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

I am not. Lots of people think people using wheelchairs are catered for and have it fairly easy, but parents have it much harder. They don't have a clue.

Oh come on! My friend has a baby and will carefully research places that have baby change facilities and are breastfeeding friendly. I will check to only visit places that have multiple cubicles because of my IBS. It's entitled to expect the entire world to cater for you when it doesn't cater completely to any group of people, disabled or non disabled.

It really is so incredibly depressing. We should be thankful to be able to go out at all, I guess.

I think it's more 'vote with your feet' and frequent places which try their very best to provide suitable facilities?

Yes disabled people how dare you have the audacity to want to eat at a certain restaurant like everyone else. Just stay home will you.
What an awful attitude.

I'm really shocked by the results on that poll. I can only imagine it's because lots of people don't have direct experience of being out and about with a disabled person.

@EmmaMaria I've had over 50 thanks myself so clearly people agree with me!

You do need to look at your attitude towards disabled people, it stinks. It's not a game of top trumps.

I would imagine that small independent restaurants are short of space- lots of restaurants don't have an accessible toilet or a baby-change facility. Don't eat there if they don't provide the facilities you want.

There are lots of people who think like this.

My best friend has struggled with mobility for years but her condition has recently deteriorated so that she needs a wheelchair. Both of us were shocked at how people behave.

She’s been pushed out of peoples way in her chair.
People address me rather than my friend like she doesn’t exist.
She struggles so much with selfish people but one of the worst examples was with a disabled/baby change toilet.

My friend has bladder issues as part of her condition and the need to wee comes on suddenly. She has frequent urine and kidney infections and so when she needs the toilet it’s important she goes quickly.

Last month she went to use the disabled toilet with a woman in front waiting to change her baby. She asked if she could go ahead in the queue and the woman with the baby glared and told her to wait her turn.
I was waiting with her and asked if she was just waiting to change her baby (I wasn’t sure if she had a hidden disability and didn’t want to assume) she said yes and started ranting about how hard it was to be a parent and changing nappies out and about.

I lost my temper which I’m not proud of but I said being a parent is a choice and being disabled isn’t, I pretty much told her to move out of the way to let my friend use the toilet.

I do have sympathy and understand that sometimes a nappy can leak or there can be a poo explosion, a baby won’t feel the same humiliation though as if an adult can’t control their bladder and wets themself in public because of someone else being selfish or gets an infection from being forced to wait.
My friend has also been forced to wait due to a woman breastfeeding and said a queue was building up, this was in a place where there was no reason for the woman to breastfeed in the toilet and she was unapologetic when she came out and saw the people waiting.

Someone else commented about the abuse of hidden disability lanyards at the airport, I noticed this as well. I was at the airport yesterday and DP was treated with slight suspicion by staff when wearing his lanyard, when it became a bit more obvious he was genuine attitudes changed.
Almost half the people on our flight had a lanyard on and I gave the benefit of the doubt until I saw a woman with 5 children all wearing them. Someone else questioned it and she said she had borrowed them from a friend as there were 3 adults with the five children and sometimes the group spilt and they all wanted priority/fast track entrance. This woman was almost bragging about it like it was some sort of life hack and not making a mockery out of a service designed to help vulnerable people.

It really makes me angry that people seem to see it as disabled people “having perks” rather than them needing these things for accessibility reasons. I am sure no one would swap being able bodied for these things so why resent them and try to take over?

People seem to be becoming far more selfish and self centred and it’s unpleasant to witness. Look at the fact the OP has failed to understand what the sign in her OP can possibly mean and seems to have taken it personally and has had to have the possible reasons behind it explained rather then work it out herself.

I just hope none of the people who are selfish and thoughtless ever genuinely need to use disabled facilities, they might then feel ashamed about their behaviour or insensitivity.

@EmmaMaria you have not done any favours by questioning hidden disabilities and lanyards.

Agree with comments here
Its also worth mentioning a larger toilet that disabled people can use is officially an accessible toilet so for anyone that needs more space, including families with children et all.
Odd to put a comment like this just on this facility, surely everyone should leave all toilet facilities in a clean and ordered condition.

I don't appreciate you telling me what I should and should not do or say. I have plenty of thanks for these posts from people who agree with them, so I don't need your condescension, thank you. I will not be responding to your posts - there is clearly a difference of opinion here and I will be continuing to post as I wish when I wish. You will read it how you want. That is your problem, not mine.

I’m quite obviously not talking about people with disabled child.
mum falling about the people with pushchairs and older children grabbing the radar key doors as I’m leaving because ‘normal’ loos aren’t big enough.

that is not a disabled persons problem.

I'd see it as asking people to use the space more considerately- cleaning up, putting down the table and not spending ages in there. But what I find odd is considerate use of all facilities should be the message. If my IBS has been triggered, I still have to queue ages for someone using the cubicle for a phone call, to breastfeed, play on their phone etc. I'm not disabled but still at risk of shitting my pants - in which case I would argue my need trumps both a disabled person without bowel/urine issues and a dirty nappy. But obv I'm considered to have multiple toilet options (irrelevant as i'm also sharing with a much larger group of people) - so don't qualify for the disabled toilet.

I agree that no one should be breastfeeding in there, and always cleaning up after the nappy change and leave the loo in the accessible way after use. However, I don't think being disabled means automatically being unable to queue for some time, given waiting times in regular loos are just as long esp now that so many are unisex meaning even more people ahead of you. Would the wait be considered equally bad if another disabled person was taking ages or leaving a mess, or is it only parents who need to use the space considerately?

Funny enough, I was in a baby change with my little daughter and niece this weekend and a woman hammered on the door and, when I opened it, asked me if I knew how many people with babies were waiting to use the toilet and accused me of not even having a baby with me! I was stunned and she didn't even apologise when I showed her I actually had 2 with me needing changing.

So I imagine it's just to remind ignorant parents like this woman that it is a shared facility, not just for parents. I could easily have been disabled and needing to use the accessible toilet, but because she (somehow?!?!) didn't see a child with me she felt entitled to be incredibly rude and aggressive.

So maybe the venue has had instances with disabled people being confronted by parents in this manner.

Agree. Definitely could have been worded better and I doubt it is only able-bodied parents using those facilities inconsiderately so singling parents out alone is silly.

@EmmaMaria If that genuinely isn't what you meant then you need to think about the words you use and the descriptions you give as that was very much the impression.

Also, whilst I'm not suggesting for a second that nobody ever fakes a disability. However you cannot possibly know who is or isn't. In your previous post you said

sometimes I wonder if 99% of the population has suddenly developed invisible disabilities

and

Apparently everybody and their cousin now has a lanyard for their invisible disability (mostly being too tight to pay for the expedited queue)

And you wonder why people drew the conclusion they did!?!

This with bells on!

OP the reason the sign is up is because clearly people are not being considerate and it needs pointing out.

I agree the baby changing facilities should be elsewhere but this thread is so ableist and frustrating as someone who’s DD has a hidden disability (one of many) which means when her meds wear off and she need to go, she cannot wait,

I do understand why its a shared facility in some places, old buildings where adding another cubicle just isn't possible.

But many places - supermarkets, shopping malls, massive stores like Ikea... there is no fucking excuse.

They could add an extra wide stall into the mens and the ladies, they could provide a family bathroom (some Ikeas do, not all though, the newer ones do). They do not bother, because there is no comeback for not bothering.

Disabled people have no effective way of complaining.

Parents happily use the facilities and they are the bigger voice here and could complain but they don't because its only an issue for them (and not much of one) for a couple of years per child.

I've had to go to the loo with the fucking door open to the public, because the accessible toilet wasn't and i couldn't get close enough in my chair, get on the loo and shut the door - not just the once either, multiple times in various places (all relatively new and large buildings too).

On several of those occasions, the only reason I could not get my chair in was due to the fixings for baby change stations/nappy bins!

Yes, I complained, but supplying the needs of parents is bigger business than meeting the legal requirements of disabled people, and as I say, there are no real penalties for offering substandard facilities.

You're seriously trying to claim that parents are treated like second-class citizens??

Which board is that on?

Are you calling me a liar? I made no such comment. I made it clear that I am very much aware of invisible disabilities, as are able-bodied people who fake it in order to "benefit" from the situation. Are you telling me that this does not happen. Because I have read people on here bragging about it, and I have seen people doing it. So I "kind of" didn't say it, and I have now made it clear TWICE that I didn't say any such thing. If you are intent upon taking offence at things that are not said, then you must spend a lot of time being offended.

It absolutely is. If you have a visible disability people tend to be more considerate. If you have something like a stoma or a condition that isn’t obvious people feel as though they’re entitled to ask you what’s wrong. That’s totally unacceptable in any circumstance.

Still doesn’t entitle you to spend overly long in the disabled toilet , or, as I have witnessed many times, parents leaving the table down and all sorts of crap left on it, and things moved around the room. A bit of consideration costs nothing. Baby changing doesn’t trump disability.

Yes to all of this. It is so depressing!