What I Learned by Walking Into the Men’s Restroom at Walmart

My story begins this past weekend when I was grocery shopping in Walmart with my 5 kids. My husband had to work all weekend so I had “the troop” (as we call them) by myself. I was in the produce section, nearing the end of the trip, when my 7-year-old suddenly needed to use the bathroom. 

I turned my cart full of groceries towards the front of the store to check on whether or not the bathrooms had opened up yet. They had been closed for a long time. For months we had only used the bathrooms at the back of the store, so I was relieved to see that the front ones (which were much closer to where we stood) were now open. 

I walked quickly to the entrance, parked my cart right outside the restroom, and left the kids there with the cart while I raced in with my daughter. I glanced at the sign for which way to go—left or right. I saw the dress and went left. I entered the bathroom and was walking briskly across the floor when I was struck with the number of stalls…only two, at the back. “So weird,” I thought. “I wonder why they downsized?”

I pressed on, holding my daughter’s hand and making my way to the back. When suddenly my eyes caught sight of something against the righthand wall…urinals. “What the HECK!?” I thought. “Are you kidding me!? Men in women’s restrooms!!! I am so sick of this culture! I hate it! I hate this stupid Woke agenda that’s everywhere now! Forced on all of us! Unbelievable!!!!” 

You’d THINK the urinals would have been enough to make me realize my mistake, but they weren’t. I was going fast, focused on getting my daughter to the potty, and this all happened in nanoseconds. I didn’t doubt my bathroom choice for a moment, as I thought I had seen the signs clearly. I chalked this up to another sick, twisted intrusion of the Woke agenda into our lives. 

I was staring at the urinals in disgust as I kept walking when I turned my head, for some unknown reason, just slightly more to the right where the sinks stood. My eyes caught sight of a man washing his hands. He was probably in his 50s at least, and he had completely stopped washing his hands, and was just standing there holding them under the water, with his head twisted around staring at me over his shoulder with an open mouthed, horrified expression on his face. 

This is when it hit me. 

“Wait a second….” I thought. “…..Oh my heavens. ….I’m in the men’s restroom.” 

I squeezed my daughter’s hand tighter, pivoted, and beelined it for the exit. Once out we walked briskly into the other side and I stood outside her stall while she went to the bathroom. I was laughing hysterically. How could I have made that mistake?! I’ve never done that before. Oh my goodness. Unbelievable. 

The whole reason I’m telling this story at all is because it gave me great insight into kids’ vulnerabilities. How?

Because my 7-year-old daughter told me later that she HAD noticed that we were going into the men’s restroom. I said “WHAT?! You KNEW?! Why didn’t you say something!?!?” 

She said “Because I thought you knew what you were doing.”

Bingo. That’s a typical kid. 

I’ve been raising up children who know right from wrong, good from evil. I’ve raised them up on the Word of God and that men are men and women are women (not that I’ve had to drill that into their head, since it’s an obvious fact to every living human being on planet earth). 

But even that kid can be led to do something she would never have considered it ok to do, IF her authority figure does it with complete boldness and confidence. 

What I mean is, that all a child needs to be led into behaviors *contrary* to their beliefs, contrary to nature, contrary to all their experiences, is *simply* for an authority figure to do that behavior with confidence.

Startling. Scary. And a good reality check.