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

You did though.

Again, i remind you, i'm a parent, and i'm also disabled.. and trust me, getting out and about as a new mother with a baby was not nearly as difficult as having to plan my day when i need a wheelchair.

Not even planning my day as an abled parent with a disabled child (yes, done that too) compared to how difficult it is to get anywhere now.

you keep saying you don't believe that parenting is harder, or that they take priority, but then in the next breath do exactly that, and once again make an argument from the parents point of view.

I don't understand. You're not supporting the disabled, you're just proving, despite your personal experiences as a carer, that you think mothers with babies are more important than the disabled.

I’m not - but is totally disingenuous to suggest that having a new baby isn’t also challenging and for many mothers it’s an isolating time. Neither group should feel excluded. Although I wet myself more than once in public with a new baby owing to a difficult birth (and have ongoing urgency and incontinence issues) so I have experienced similar humiliation though from a different cause.

Please don't risk equating the experience of managing a new baby with the situation @saraclara has described, that is just too much. And don't deny that disabled people are faced with this very scenario....and fear it happening again which believe me is almost as bad.

Absolutely nobody has suggested a mother should demand to go first. This scenario resurfaces every few posts and that opinion has not been expressed on this thread.

Although I will add that having a new baby and the logistics of leaving the house is difficult for many mothers and it’s a prime time for them to become isolated and depressed.

That people are actually equating their needs as a mother wanting to change their baby's nappy, with our needs when my late husband was in a wheelchair with his stoma bag leaking, is making me not know whether to yell in anger, or cry.

If a mum had demanded to go first, I suspect he'd never have left the house again.

I’m not sure I agree parents are benefiting from disabled facilities as a direct consequence of the introduction of disabled loos.

Changing facilities can and so sometimes exist outside of the disabled loos - I’d say that is more to do with encouraging the custom of Mothers and is a conscious decision not an accident. Take supermarkets. A mother with her average 2.4 children has the biggest average spend so those are the shoppers food retailers want to attract - that’s why you see mother and baby parking spaces and car seat friendly trollies. It’s nothing to do with being considerate, aside from being considerate to the extent it gains custom. On that basis I don’t agree that if disabled facilities didn’t exist neither would changing facilities and parents have “piggy backed” rather businesses have realised they can kill two birds with one stone. That’s what I meant by families and kids being good customers many pages ago.

try being a disabled mother with a disabled child.

and they're not treated with contempt, they're just reminded that everyone elses world does not revolve around them, their baby and their PFB behaviour.

@yipyipyop strangely they are.

Mothers and babies are treated with contempt on mn.

The wider issue here is the lack of public toilets full stop.

All councils and local government and/or (partly) tax-payer funded facilities (like leisure centres and railway stations) should offer toilets.

They should offer normal toilets, changing places toilets and accessible toilets.

Woking station is an example - it has loads of loos!.

Most leisure centres have enough space to offer enough loos.

So do most shopping centres - most of them are half empty these days! Take a unit and convert it to accessible toilets.

And all car parks should have toilets too (assuming above a certain size/number of spaces).

Disabled charities have recently asked for additional facilities but it was one individual who set the ball in motion. Not all disabled people
I’m sorry but this so-called fighting for so long is just not true

One disabled architect on a mission ….

Babies are not able bodied. They are incontinent and need prams to get around so their caregivers will need accessible spaces. Ideally all cubicles would be larger but space doesn't always allow so some facilities need to be shared.
I'm not sure mothers with young babies have the spare time to campaign for better facilities exclusive to them.
No baby should be left unattended outside a cubicle for obvious reasons.
Mums shouldn't have to go to the toilet with their cubicle door open.
Not all have support networks to take care of their children while they go shopping plus its not inclusive to say babies should stay at home.
Not all mums can use slings especially if they have shopping and toddlers too.
I say this as someone who has worked with disabled people for many years and had disabled parent in a wheelchair. Also its not only parents who are inconsiderate and leave a mess, anyone, including disabled people do that too.
I wouldn't begrudge a mum alone with a pram using the larger toilet or the baby change facilities. Since when did people think they have exclusive use of any facility and never have to queue.
I find peoples attitudes in this country towards babies and mothers quite upsetting. No-one has said that disabled people shouldn't have an accessible toilet but no-one is exempt from sharing or queuing.
And its not comparable to men wanting to be in women's bathrooms. Babies are a vulnerable group and need to be kept safe with their caregivers.

That’s not quite right though
Post war, with suddenly lots of disabled people, it became apparent many people couldn’t even get into buildings let alone find a bathroom
Architect Selwyn Goldsmith ( who became disabled I think through polio ) wrote an article re designing for the disabled and it became a go to re access for architects and eventually legislators.
Toilets were part of that ( plus ramps. Lifts etc ) but were never exclusive. The problem started when others with access issues also pointed out they needed to use disabled toilets but felt they weren’t allowed to as the signs were confusing. So, therefore,in order to make availablitity equal for all including people with additional access issues and those with unseen disabilities the terminology was changed as the term disabled or ( in some cases handicapped ) was deemed unacceptable or / and not inclusive.

So This was to aid inclusivity for the good of all.

Interms of radar keys a lot of councils introduced them because disabled toilets, which remained open at night, were being abused by sex workers and particularly drug users.

All of this. Frankly I don't know whether to laugh or cry at the suggestion that there are plenty of available disabled toilets and accessing them is not a problem in practice. Maybe that is the reason why so many people try the door & try to barge in when we are using it with my DS, they assume it is always going to be empty.

And are you still annoyed by the sign?

i frequent a pub in Manchester. There is one accessible toilet at ground level next to the bar, it requires a radar key to open, and remains locked and you have to ask the bar staff for access.

The other toilets are up a steep staircase on the upper floors.

You know who uses that accessible toilet the most? the bar staff, as their personal staff loo.

I have a radar key, so i don't need to ask the bar staff for access, what i do have to do is have a friend guard the door because the staff keep trying to let themselves in to the fucking toilet while i'm in there.

They have no need to use that loo, they do it out of convenience.

This is the shit and lack of dignity we have to put up with when people think its their personal easy-use toilet.

Yes, why should parents do a thing when they can just benefit from disabled people having fought for decades to get what they need?

How would they even word such a thing, without looking silly?

Oh, it’s just all so complicated and effortful, isn’t it? Parents should just be allowed to keep on using other people’s provisions, they can’t possibly be expected to fight for anything, the poor dears.

This thread is so depressing. People should be thanking their stars that disabled people fighting for so long has led to facilities being created that they can use without a single complaint. Instead, they consider themselves entitled to them at the expense of the disabled and all that fighting, and mock the suggestion that they do anything to help themselves.

I appreciate that was your intention in your post; though if you state in the title of your post the statement that you are 'annoyed at being told to be considerate of disabled people' that is liable to being taken at face value.

I appreciate that you have avoided toilets where there is an existing queue; but you can't possibly know that you have never inconvenienced anyone by using a facility you don't need. For all you know someone who needed the toilet & found it occupied may have felt they had to look for another, or waited patiently (or desperately) outside.

The equal opportunities act started the ball rolling in the 1970s. Provision of disabled toilets as stand alone facilities were slowly rolled out and were exclusively reserved for the use of disabled people. They were locked facilities and disabled people could apply to their local authority and various other disability charities and organisations for a free Radar key. Evidence of disability had to be produced before a key would be issued and they were mostly free. What would you call that if not exclusive ? Current disability legislation calls for the equal provision of toilet facilities for the disabled. As I said upthread, providing one accessible toilet which is open to all, including baby changing facilities is not fulfilling that provision. And the provision of accessible toilets and baby changing facilities is a concession, not a legal right. But the right of disabled people to equal provision of suitable toilets is legally enforceable.

Someone upthread pointed out the purchasing power of parents. They could capitalise on that and threaten to take their business to places that take their needs more seriously than chucking a baby changing table in a disabled loo and expecting them to take the flak when a disabled person wants to go the the loo and can’t.

Things have changed bregs states larger facilities can’t do this
Smaller facilities don’t have to conform though. If Space is at a premium

The word ‘disabled’ has been removed and replaced with ‘accessible’. This waters down any existing legislation regarding disabled toilets and gives access to anyone who needs them regardless of the reason for need. And it gives building planners the excuse to site baby changing facilities in them because to all intents and purposes they are not disabled facilities any more - even though that’s what they were designed for.

That, as I suspect you know, is the crux of the matter. It’s the watering down of existing legislation so that it’s open to interpretation that’s the problem. The Equality Act states that disabled people are entitled to equal provision of suitable and usable facilities. Providing one accessible toilet suitable for wheelchair users and their carers, opening it up for anyone else to use and then siting baby changing facilities in it is not equal and usable provision when for many, it’s the only facility they are able to use - wheelchairs, for example, won’t fit into a standard cubicle. This is the equivalent of a parent upthread saying her pram won’t fit in to a standard cubicle. But instead of campaigning for dedicated facilities, parents have piggy backed on the provision of disabled toilets, and building planners have capitalised on the watering down of the legislation. If parents want access to wider cubicles and unhindered baby changing facilities then they should damn well lobby for their own. This has been said over and over again by various posters on the thread but you seem oblivious.

Well yes if you go about it by not actually stating what you want...

But that would be fucking stupid and I think you know that.

We're suggesting, we're asking you, to make it clear to places that force the sharing of inadequate facilities, that you're not happy with that.

'I really dislike being forced to use shared facilities, I would prefer baby changes to be included into the main toilets, or a separate baby change provided. I will be prioritising businesses who do this.'

On its own of course, yes, we're all pissing in the wind there but if somewhere like MumsNet got behind it... things could change.

But Ross I’ve been telling you this all along

except for opinion re last para.

The facilities, to date, have never been exclusive.