To be annoyed at being told to be considerate of disabled people

If the biggest problem someone has is not being able to eat in a certain restaurant because they deem the number/quality of disabled toilets inadequate - they're doing better than most people, disabled and otherwise.

I'm sure you'll be pleased to know that's not my biggest problem in life, and if you had the misfortune to be forced to navigate the world in a wheelchair, you would probably think twice about making comments like this one. But as I said, I hope you never have to find out.

I'm out because it's just too depressing.

More ableist nonsense. What restaurant to eat in because of the disabled facilities will be the last thing on the list of most disabled people’s lists of priorities - who are you to make that assumption ? The Equality Act was designed to integrate disabled people into society so that they could enjoy its benefits on a par with those without disabilities, and not hijacked by ignorant and selfish people. If disabled facilities are provided, they should be just that - for the use of those with disabilities. You seem not to want to acknowledge that disabled people have very difficult lives. Why is that I wonder ?

And I shall repeat also @Rosscameasdoody
no it isnt
Accessible toilets are just that
Whether standalone or not. There’s no difference. Anyone can use them
Theres no law against people using an accessible toilet no matter where it is located
It’s not a parking space, there’s a difference.

Yes it's probably this - a 'friendly' reminder to parents that they must understand they are the least important and must never dare to expect anything all - don't forget 'you chose to have a baby!!' 🙄

Reasons the UK birth rate is plummeting, parents are treated like entitled upstarts rather than children and families being made to feel welcome and wanted

This doesn't make sense to me. So whenever I'm in the queue at the loo (for the ladies) and someone new joins the line, we should be trying to suss out whose need is more urgent.
You, elderly lady in the middle, how is your muscles after all these years. Oh no wait you're freshly postpartum are you, mam? Sure, you go first. Ahh sorry I missed you there at the back, you have a 4 year old? She's not good at holding it, yes maybe you go first?

Why would a disabled person automatically need the loo more urgent than a baby/toddler.
Sounds a bit ableist to me.
"Ahh disabled are you, poor you, can't keep your wee in for very long, tsk , sorry let this lady come through she's disabled!!"

This needs repeating as often as possible. An accessible toilet which anyone who needs it can use, is a larger cubicle within a standard facility of smaller cubicles. A stand alone separate toilet room is not an accessible toilet. It’s exclusively for the use of disabled people. If it’s separate from the standard facility you are not entitled to use it unless you have a disability.

Why did your sister do that journey if she didn't have adequate support?

I'm not saying this to be facetious or anything but many of us disabled people are also parents so we DO get the difficulties of having to juggle a child but we are also highly restricted in what we can and can't do if we do not have someone to support us. It's a highly dependent and undignified life.

Your sister should fold her pram down because had someone with a wheelchair or mobility aid needed to get on and she hadn't they would be left in the middle of a train carriage unrestrained and possibly in a dangerous position whilst they wait for your sister to then, on a possible moving train, have to fold her pushchair down and wrangle a small child too.

Just because nobody needed it right then doesn't exempt her from foresight or consideration.

She chose to be pregnant. She chose to have a child. She chose to travel that day. She chose to travel with that luggage and she chose to go alone without support.

For us disabled people, we often don't travel because the choices that enable us safety or independence are hindered by people being inconsiderate or we have to have a support person with us, and everything is a battle or an argument or a confrontation just to find a seat, or a wheelchair space or a ramp.

Now my disabled child uses a pushchair as a wheelchair because he has no physical disabilities but requires constant restraint for his safety and I couldn't tell you how many times I've had unnecessary conflict with people using accessible spots on buses and trains and trams for their shopping or pushchairs or luggage, and it has made me quite fearful of going out so we only travel when absolutely necessary. Do you know how isolating that is?

Yes it was shit for me as a parent trying to find adequate facilities for my child when he was a baby but it's such a short period of time in life for many but for us unlucky lot it never ends.

The fact that you came out together wasn't a clue that one of you had a disability then?

Some people need to get their heads out of their backsides...

All of this. I have an adult disabled DC, and I've had angry mothers having a go when we came out of the combined baby change/accessible loo.

It is worth pointing out that this was the only accessible toilet in the restaurant....

Why is there never a toilet in the baby change rooms? That way I can use the toilet without using a disabled one (not leaving my toddler in his pram unattended!)

Being a mother is not anywhere near comparable to being a wheelchair user, honestly nobody has any sympathy or understanding for the realities of wheelchair user, it’s not just sitting there with a blanket over your knees all quiet and completive, it’s an endless list of hardships that are not helped by “whaaa won’t someone think of the parents who have full mobility and chose that life!”. Just look up the list of physical things that a wheelchair user loses beyond just the use of their legs, it’s really extensive and you won’t have realised half of it. Then put that person out in the world full of people who use their facilities and bump into them and ignore them and you will just be getting there!

I'm not pitting them against one another. It was a reminder to a specific poster that everyone has to make choices about which restaurants suit their needs best (based on facilities, toilets, dietary requirements, breasfeeding friendliness, service etc) and it is entitled to expect every place to be big enough to have separate changing facilities and disabled toilets. If the biggest problem someone has is not being able to eat in a certain restaurant because they deem the number/quality of disabled toilets inadequate - they're doing better than most people, disabled and otherwise.

I would take the pushchair into the baby change and go to the toilet there but they don't often have a toilet (why is there never a toilet?). In that situation I would use the disabled toilet which we call at work at the accessible toilet so anyone who needs it can use it.

Plus young children can't often wait to walk upstairs to where the other toilets might be.

It’s not a race to the bottom, I agree. Legislation is coming into effect next year compelling business owners to make separate provision for disabled and baby changing facilities. I expect it will have about as much effect as the legislation making premises accessible for wheelchair users - which is very little because it’s not enforced. Much of disability legislation designed to protect and uphold disabled peoples’ rights isn’t. Nobody cares. You have no room for comment until you have been sitting in a wheelchair, desperate for a pee and having to wait for a breastfeeding mother to come out of the disabled toilet. I haven’t experienced it myself, but I’ve come across many disabled clients who have boarded trains and buses, only to be unable to travel because mums refuse to move prams for them and there is nowhere else for them to safely travel. You reap what you sow. I’m sorry, but parenthood is a choice, disability is not.

I've also been shopping with my friend and her 3 kids and she's come out of the disabled toilets saying how it's fucking stupid that they leave the alert cables around for kids to grab a hold of, and I've had to tell her she's completely missed the point of accessibility and gone in after her and unwound it.

I have read some outrageous things on these type of threads, but this honestly is one of the worst things I have read. Does your friend not understand that someone could collapse, and even die because she has done such a stupid thing?

Yes, I read this poster's comments the exact same way @VegTrug

It was in response to a poster with a lack of perspective outside their own issues, taking an innocent explanation someone made on why joint facilities exist in small businesses, and seeing it as a campaign against disabled people. Being disabled doesn't preclude people from being inconsiderate or selfish - always assuming the worst intentions in the most innocuous actions and comments, or refusing to understand a different perspective is ignorant and offensive BS too.

Reading these comments I'm certain I'll be flamed for this, but as a new parent they make for depressing reading. I'm surprised to see such a lack of understanding that facilities for babies are often woefully inadequate, only the constant 'disabled needs trump anyone and everything' mantras.
No one is disputing that. And I'm absolutely not suggesting disabled facilities should be sacrificed for baby-related spaces, but that doesn't mean I think it's right that infants and new mothers/pregnant women are always pushed to the back of the queue and seemingly never have suitable provision.

My sister (who's 30 weeks pregnant) recently had to board a train with my 15 month old niece, in a pram and with a weekend bag. It was a 2 hour journey but no stops between where she got on and where she was alighting. The only place she ccould sit with the pram was in the only wheelvhair spot on a 10 carriage train (no wheelchair user on board). She was told to move- which meant trying to find a home for her bag, collapsing the pram and storing it all while juggling a toddler, and then wrestling with her on her lap for 90 minutes. This is despite no wheelchair user needing that space.

So whilst I appreciate that disabled person's do have needs that should always be treated with consideration, it's a shame that so many people don't see how inconsiderately we treat young children and their parents and how often they're made to feel unwelcome. It's not a race to the bottom.

Well having a changing station in the womans toilet is completely useless for my husband.

I guess I sometimes get judged by a load of yii for going into the disabled toilet with my 4 year old. We are going in because I need a toilet with a sink to meet my own medical needs but guess a percentage of you are too busy judging me presuming I am using it for my 4 year old to consider that because a parent doesn't prevent you having other medical needs

Unless my ds had a poo blowout I wouldn't use baby change facilities. They're so gross. If you're out for an hour or so you can change before/after

Quite. But we're being put in our place. It's nothing new.

It’s clear from here and everyday occurrences that nobody has any idea how hard life it if you are in a wheelchair or have mobility issues. People walk into wheelchairs, talk only to the person they might be with who is standing, or if they must talk to a wheelchair user, they do it very loudly, because obviously they must be completely stupid. Prams in the wheelchair space on buses with the parents refusing to move and now this faux outrage and head tilting over a sign that says, well you all know EXACTLY what the sign means, if you are able bodied then give the fuck over, you have it a million times easier than life for the disabled!

I know it's parents in a lot of facilities, and I'm sure it isnt exclusively parents too. I used to run an infant feeding group in a family centre so we would get people in multiples, lots of children, babies, toddlers and yes it is definitely parents in those settings. I've had to do a lot of gentle reminding, and putting up signage. Been told but it might catch on pram wheels, that their little one likes to grab things, that they make them too interesting by making them red. You name it, I've heard it.

I've also been shopping with my friend and her 3 kids and she's come out of the disabled toilets saying how it's fucking stupid that they leave the alert cables around for kids to grab a hold of, and I've had to tell her she's completely missed the point of accessibility and gone in after her and unwound it.

Before that I worked in a shopping centre and found the same sorts of attitudes, and I think a general ignorance that not many people understand WHY the cable is long, red, and in an easily grabbable place. Except in shopping centres the general toilets are usually placed next to the disabled so you don't get as many people using those facilities because they're lazy, but usually because they're disabled, have children and babies or both. Especially in our corner of the centre because in a rather inaccessible architectural way, the disabled facilities were the last down the corridor. Whoever designed those toilets didn't really think about those with mobility issues at all.

And lord knows if you've ever been to the disabled toilets in a mcdonalds it's like someone's tried to play cats cradle, every single time.

So yeah I was probably being a bit hyperbolic, I'm not saying it's just parents but there are a lot of parents out there that feel their temporary comfort outweighs the genuine safeguarding needs of disabled people in these shared facilities.

There are lots of injustices in this world but don’t pit one group against another. I have disability in my family and know first hand how very difficult it is for them to access places everyone else takes for granted. I’d like to think we are a society who wants to create equal access to all. I’ve been a victim of sexual assault but I still consider the needs of those who are less able than I am. The two aren’t comparable frankly. It’s not a competition.

Thats not the case at all.
Legally anyone can use them
Its not the same as a disabled parking space
It’s not against any laws to use them and when calculating facility requirements for the purposes of building regs all toilet facilities are included in the calcs.
Its a misunderstanding to think accessible toilets are just for disabled people.