Privacy while changing is a necessity. But young kids can act recklessly and put people in weird situations even without meaning to.
Redditor meowth_theslav encountered this very issue while shopping. So they turned to the “Am I The A**hole” (AITA) subReddit for moral judgment.
They asked:
“AITA for yelling at a boy who opened the changing room curtain while I was changing?”
The Original Poster (OP) explained:
“I feel like it should be obvious but I was kind of made out to be the bad one in the situation.”
“I was at the shopping center a few days ago and wanted to try on some clothes I had picked out. The changing rooms weren’t the solid doors you could shut and lock, but the sliding curtains.”
“I purposely went to the last changing room since it wasn’t occupied and I wanted as much privacy as possible.”
“I did notice a woman and her son (who was running around the store and messing around) but neither one of them at that point were in the changing room area.”
“Anyway, I had gone into a changing room and tried on several different things before getting ready to get back into my own clothes.”
“I could hear the boy being loud and messing around and I assumed he was close by, but quite literally I was NOT expecting him to open the curtain to the changing room while I was in and run away.”
“I was too surprised at that moment and he already left before I could say anything, but he came back and pulled the curtain back open, and I yelled at him to go away and stop messing around.”
The kid didn’t take it too well.
“Apparently he had started crying, and when I left the changing room his mother was waiting by the entrance to the changing room.”
“She confronted me and told me that I was ‘incredibly disrespectful’ to her son and there was no reason for me to yell at him.”
“I told her that there wouldn’t be an issue if she would just be a good parent and take control of her son. Another woman who worked at the store came by and said that I made a scene out of something that wasn’t a big deal.”
“Personally I felt violated because I was in the middle of changing and even though her son doesn’t know better I felt the need to tell him to stop and it’s his mother’s responsibility to parent him.”
“AITA?”
“My reaction wasn’t to intentionally yell but I was irritated and it was a reaction from surprise.”
“I don’t think some people are understanding that I yelled because I was startled…not to be mean.”
Redditors gave their opinions on the situation by declaring:
- NTA – Not The A**hole
- YTA – You’re The A**hole
- NAH – No A**holes Here
- ESH – Everyone Sucks Here
Redditors agreed OP was not the a**hole.
“NTA.”
“But the woman working at the store? Wtf? She should have validated you or at least not tried to gaslight you.”
“Not a big deal to her, sure, because it was not HER privacy. It was her customer’s privacy she should have helped protect.”
“Of course your privacy is a big deal to you. Smh.”
“Okay, thanks everyone for giving me a finer definition of gaslighting. Yes, I agree it gets overused and I’m guilty as charged for using the wrong term.”
“I guess it’s DARVO then, is it? But we’re in agreement that whatever the store employee did was not okay.” ~ Griffinsforest
“That should be going in a Yelp and Google review, I reckon.”
“‘2.5 stars. Great clothing range, but the staff support children barging in to the changing rooms while you’re half naked and accuse you of making a scene when you yell at them.”
“I suggest ordering a few sizes of anything you want to try on online, and returning the ones that you don’t want – instead of using the dressing rooms to try on clothes there for size in store’.” ~ f02f2e6fa0b3
“This is one of the few times I would call corporate over clerk behavior. The fact that they’re fine with this makes the changing rooms completely unsafe, and it’s not okay.” ~ Renamis
“Yeah, like sometimes kids are a**holes and do things they shouldn’t but the proper response for a parent is to APOLOGIZE and then correct the kid’s behavior. Not chastise the person who just got barged in on.” ~ Popular-Character886
OP didn’t want people to see them changing.
“I kind of gathered this child was a toddler which would not mean there’s anything deeper than grab thing and move it and run because toddlers are tiny chaos demons but if he’s older absolutely.” ~ Claws_and_chains
“This all day. I still think the OP is NTA, but a little kid like that isn’t sexually harassing anyone, he’s just goofing around.”
“I once had a toddler squeeze under the door in ladies restroom. I just said ‘Hey hun, I think you’re in the wrong place. Squeeze back out and go find your mommy’.”
However, when my kids were that age, I watched them closely all the time so they never had the chance to make those errors.”
“The Mom is TA, the clerk is TA.” ~ Bryllya
“Yeah OP is not in the wrong I just don’t think the kid was intentionally trying to like see boobies. He was just being a little kid (she says he was 4/5) but his behavior was still bad and it’s appropriate to be upset.” ~ Claws_and_chains
“I don’t think it has clicked to sexual… yet.”
“Mom is definitely setting a bad bar though. And clerk isn’t helping but I’m going to probably go with the she’s traumatized from dealing with Mother because if the woman feels entitled enough to yell at a fellow customer, she is definitely screeching at the ‘help’.”
“Being permissive about your child pushing someone else’s boundaries, and insisting on strangers ‘respecting’ your child when they push and cross not just personal but societal boundaries?”
“He didn’t just pull the curtain once. He did it twice. Once is a pass. Twice is he knows what he did, he liked it, and he is doing it again.” ~ GreyerGrey
It’s so awkward.