Dad Branded 'Hero' for Sneaking Into Ladies Bathroom To Change Son's Diaper

An increasingly desperate dad has been told he did "the right thing" after sneaking into a women's restroom to use the baby changing facilities there.

There's no denying the fact that when it comes to parenting, fathers have stepped up their efforts over the past 50 years or more.

According to the Pew Research Center, back in 1965, dads contributed an average of around 2.5 hours a week on child care. By comparison, data collected in 2016 found fathers spent an average of eight hours a week on child care—nearly three times what was reported in 1965.

Despite the steady shift in family roles, it would appear some are still resistant or possibly oblivious to this gradual change. In a post shared to Reddit under the handle rocksandhardplaces1, a 31-year-old dad described the troubling situation he encountered while out at a store alone with his 5-month-old son.

Everything was going fine until he realized nature had called and his son needed a diaper change. That was when the problems began. According to the post, which has been upvoted over 21,000 times, the man "went over to the restrooms and saw that there wasn't a family/companion restroom, just a men's and women's."

"I went into the men's room and saw there was a cubicle and a few urinals, but no changing table," he wrote. "The sink didn't have a counter either." When he approached an employee to ask where the baby changing facilities were, she told him they were "in the bathroom" before taking him back to where he was.

Despite explaining there was "no changing table" in the men's bathroom, the employee urged him to "look again." He did exactly that, confirming what he already knew, but when he returned the store worker had gone. "Keep in mind, my son has been in his poopy diaper this whole time," the disgruntled dad said. "So I gave up and headed into the lady's room which sure enough had a changing table."

Sneaking into the ladies restroom, the man said he was immediately encountered by a woman washing her hands who told him he had the "wrong bathroom buddy." When he explained the situation though she expressed sympathy and understanding, replying: "Bro, that sucks."

However, while rushing to change him "before anyone else walked in," the man had a second encounter with a woman who walked into the restroom and after seeing him there began screaming "Get out! You can't be in here!" before rushing out to get a member of staff.

Finishing the task at hand, the man exited the ladies restroom where he spotted the woman talking to an employee. Ditching the items he had intended to buy, he made a beeline for the exit. "The employee tried to wave me down and stop me, but I rushed out to my car, buckled my son into his car seat and left," he wrote.

He said his actions drew a decidedly mixed response from his family. "My wife said I absolutely did the right thing, but my mom said I'm an idiot and was 100 percent in the wrong. My sister won't stop laughing at me," the daring dad said.

Newsweek has contacted rocksandhardplaces1 for comment.

But despite the contrasting opinions at home, people on social media were united in agreeing the father was right to respond in the way he did. Unusedusername3 commented: "He's a hero. My husband was a stay at home dad...we were unprepared when we visited my parents in the south."

JulineAnnick wrote: "More places need to realize that guys know how to change diapers too," with Murda981 concurring: "My husband changed more diapers than I did for both our boys. We had an agreement that since I was nursing he took care of what came out of them since I was solely responsible for what went in."

SigSauerPower320 said: "That store is 100 percent to blame for this. I wouldn't be shocked if they've received complaints about this in the past and haven't done anything about it...What'd she expect you to do, change him on the floor?"

Evil_Mel agreed that the dad did "the right thing," adding that "as a woman, I wouldn't even have given him a second look. He was at the changing table with a baby, what do you think he was doing?!"

CommercialUnit2 added: "If anything you did wrong by rushing out as if you did something wrong. You should have told the employee that there's no changing room in the men's and that they should do something about that."