It’s hard not to feel for Donte Palmer. That’s the Florida father of three whose Instagram post went viral a few months ago — in the photo, he’s squatting against the bathroom wall, his 1-year-old awkwardly sprawled across his knees getting his diaper changed.
“What’s the deal with not having changing tables in men’s bathroom as if we don’t exist!!” Palmer exclaimed in the post, which now has more than 9,000 likes.
Yeah, what’s the deal? I’ve wondered the same when trying to change my 16-month-old daughter, Sasha. Finding a sanitary, comfortable place to change a diaper can be tricky for any caregiver. And, too often, buildings that we regularly visit inexplicably lack changing tables in their bathrooms.
“I had to change my daughter on the floor,” Stephanie Mollison, 34 of Goshen, said of a recent trip to the eye doctor. There weren’t changing tables in any of the bathrooms at her doctor’s office, so she had improvise to change her 7-month-old daughter, Everleigh. “I’m pretty much used to that,” she added.
Last week, Richard Grant, a 36-year-old father from Philadelphia, was playing with his two children at Easthampton’s Mill 180 Park, where both restrooms have large changing tables. But frequently, Grant said, his family can only find a changing table in the women’s bathroom.
“I get frustrated by it,” he said.
So do I. The floor of a public bathroom is no place for a baby, but that’s exactly where Sasha has found herself many times — in bars, restaurants and, sadly, public buildings.
Grant and I are in good company, it turns out. Following Palmer’s viral social media post last year, caretakers across the country began sharing their own photos of awkward diaper-changing poses using the hashtag #squatforchange.
My squatting technique is much different than Palmer’s. While he takes an over-the-knees approach, I usually unroll a plastic mat on the bathroom floor, set Sasha on top and rush to change her diaper before she gets restless and tries to crawl all over the germ-infested floor. But that’s hardly an adequate workaround.
The worst situation is when my wife and I discover that the women’s bathroom features a changing table, but not the men’s.
“I feel like, ‘Great, just another thing I have to take care of because I’m a woman, and I’m a mother and, therefore every burden falls on me to take care of the baby,’” my wife, Ariane, said about the experience.
There has been some movement to solve the problem elsewhere in the country.
A new law in New York state went into effect this year, requiring all new or renovated buildings, including private businesses, to have changing tables “available to both men and women,” including “at least one changing table accessible to both genders per publicly-accessible floor.” And in October 2016, President Barack Obama signed a bill requiring changing stations in both men’s and women’s public bathrooms in federal buildings.
In Massachusetts, no such law has been passed. But State Sen. Brendan Crighton, D-Lynn, has introduced a bill that would require “all new or substantially renovated buildings which are reasonably expected to be open to the public” to have changing tables in bathrooms “regardless of gender.”
Crighton told the Gazette that he first filed a similar bill several years ago when working as a state representative, but this time he hopes to have the attention needed to get the bill “across the finish line.”
The legislation, Crighton said, was inspired by a dad in his district who was frustrated.
“It was at the request of a constituent who is a father as well and kept running into this situation at family restaurants,” he said. Crighton added he has the support of another political figure nearer to Hampshire County — state Sen. Eric Lesser, D-Longmeadow.
In the wake of Palmer’s viral social media post in December, Lesser wrote on his Facebook page that, as a father of two young children, he personally had experienced the same issue.
“The bottom line is that ALL public restrooms, regardless of gender, should be equipped with changing tables,” Lesser wrote at the time. “It’s unfair, and frankly sexist, to assume changing tables are only necessary in women’s rooms and not men’s rooms. Plenty of Dads change diapers, too!”
The prevalence of changing tables can vary widely across the state and region, as a recent trip out to Amherst revealed. The coffee shops Starbucks and Share Amherst had no changing tables in their gender-neutral bathrooms, for example, but Amherst Coffee and Black Sheep Deli did provide a designated place to change a dirty diaper.
Amherst Town Hall has no changing tables in its public bathrooms, despite the large size of two gender-neutral bathrooms on the first floor.
Rob Morra, Amherst’s building commissioner, said he has never heard the topic raised in Town Hall or by constituents.
“I’m not aware if the conversation has ever taken place,” he said, adding that the town manager or facilities department would be the ones to remedy the situation. “I think it would just be bringing the subject up with one of those two … and see if there’s interest in the possibility of installing them if there’s room for them.”
Morra added that in some small bathrooms, a diaper-changing station could lead to accessibility issues.
If you’ve ever visited the bathrooms near Herrell’s Ice Cream & Bakery inside Thornes Marketplace, you’ll notice that the women’s restroom in Thornes has a changing table but the men’s has none. You’d have to climb some stairs or take the elevator to get to the men’s or gender-neutral bathrooms that feature changing tables on other floors.
“It’s something that I’ve thought about a lot,” said Jon McGee, the facilities manager at Thornes.
McGee said he remembers experiencing the same annoyance when he couldn’t find changing tables for his own daughters, who are now 6 and 9. It was for that reason that over the years he has installed a changing table in every bathroom location possible — except those where a changing table would conflict with accessibility laws. That is, unfortunately, the case with the men’s bathroom near Herrell’s.
“Which frustrated me to no end when we did it, believe me,” he said.
Some businesses have found another solution. Sylvester’s restaurant in Northampton, for example, has gender-neutral bathrooms, one of which has a changing station.
“We’ve never had just a men’s room or a ladies’ room,” said Peter St. Martin, one of Sylvester’s co-owners. “It wasn’t a difficult decision.”
Forbes Library also has a gender-neutral bathroom with a changing tab le in its Children’s and Young Adult department. We take Sasha there all the time, and we never have to come up with creative ways to deal with a potential blowout.
As the department’s head librarian Sarah Johnson put it: “Assuming that a woman is the only caretaker in the family is really outdated.”
Dusty Christensen can be reached at dchristensen@gazettenet.com.