Belle Taylor: Why it’s time for (nappy) change

[dricia]

SATURDAY mornings at the local pool is Dad Soup.

Young dads with their babies at swimming lessons. Older dads with a gangly tribe of dripping wet offspring bouncing around the water fountains.

Resigned looking dads lining up for hot chips and coffee at the kiosk. There are Hipster Dads with beards and tatts and Sporty Dads in their speedos.

There are fat dads, thin dads, hairy dads and bald dads.

A veritable kaleidoscope of dads.

My partner and I giggled when we first ventured to the pool with our new baby.

We imagined the living rooms and bedrooms across the suburbs that morning, mum pulling the doona over her head and dad corralling the children into the car.

“Orright kids get ya bathers on! We’re going to the pool!” A platoon of dads armed with towels and floaties marching towards the pool, an army of mums having a lie in.

It didn’t take long for us to become that family.

Saturday morning my boyfriend takes our son to swimming lessons.

Sometimes I come along, sometimes I stay in bed. If I don’t go, my partner is often faced with a dilemma.

There are family change rooms at the pool, but considering the onslaught of Pool Dads they are often full, and with a dripping wet baby there is not a lot of time to stand and wait for one to become available.

If I am on hand I will take our baby into the women’s change rooms where I can shower him and use the change tables in the women’s to dress him.

But if my partner is alone he has to take our baby into the men’s and attempt to change him on the floor. Despite the pool being dad central, there is no change table in the men’s rooms.

So I gave a smile of recognition when I saw the photograph of Florida man Donte Palmer.

The photo, which quickly went viral online earlier this month, shows Palmer squatting on the ground with his one-year old son Liam lying across his lap.

Palmer, 31, is changing his son’s nappy in an awkward position he has come to perfect.

With change tables often only available in women’s rest rooms, dads have to either learn to perform strange versions of nappy changing gymnastics, or place their offspring on a dirty public toilet floor.

Palmer posted the photo online to show friends how apt he had become at the strange manoeuvre. But the picture was reposted and spread — soon Mr Palmer was fielding interview requests from media around the world and had even inspired a Twitter hashtag — #squatforchange, with dads posting photos of themselves online changing their kids’ nappies without a change table.

Palmer hit a nerve. Women’s rest rooms are often equipped with change tables, men’s rarely are.

And yes, it’s annoying and inconvenient, but it’s also more than that.

It’s one of the many small and subtle ways society tells us raising children is women’s work and blokes need not get too involved.

Because if there are no change tables in the men’s toilets what sort of message does that send? That changing nappies is not for dads? That dads shouldn’t be caring for their children without mum nearby?

Incredibly, there are even reports from fathers who say they have been verbally abused by women when they are using the parents room in public spaces. Yep, this actually happens.

But let’s look on the bright side. The change table issue never used to be a problem because it wasn’t too long ago when dads were a lot more reluctant to get their hands dirty.

A UK study in 1982 found 42 per cent of fathers had never changed a nappy.

By 2000, only 3 per cent of dads shirked this particular job, no doubt the stats would be similar in Australia.

The dads are all right. This isn’t the bad old days. Most blokes don’t need much more encouragement to take the baby and make up the bottle and pack the pram and whip out the change mat.

They just need a table to do it on.