Author: Deano

Deano’s answer to: “What is the oldest age a child should be allowed into a locker room with their parent of the opposite sex?”

Posted on by Deano in Q & A

This question is covered pretty well in the more general Parenting: At what age should a child no longer share a room with someone of the opposite sex?, but for convenience, I will summarize my answer here:

Whenever the child is uncomfortable/awkward with the arrangement, and/or endangered by others.

If a 12 year old girl doesn't mind changing clothes in a locker room full of guys, that's absolutely fine, though it certainly indicates a potentially underdeveloped desire for independence if it holds much longer than that.

Technically, there really isn't anything the law can do about it until the child is 18 in most US states. The pool staff, however, might start enforcing their own rules on the matter well before then, especially if the other men in the locker room start complaining directly (my gym seem to draw the line basically at puberty, but as far as I know these aren't guidelines that appear in any official manual).

What is the oldest age a child should be allowed into a locker room with their parent of the opposite sex?

Deano’s answer to: “What is the ideal age to start having children?”

Posted on by Deano in Q & A

I'm pretty sure the best age to start having children is 0, also known as the moment of conception.

This way, you don't have the retraining/deprogramming problems you get when you start out with an older child.

It's like dogs – you think getting them after their already housetrained is a good thing, but you wind up spending a lot more time just creating a strong parent-puppy bond than you otherwise would have, and you'll still need to learn how to parent "in situ", without the advantages of starting to do so with a youngling that cannot just run away.

What is the ideal age to start having children?