An Oklahoma dad Tyler Brodsky never expected a routine bathroom stop during a road trip to become international news. Yet after bringing his two young daughters into an empty women’s restroom at a QuikTrip gas station in Alabama, he found himself at the center of a viral debate that says far more about our society than it does about him. Police were called, videos were posted. Millions watched as he was either shamed or celebrated. In the end, officers reportedly told Brodsky he had done nothing wrong.
As a mother, and as someone who spent much of her childhood camping across Canada with her father, I understood his decision immediately. When I was a little girl, there were no family washrooms invented. No gender-neutral facilities; there were no carefully designed parenting rooms with changing stations, breast feeding chairs and tiny toilets like you find at ToysRUs. There were simply men’s rooms and women’s rooms.
I never wanted to go into a public bathroom alone when I was under the age of 8. Like many children, I found them intimidating and frightening if they weren’t busy at all. Who could be inside? My father faced the same dilemma that Tyler Brodsky faced decades later. Do you send your young daughter alone into a public restroom, hoping everything will be fine? Or do you accompany her into a space where she feels safe? My dad never wanted me to go to the men’s room because he knows how men think.
The women’s bathrooms were usually cleaner. They had enclosed stalls, and they offered privacy. The men’s bathrooms, at least the ones I remember from campgrounds and trailer parks, were often another world entirely. Smelly urinals lined the walls, doors on stalls were usually broken or missing. The smell alone could be enough to make a child want to leave immediately. And what if I were to see a naked man urinating? I did.
When people criticize Brodsky for bringing his daughters into a women’s restroom, I wonder whether they have ever actually escorted a frightened five-year-old into a busy men’s room. Brodsky’s explanation was straightforward. He said he would rather use an empty women’s restroom than bring two little girls into a men’s bathroom filled with grown men and dirty stalls. Millions of parents appeared to understand exactly what he meant.
After the ordeal, Brodsky posted the video to TikTok writing, “Y’all make this man famous.”We stopped at a QuikTrip on our road trip from Florida back to Oklahoma so my daughters could use the restroom,” he continued in the post. “The women’s restroom was empty, so I took them in. I’d rather do that than bring two little girls into a men’s bathroom full of grown men and dirty stalls. This guy comes barging in yelling, scares my daughters, and somehow thinks THEY should’ve been in the men’s room instead. Am I wrong here?”
This story is not really about politics, it is not about transgender rights. It is not about culture wars. It is not about scoring points on social media. It is about a father trying to protect his daughters and help them use a bathroom.
Good luck even trying to find a hole in the ground in some countries I’ve travelled to, never mind the luxury of mens and womens.
The strange thing is that the outrage often ignores the practical reality. A responsible father, who is a single father, is accompanying two young girls into an empty women’s restroom is doing exactly what society expects parents to do: supervise their children and keep them safe.
The alternative would have been sending them in alone or exposing them to a men’s restroom environment that many parents would prefer to avoid. Some little kids need their bums wiped and dad needs to help with that.
Parents have been dealing with this problem for decades. Similar debates have surfaced repeatedly because public infrastructure has not caught up with family life. Family bathrooms remain surprisingly rare in many places despite being one of the simplest solutions available. The bigger issue may be that we simply do not have enough public bathrooms, and if we had more, he wouldn’t have had to have used a commercial facility.
Visit almost any city and finding a clean restroom becomes an exercise in negotiation. You buy a coffee or a burger to gain access to a key. You ask a restaurant for mercy, you cross your fingers. Despite Starbucks being in the news later for a class action suit over soy and oat milk in lattes, they are pretty good about keeping bathrooms open to the public. A recent trip to a Starbucks in Berlin near the Brandenburg Gate was open to the public, men or womens. We used mens because there was no line. Luckily I didn’t get caught on TikTok.
Japan has shown what public sanitation can look like when governments take it seriously. Clean, accessible public toilets are treated as basic civic infrastructure rather than an afterthought. They are maintained, respected, and available. I loved that about Japan. Plus the toilets clean themselves.
Instead of arguing endlessly about who stood in which doorway for three minutes, perhaps we should be asking why modern cities still make it so difficult for parents, children, seniors, tourists, and people with disabilities or identity issues to find a clean, safe restroom.
Tyler Brodsky’s story struck a nerve because many parents recognized themselves in it.I did. As the kid I once was and the mother I am now. I didn’t let my boy use the men’s until was about 11 or with his dad. It’s not safe. When common sense collides with bureaucracy, common sense should usually win.
But you might not like my opinion because I hold unpopular ones about squat toilets. I actually prefer them as they are generally cleaner.
