A Dad Took His Daughters to the Bathroom. The Internet Lost Its Mind.

A father takes his young daughters into a women's restroom, someone calls the police, and suddenly millions of people are arguing online.

In this episode, I dive into the viral bathroom video that sparked outrage across social media and ask a bigger question: How did ordinary parenting situations become national controversies?

From my own childhood experiences to a personal encounter involving a family locker room, I explore the challenges parents face, the ongoing debates surrounding bathrooms and privacy, and the growing culture of recording, judging, and publicly shaming strangers online.

Join the conversation and let me know what you think.

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Transcript

SPEAKER_00 0:00

Over 20 million views. That is how many people have watched a video clip on the internet of a father taking his two young daughters into a women's gas station bathroom. And think about that for a second. This isn't a story about government corruption. This isn't a story about child trafficking. This isn't even a story about fraud. Not one of the countless issues that are actually affecting families every single day. This is a bathroom. Somehow a dad helping his daughters use the restroom has become one of the biggest stories on the internet. People are furious. People are attacking, people are defending, people are attacking the man who called the police. There's interviews, countless interviews, there's gifts being sent, GoFundMe's being set up, and millions of strangers weighing in on an issue that they weren't even there to witness. And the more I've watched this unfold, the more I found myself asking a different question. It's not whether the dad was right or wrong, but how have we become a society that can completely turn an ordinary parenting situation into a national controversy overnight? Welcome back to Melissa Unfiltered. Look, I think it's damn about you think it's bomb is lit. Everybody watched out because the bomb is lit. I got that. I got the bomb is lit. Okay, before I dive in, you guys, I want to thank all of you. We have hit over a million views on just Facebook alone, which is incredible. Um, I love when my production team sends me the stats. It's so cool. I really appreciate um all the support and that a lot of these stories are resonating with you, and a lot of good discussions are happening online. So I want to read a couple comments here from our last episode from a few of the clips that have been on social media. And I really appreciate the comments and the dialogue going back and forth because that is the purpose of this podcast, and the whole point is to start bigger discussions and hopefully work towards some positive changes. So um, one of the commenters here said, as an adoptee, I absolutely agree. At best, hiding our stories and histories is cruel and just adds more pain. Yes, I completely agree. We need to get these um adoption records and foster care records completely unsealed for people so that they can heal. Um, another woman said that thankfully she knew where she came from and her adopted dad let her see her other family. So kind of a different situation. Again, I noticed in some of the comments, people uh may have thought I was talking about like a straight adoption. Um, so that's why I always encourage people to tune in and listen to the whole episode because those clips, it's really hard to gauge everything that we're discussing. And what we were really trying to gain is access to the foster care records. Um, my children never lived a day with their biological parents, and so we know about them, but we don't have any history from their time in foster care. Um, 100%, they should know the truth. And it kind of went on and on. There was very few people, there was a handful of people who did not agree and were like, you know, keep the trauma buried, they don't deserve to know, or said we should be sending um information to the biological parents about us and what we're doing. That's not how this works. But anyway, I really appreciate the comments and let's dive in here. Okay, so this viral video of a dad in the bathroom with his two young daughters washing their hands. Let me just take it from the top in case you haven't um seen the video. I'm gonna do this is my understanding, my explanation. I really want to be very clear. I'm not picking a side here. This is just a discussion, and I'm just shocked at how this is blown up. Um, so essentially, I watched the video and I watched a couple of the follow-up interviews. Where this video starts is it looks like the dad in the video sets up his camera phone in a mirror kind of situation in a bathroom. So you can see him washing his daughter's hands. She looks to be like three years old, I'm guessing. Um, and another man is standing in the doorway opening into the bathroom and yelling at him that he's calling the police, and then he's on the phone with the police saying exactly what's happening. Like the dad is now washing his hands as he's washing the hands. And you can see this poor little girl is like so distraught, and she seems so upset by what's happening. Because obviously, there's other things that took place before he started recording, and he's just going through it and yelling and screaming, and it's you know, a little hard to watch because you just feel so bad for the little girl. Then that door, the guy leaves, and it looks like an attendant from the gas station, this was a quick trip gas station, walks in and closes the door. I don't know if she locked the door and lets the father finish like helping his young daughters do what they need to do in the bathroom, and then um walks him out. And that's kind of what it went viral. The dad posted the video, I believe, on TikTok. Um, and he didn't have like a huge social media. I tried to find he wasn't like a big influencer or anything, but he shared this and he had said now in some of these interviews, the reason for sharing was um because he wanted to spread awareness that there's not good, you know, places for dads to take their daughters to the bathroom when they're by themselves. And you know, I've after watching this and seeing that I got to over 20 million views, just that one video, which is crazy. Um, and I don't even know if that's counting. I don't know if that's just TikTok or if that was on Instagram, Facebook as well. I'm sure it's posted everywhere now. I I'm not on TikTok. Um, so I saw it on Instagram. I'm like, what would I have done? I, you know, definitely in these crazy situations, you have to have your phone out recording because you just like never know what someone's gonna do. Um but yeah, that's the gist of what happened. So not anything like crazy. Um, and it made me think about when I was little, I um didn't have my mom was a single mom for a long time, didn't have a dad in the picture for a while. And so my uncles were super, super involved in my life, my grandpa was super involved, and they were just kind of the men who took care of me in my life. And my uncle is a huge baseball fan, like took me to so many baseball games. But I remember vividly this one time him taking me, I must have been, I don't know, five years old, maybe less. I don't remember how old I was. And he took me, I want to say, to a Chicago Cubs game. I could be wrong. Um, Uncle Tom, if you watch this, comment what the game was. And if you've been to a ball field, you know that those bathrooms are huge and the lines are long. And I'm like, I can go by myself to the bathroom, it's totally fine. And he's like, Absolutely not. I cannot let you go to the bathroom. And I also can't, you know, he couldn't walk into the women's restroom because there's so many women in there and so many stalls. So he's like, you're just gonna have to go in and you're gonna have to come with me. And so as soon as it's our turn to walk in, he's like announcing that, you know, bringing in a little girl to go to the bathroom. And he just covered my eyes and I couldn't see anything. He walked me right to the stall, you know, told me put toilet paper on the seat, guys are disgusting. Um, and he stood right in front of the door. And so I felt perfectly safe. And then when it was time to leave, he just said, Okay, I'm gonna cover your eyes again. He covered my eyes and let me wash my hands and we walked out. I think that's how that's how I remember it all going down. Um, and I thought, you know, that was a good choice. No one had any problems, no one thought it was strange. Maybe they did. I don't know. Again, Uncle Tom, if you're watching this, comment like if people gave you weird looks or anything weird happened. Nobody filmed it. There was no cell phones back then. And, you know, it was just an uncle doing what he had to do so his little niece could go to the bathroom. And, you know, we always traveled uh together. He'd always make sure I got to the bathroom safely. It, you know, I didn't think it was a problem, nothing about it. Um, sorry guys, it is like storming crazy right now, and there's very loud thunder. So if you hear that, I apologize. Um, but I don't even think in this other situation where this father decided I'm alone with my daughters, they need to go to the bathroom. I'm gonna take them into the woman's restroom. And he said that he announced before he walked in and no one was in there and went to the bathroom. I mean, I I guess I don't see the problem with it, but again, what does it matter? Like what I think. It's just, I don't know, the whole thing is just crazy. Um, I was watching another podcast, and the commentator on that show said, no, he's wrong. He should have taken them into the men's and just told, you know, you're not gonna see anything and taking them into the stall. Again, that's you do like what works for you and your family. I don't really think that there's a perfect solution. And we can't be requiring every single establishment and restaurant and gas station and everywhere to have a men's bathroom and a women's bathroom and a family bathroom. I mean, I think at some of the smaller gas stations, they the bathroom should just be like maybe one, like multiple doors and um one in and out, like not like a big community, like men's room, women's room. That might help. But like, I don't know what he would have done if he stopped at somewhere like Bucky's. That's pretty big. If you've been to Bucky's, it is like the best gas station ever, and their bathrooms are huge. I don't know if he still would have walked into the women's or if he would have gone to the men's. I'm not sure, but like you know, do what works for your family again. Like, I don't think he should have sent them in alone. They were very young. Um, I don't know, every parent's making judgment calls. I think we're just like jumping on judgment so quick these days. And if we want to go on the flip side of this, from this video that went viral, like I said, you only see it from the moment that this man is standing in the doorway talking to the police on the phone, very upset that a father is in the woman's bathroom with his two daughters, and he said it's because his wife and his ill mother-in-law, which it looks like almost like she was in a wheelchair or something, needed to use the washroom and they couldn't because he was in there, and that's why he was calling the police. Oh, we don't know anything about this guy. I tried looking online if anyone has, you know, like his side of the story or anything. Not like I'm defending him or anything. I'm not defending anyone. I just I would like to know like how we got to that place. Like, did he did his wife watch um the man and his daughters walk in? Did he watch them walk into the women's w restroom? There are so many scenarios. I'm like, how did it get to a man standing in a women's restroom yelling at a man for being in the women's restroom? I mean, he's standing in the doorway, he's in there too. Did like how did this happen? Did anyone think like maybe he didn't see the little girls at first? Maybe he did. I don't know. Like maybe he thought he was protecting someone. Maybe he just saw, like, he only saw the guy. And you know, we've had all this stuff going on all over the internet about people fighting over transgender people using the bathrooms, like maybe he thought that was the situation. Again, I don't know. No one on the internet knows unless I really missed something here. Like, did anyone investigate this? Did he, you know, I don't know. Like, how did the internet immediately decide that this man is a villain? And now his company has come out and said that he has lost his job, like they let him go from his job. Um, I mean, have we lost the ability to give people the benefit of the doubt? I can think of so many situations where either myself or my husband or someone that I know has been in a situation where they're having a bad day and they did or said something that is out of character for them, and they totally would not, you know, want it filmed and put on the internet and get canceled over it and lose their job and have everyone hate them. I mean, I literally just had someone say something really rude to my son, who is a really good person, and I don't think he thought through what he was saying. And this person is in a position where, like, had a camera been out and I was videotaping him say this thing, like, and put it on the internet, would the whole internet be like, oh my gosh, I can't believe this person he's in that position, and he said this thing to this kid and to this mom, like I would that ruin his whole life and his career? And and then what about the family? Like, what about the wife involved? What about everyone else? I just it's it's it's a crazy situation, and I'm I would like to know more. I would like to if if we're gonna make something viral and we're gonna have this guy have interviews and start a GoFundMe, and again, I am not on anyone's side. I want to be very clear. I'm not defaming anyone, I'm not mad at anyone, nor should you be. Like, I think that's the point I'm trying to get at here. It's like you even me thinking about this and talking about this episode with my producer, it's like, oh, you gotta be careful here and you gotta be careful there because someone's gonna sue you. It's just so crazy. Like, how did we get here? Like, can we just let parents be parents and let stuff happen? I mean, I don't know. There's gotta be more that I missed, and I'd love to hear. So if anyone knows more about the man who was uh calling the police and more about that story, send it my way because you know, I I just it's hard to make a decision. Um, on the whole bathroom topic, I've had a situation happen where um before we moved to Tennessee when we lived in Illinois, we were members of a fitness club, health club, and um I had a friend who worked there. So when the situation happened, I tried not to make too much of a big deal about it because my friend worked there and they knew that we were friends, and so I was really being careful. Um, but I would take my kids to swim there. They had a really nice indoor and outdoor pool, and I would take my kids to swim and my boys, this was several years ago, so they were still very little, and my daughter was very little, and they had signs all over the women's locker room that you could not have your children of an opposite gender in the women's locker room. So they were like, you can't have your boys in here, and like to be fair, there are in in health clubs and fitness clubs like people um who are less shy get full-on naked. They're just like strip off their clothes, full on naked in the locker room in front of everyone. And so I I get it. I'm like, I don't really need my boys like staring at a bunch of naked women in a locker room. So I was like, you know what, that's fair. Like, and I also don't need to like have to like hide their eyes and walk to a stall to get them changed. And so fortunately for me, they did have a family locker room there, and you would see families in there, and then they had individual, like bigger shower stalls with a changing part in the front. So it was all very private. Like, it doesn't matter if like a dad was in there with the kids or a mom was in there with the kids. Everyone pretty much like grabs their giant stall and goes in. It's just a locker room, and that's where you're expected to change. And so I was like, you know what? No problem. Like, let's just follow the rules, like make everyone's life easier. I'm not trying to cause any problems. Um, so I was in there by myself with my kids, and oh, I was like, why does this have to happen to me? But a person came in very clearly a biological male, came into the family locker room by themselves, um, dressed in women's clothing. And so I'm assuming this is a transgender person identifying as a woman, but who was clearly a male. And this person did not like say anything to us or do anything um crazy. Oh, hi pup. Sorry, my dog is visiting. She doesn't love the storm. No girl. Sorry, guys. Um, real life filming in my house. Um, but this person did not cause us any problems, but it was very clear that, you know, to me, this was a family locker room. And so I'm under the impression that if I'm not allowed to take my boys into the women's locker room, and you know, this is where the families are supposed to change. Well, I feel like it should be families only, right? So I went to the manager and was like, listen, I don't know what to do about this, but this is a family locker room. This person didn't do anything to us, like, there wasn't an issue with that. They, you know, I got out of there right away. I didn't want to have to explain things to my kids because they're like, mom, what was that? You know, like they don't know, they're young. I was not wanting to have that conversation. And the manager literally looked at me and goes, I totally get your frustration, but what are we supposed to do with them? And I was just like, How is that my problem? Like, you are running this gym, and so now you're taking a place that's supposed to be safe for families and potentially, not that this happened to us, but potentially making it unsafe because anyone can go in there without children and be changing and doing whatever. I mean, that to me felt very off-putting. And we ended up leaving, we were gonna be moving soon, and so I said, you know, I'm gonna cancel my membership because they were very clear that they weren't gonna do anything about this and that anyone could go in there without kids, even though it was a family locker room, and change and do whatever and get naked and walk around if they so choose. That did not happen. I want to be very clear. But I was just like, you know, why wouldn't they have individual stalls for people who, if that person didn't want to go in the men's locker room and clearly they weren't allowed, um, he said they weren't allowed in the women's locker room. Why was the family locker room the choice? Like that that part was very weird to me. I think there's not a lot of consideration for families these days, honestly. Like, we're all just fighting about restrooms here, constantly fighting about family restrooms. I mean, I I in researching for this episode, just quickly going over things and trying to find these videos. Some other videos were popping up. There was one of a dad blocking a woman's restroom so that a transgender person couldn't go in there, and that sparked a whole debate. I know there's been a lot of debates over the past couple of years with some of the changes to school bathrooms. California and Connecticut specifically have it as their state law that um there has to be feminine products in at least one of the boys' bathrooms for third through twelfth grade, which huge debate over that. I mean, those are more like debatable topics rather than just, you know, washing your hands with your little kids. Um, but I think, you know, sure, sure, we could say we need to reconstruct these bathrooms and we need to change how things are, but then it becomes costly for these facilities and small businesses. I don't know. It's like, and then what age? What age do we say that you're considered family? I, you know, I still personally take my 10-year-old son into the women's bathroom with me if his father is not there, unless it's a situation where I know there's just one stall in there and I know that no one's in there. There's just too many chances that I'm not willing to take it. There's you do a little bit of digging on the internet, not hard to find. There's situations where at parks, at stores, there have been people hiding in bathrooms waiting for young kids to um expose themselves and do things. So I think a parent wanting to keep their child safe is I will never be upset about that. I don't think anyone should be upset about that. Um, but but what age, you know, we probably need to figure that out. I don't know. I think it's probably the maturity of the child. You know, what else is funny is I have like a really weak bladder. Anyone who knows me knows this. Like I have to pee all the time. Sorry, TMI guys. Um, but there have been times where we pulled over like on long road trips because we drive from Illinois to Tennessee frequently, and we've been at a smaller gas station, and the women's line is long, and I knock and there's no one in the men's, and I go in and I use the bathroom. I know, I know. Like, hopefully, no one will record me doing this, and there's not major issues with this. Um, but you know, we gotta figure some things out because clearly people are upset about bathrooms or restrooms, however, I know to the south and different areas. They I've asked someone where the washroom was out here in the south, and they looked at me like I had bugs crawling out of my eyes because they didn't know what they're like, washroom, what? Yeah, because it's a whole thing. Um but I think kind of like the whole point is not really about the bathroom. It's like 20 years ago, this wouldn't have been a story. I mean, everything that's confrontational is becoming content, and people are just like so excited about it. Like anytime anything's going on, you whip out your phone and start recording everyone, and I gotcha, like the whole world's gonna see who you are, and I'm gonna ruin your life. Like that's just so crazy to me. Why do people want to ruin everyone's life and like post videos all over? And then these comments, some of these comments are nasty. I mean, you have people who go on and say horrible things that I don't even want to repeat. But like everyone's a reporter now, and everyone's a commentator, and everyone's got an opinion, and we gotta document everything and gotta post everything and every video. And it feels like then, you know, even if you don't want to record everything, it feels like you have to like protect yourselves at every turn. I mean, imagine driving down the road and you're having a really bad day and you flip someone off. I mean, come on, we have all freaking done that. Do not like lie and say that you've never done that. I we're all human beings, like we do stupid things. Every single person, I guarantee you, every person who comments something negative or nasty has done something stupid that they would not want videotaped and put all over the internet or said something in anger. And those are the ones it's always like, you know, what's the saying? Don't throw stones when you live in a glass house. Like it's so true. We're just all humans, and I think I wish for you know our society that we weren't this way. I don't see it getting any better. I wish more people were outraged over things that you should be outraged about. Like, hello, why is no one going to jail over the Jeffrey Epstein freaking files? Like, can we get outraged about that, please, and not about a freaking bathroom? Like, it makes me so mad. I honestly have a hard time like talking about some of this stuff because there are so many topics that we should care about. We should care about the exploitation of children. We should care about these sicko perverts who are online taking photos of our children off of school websites, off of sports team websites, off of parent social media, and creating child sexual abuse material off your photos of your kids. Like, can we care about that? Can we get 20 million views on those videos? Can we get 20 million views about all these scammers and fraudsters who are stealing money from old people? Or I'm sorry, the elderly, God forbid I say something wrong. Everyone's gonna blow it up. Can we care about human trafficking? Can we talk about genocides that are happening? Can we talk about our government corruption at the highest level? Like, literally, nobody cares. Everyone would just want to get outraged over the most ridiculous things. Like, I can't. We have families who are struggling financially, people can't pay their bills, we have wars going on, and we're speaking about bathrooms. I just can't. I've I really I start to get down sometimes. The more I dig into research for this show, and you know, one of my uh favorite podcasters, Sean Ryan, he talks about that too on his show. He's like, it's really dark, you guys. Like, and I also don't want to bury my head in the sand and pretend this bad stuff's not happening, but I'm not here to participate in this nonsense. Like, just grow up, really. Like, parents are being parents, doing the best that they can, and I think we need to care more and get more upset about things that actually matter and things that are going on that people don't want to talk about because it's just like too hard for them to think about. Well, you know what? That's what that's what I'm here for. We're here to talk about the real stuff, and you know, the bathroom isn't the story, the dad isn't the story, the guy who called the police isn't the story. The story is millions of people rushing to outrage, how social media is just turning ordinary things into a national controversy. The story is how we're addicted to picking sides instead of using common sense. It's just becoming too much sometimes. And I really want to hear what you all think about this. Again, I appreciate all your comments. So please, Facebook, Instagram, YouTube, comment, like, share. If you agree with me that social media is just becoming like a crazy place, I want to hear from you. I appreciate you all, and thank you so much. Uh, tune in on Tuesdays for the next episode of Melissa Unfiltered. Bye. Melissa Unfiltered is a Delac Media Group production.