom the American Psychiatric Association referred me for some answers. "This is total news to me. . . . I think it's terribly inappropriate. I don't think it's healthy."
Evidently, Joan isn't a member of the Y.
She is, however, past president of the local chapter of the American Academy of Child and Adolescent Psychiatry, and a medical doctor affiliated with Georgetown University Hospital who has treated hundreds of youngsters for psychological problems in more than two decades of private practice.
To begin with, she said, "A lot of molestations take place in bathrooms and locker rooms. Most of them don't end up in the newspapers because the parents are so afraid that their child might be identified and then suffer further. People don't know how many pedophiles are out there -- it's a lot more prevalent than people want to know."
Though fathers are usually with their kids at the Y, Joan said a molestation that can inflict significant psychological damage may require only "30 to 90 seconds. That's all it takes. It creates major problems for the parents and the family, who feel their child has been violated major, major problems for the kid, depending on what was done, and how it was done." Damage may result, she said, from something as simple as "someone touching their little butt and saying, Oh, what a cute little girl.' "
Even without molestation, however, Joan's professional view is that "it's pretty overwhelming to a little girl to be around a number of naked men. . . . It provides a source of sexual stimulation that's inappropriate to the age. Listen, you see kids really being sexual even as babies. They have sexual feelings, but these are not for adults to be involved with. . . .
"Kids come in for therapy: Their parents are going around the house nude. In our liberal society, it's common: Nudity is in nowadays. With most parents, they don't understand why they should cover up, and they're surprised to see their kids' learning problems and disabilities just go away when . . . . You'll see a little boy with a blinking tic