Disabled/baby change

[Babyred457]

Have NC for this as I have spoken to friends about it and don't want to be outed!

DH and I are members of the gym and pool at a local hotel and take baby DS (4 months) swimming there. It's not a large pool and has small communal changing rooms for men and women and then a separate family/disabled changing room. This is the only one with a baby change table and nappy bin so it's the one we always use when we take DS. It has 4 lockers in it so obviously if you use them then you take the risk that you might have to wait for someone else to finish before you can get in and get your stuff.

Today when we were swimming there was only one other person in the pool, a woman in her late 50s/early 60s. We left the pool and went into the family changing room and had just started getting DS changed when the woman started banging on the door, shouting that we had to let her in as she was disabled and this was the disabled changing room. DH opened the door, said that it was also the family changing room and that we were changing DS but that we'd be as quick as we could. She carried on shouting that we shouldn't be using the changing room, that she was disabled and we had to let her in. She was incredibly rude and was making such a scene that I said to DH just let her go first, so we wrapped DS in a towel and waited, poor DS was kicking off but so was this woman and I tend to back down when people challenge me. DH however was fuming and went and spoke to the manager (dripping everywhere!) who agreed that it was both a family and a disabled changing room and that it's first come first served, no one has priority.

FWIW the woman no obvious physical disability (although MN has taught me that not all disabilities are obvious) and I don't think there was any reason why she couldn't have waited five minutes, she was also extremely rude. Had she approached at the same time as us I'd probably have let her go first anyway but she saw us leave the pool and go in there with DS (you can see the changing room from the pool!) so clearly then took a deliberate decision to get out herself at that moment and start banging on the door in an extremely aggressive manner.

So who was BU? It's difficult because almost all the restaurants etc I go to have the baby changing facilities in the disabled toilets. I would always happily fold a buggy or get off a bus for a wheelchair user etc but should a person with a baby have to exit a disabled loo or changing room mid-change for a disabled person? After all what would the disabled person do if another disabled person was already using the facilities?

Due to ds's (possibly hidden) disability we have to use disabled facilities and we have never had a reaction from anyone waiting that involved shouting and banging on doors.

The OP has said they and the woman were the only people in the pool Navy

So if she had seen then leave the pool not long before her then she (correctly) assumed it was them in the changing room.

#sticks disingenuous mask on#
No of course they haven't Dixie. It's all so nice and inclusive round here.

Two parents using those facilities were there for comfort and ease. Just because someone somewhere made the stupid decision to make the space a family and disabled space doesn't absolve people of the responsibility to be considerate of people whose needs far outweigh theirs.

Instead of bleating on about your right to use the facilities provided OP you should challenge the idiots that came up with the system

Beyond You said she was simply wanting to use the facilities provided by law? In regards to the other posters "revolving" comment. But she wasn't simply doing that at all.

How is everyone that's slagging off her behaviour wrong? Surely if she is not in the right... then she is wrong? I genuinely don't understand.

I agree 100% the people who are saying "call her a cunt etc" are being awful but what about those posters saying she is in the wrong without name calling? I certainly think she's in the wrong and possibly worth making a thread about if the OP was so upset. Why shouldn't someone make a thread just because the lady was disabled. Are we not allowed to be upset at violence just because it's caused by a disabled person?

It's really depressing that not one person has acknowledged that say, the woman had a learning disability she may have got distressed at usual changing room not being available and then sounded belligerent because she didn't have the social niceties at her disposal like we would. This would not make her a cunt, rude, entitled or any of these things.

I wish people would think out of box sometimes and not just apply NT rules to everything

Woman who gets on my bus asks people intrusive questions. She clearly had a learning disability

Should she just be called a nosey rude cunt? Or would we apply a little understanding.

Are we not allowed to be upset at violence just because it's caused by a disabled person?

Oh how disablist, getting upset over violence caused by a disabled person.

If a stranger starts effing and blinding at you and/or lashes out at you, then of course you're going to be upset and/or angry. It's just a human reaction! Whether they tell you they are disabled or not, the shock of it is still there.

Asking intrusive questions is different from being abusive. Everyone needs to learn that being abusive is not okay.

Everyone needs to learn that being abusive is not okay.

FFS

really?

I think some posters are so passionate about the effect disability has on their lives they're forgetting / wanting to ignore that we operate in a society with norms.

Not everyone In society can adhere to these norms: but that doesn't mean they're not expected of everyone.

If you're seriously saying people who have been verbally abused by strangers in public shouldn't be angry/ intimidated/ humiliated/ frightened because they should
Be considering of, and making allowances for, those who can't understand cultural norms you're being naive in the extreme.

That is not how people work. we are wired to have certain responses (through society, yes) and few people will be able to surpress was or ignore them.

It's like saying I'm from a country where no one says thank you so
I don't say it here. Fine, you don't. But thank you is good manners here and if you don't adhere to that people will think you're rude. It's just part of operating in a society.

That's not to say that we shouldn't fight for those with disabilities to have the adaptions and allowances they need: but those adaptions are very unlikely to
Include the right to verbally abuse others without judgement or retailiation.

Monkey Just because someone somewhere made the stupid decision to make the space a family and disabled space doesn't absolve people of the responsibility to be considerate of people whose needs far outweigh theirs.

OP was considerate. She gave her the room.

Just because someone has a disability doesn't mean that they can be aggressive and everyone expects the other person to reasonably react (which this OP did in any case). Just because someone doesn't look like they have a disability doesn't give the lady the right to assume so. For all she knew one of OP's family was disabled also.

I think some posters are so passionate about the effect disability has on their lives they're forgetting / wanting to ignore that we operate in a society with norms.

really?
This?

Let all blame the perosn with disabilities.

1)Shes a cow
2) needs to be told to fuck off
3) a cunt
4) needs to learn sociaties norms

Anything else?

Bucking your post sums up the shitty disabilist attitudes of society very well.

"If you can't operate within the norms then fuck you".

I think the world is a poorer place for that attitude and so is MN.

Her being disabled or not is not the issue here shouting at a family with a young baby makes you a cunt yanbu at all and I think you showed great restraint to leave and let her use it, she's obviously a very horrible person.

and people on this thread and others wonder why the reaction to these threads isn't welcoming and positive.