Okay..I am mad. Little rant.

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riebees89
riebees89 Posts: 16
in Fitness and Exercise
Okay, I went to the gym tonight and cannot believe what happened! I saw a 3 or 4 year old little girl running around the weight area while her mama was working out. The little girl was climbing on machines and touching things that could crush her fingers as her mama sat on the bike and watched it happen. Also, Mama didn't wipe down machines after she was done. (eww.). I signed the same contract she did, and I KNOW it says something about you having to be 12 years old to work out there. It is a HUGE liability for the gym to have a little girl get hurt. I go there to work out, not babysit your kids while you work out. And another thing that makes me mad is there were 4 workers at the desk when I got there. This lady and her baby were there before I was...someone had to sign her in. Someone had to have seen her little one...and ignored it. I am mad because I cut my workout short to go alert the staff, and then left because I was so mad. I know it's hard to get a babysitter sometimes, but it's a 24 hour gym. And if you can't get someone to watch her while you work out...then do some squats or something at home. I don't want to be insensitive but I have a little one that age, and I would NEVER bring him there. I also can't believe I was the only one that was there who was alarmed by that.

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  • yesthistime
    yesthistime Posts: 2,051 Member
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    I'm glad you alerted the staff about it. We usually hear about these situations only when tragedy strikes.
  • Perswaysion
    Perswaysion Posts: 69 Member
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    I see this two ways. We workout with our son around, he's 3.5. Our weights are locked or they are in the cage and not left lying around. We have a mostly full gym at home so rarely venture to the gym but I'll get there in a second. He's been talked to about safety rules. He gets reminders. If he can't obey he can't be out there with with us. We are not doing heavy lifting with him underfoot but neither of us see any reason to ban him from seeing something that should be a normal and healthy part of his experiences.

    Our gym is very family friendly. The owner has kids in our sons age group and he's fine with us bringing in our son as long as it's not a distraction to the other members. His own daughter is growing up in the gym and she doesn't run willy nilly all over the place anymore then ours does. They usually sit and do puzzles, color, talk to us. If they get itchy feet or fingers then we pause what we are doing and see if they need a new activty or if maybe it's time to go. I'm the parent and my sons safety does come before my work out but I see no reason that I can't be a mom who sometimes takes her kid to the gym.

    Since the other parent wasn't supervising her kid or teaching about safety I could see it being an issue. I wouldn't immediately walk in and freak out if I saw a child there though. Our gym has the same rules about who can use the equipment (12 and up) but they have no rules against children that are well behaved. I'd only report if I saw unsafe behavior. You signed a waiver saying you had to be 12 to use the equipment but they might be fine with kids who are watched effectively being present.

    I get that she was being an uncool gym mom though. I wish she would have used it as a time to teach safety so that they wouldn't have bothered your workout. I also agree she should have been letting her kid run wild. BIkes typically have a pause button for a reason. I know mine at home gets used frequent lol.
  • riebees89
    riebees89 Posts: 16
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    I see this two ways. We workout with our son around, he's 3.5. Our weights are locked or they are in the cage and not left lying around. We have a mostly full gym at home so rarely venture to the gym but I'll get there in a second. He's been talked to about safety rules. He gets reminders. If he can't obey he can't be out there with with us. We are not doing heavy lifting with him underfoot but neither of us see any reason to ban him from seeing something that should be a normal and healthy part of his experiences.

    Our gym is very family friendly. The owner has kids in our sons age group and he's fine with us bringing in our son as long as it's not a distraction to the other members. His own daughter is growing up in the gym and she doesn't run willy nilly all over the place anymore then ours does. They usually sit and do puzzles, color, talk to us. If they get itchy feet or fingers then we pause what we are doing and see if they need a new activty or if maybe it's time to go. I'm the parent and my sons safety does come before my work out but I see no reason that I can't be a mom who sometimes takes her kid to the gym.

    Since the other parent wasn't supervising her kid or teaching about safety I could see it being an issue. I wouldn't immediately walk in and freak out if I saw a child there though. Our gym has the same rules about who can use the equipment (12 and up) but they have no rules against children that are well behaved. I'd only report if I saw unsafe behavior. You signed a waiver saying you had to be 12 to use the equipment but they might be fine with kids who are watched effectively being present.

    I get that she was being an uncool gym mom though. I wish she would have used it as a time to teach safety so that they wouldn't have bothered your workout. I also agree she should have been letting her kid run wild. BIkes typically have a pause button for a reason. I know mine at home gets used frequent lol.

    I go to Planet Fitness..It isn't a local gym, it's a chain. There are specific rules about bringing babies to the gym because there isn't anywhere for them to be without being in the way. I think it's cool that you have that option, but I don't think that mom was taking the same approach to teaching her child about health, I think she was just being irresponsible for not watching her child. I am all for teaching your kids about being healthy, but I don't think that she was taking the right approach. I think if that was her goal she could have done at home workouts with her little one, like you do with your at home gym and set ground rules like you did. It just makes me upset that she didn't seem to care about the little one's safety at all. Or the rules that the rest of the members have to follow.

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