Damien Leeson and his family.

Dad Labeled Disgusting for Changing and Feeding His Daughter in a Shopping Centre Parents Room

When did we become so jaded? Yes we are in a stage of limitless information, we are as a result more aware but in the same token more wary that we now have the ability to observe something beautiful and manipulate it into something more sinister. For one father, one actively, engaged and participating father, his attempts to be present and involved in the love and care for his daughter was publicly and sadly shamed.

Mackay father, Damien Leeson was at Mackay’s Caneland Central on Sunday with his wife Melissa when his seven week old daughter, Harpah, needed a change and was ready for a feed. Doing what came naturally to him and without a second thought he went to the public parents’ room.

But, Mr Leeson told The Daily Mercury, what happened there left him speechless.
“I got into the (parents’) room, gave her a change and started feeding her when a mother walked in with her son.” He went on to say the woman looked at him and her next words flawed him. “She looked at me and said ‘that’s disgusting to see a full grown man in a parents’ room with a little girl’ and (the woman said) that I’m ‘a dirty old (expletive)’.”

The tirade didn’t end there “She took her son to the toilet and then, as she walked out, she said to her friend who was waiting outside, ‘there’s a dirty old man in the parents’ room’, and the friend replied with ‘yeah that’s (expletive) up’.”

The young dad, whose first child arrived just a few days before Christmas was shocked, “I’m quite a hands-on dad, dirty nappies, feeding, anything I can do,” he said. “My wife was there too and we just looked at each other in shock. I was doing the right thing.”

Seven week old Harpah – source Facebook

Taking his story to Facebook he soon found other men shared their experiences with a incredible number of dads saying they knew exactly what Damien had gone through.
Anthony Edwards, another Queensland father, said that he was called a creep after taking his two-year-old into a parent’ room. Another Shorne Saunders said that he felt “intimidated” when he used parents’ rooms.

“One woman standing next to me watching while I changed my boys nappy, it became intimidating to go in to a parents’ room. But my son comes first, and his comfort and happiness comes first, me feeling uncomfortable is small price to pay.”

Like Shorne, Mr Leeson says he won’t let the experience stop him from carrying out his fatherly duties.

“I’m still going to keep taking my daughter to the parent’s room and trying my hardest to be a good dad,” he said. “Males are there to look after their kids too, it’s not just the mum’s duty. I hope other dads will keep their chin up and not worry about those comments and looks, just keep doing what you’re doing and stay involved with your kids.”

Can I get an Amen to that?! I would have loved my husband to have done the dreaded nappy run in the middle of the busy shopping centre, not that he hasn’t changed a nappy in his time, it just, generally, fell to me in a public setting. Dads are equally just as important as mums in the raising and development of our children and it is role models like these fathers that will influence and shape the future generation of doting and actively participating parents. We do, of course, need to have our eyes open to the boogey man but don’t let our perceptions tarnish the truly wonderful and completely natural moments of fatherhood.

My husband with our children.