Parent and child parking! 12 and 9 year old?!

[AnySecondNow]

Just had a row with a woman in Tesco car park. I waited 15 minutes for parking - have to carry a fairly solid 6 month old to the shop (post cesarean - still not 100%!)

Anyway, this family were parked in child and parent bay with a 12 year old and a 9 year old. Both very capable of walking and opening doors! I commented that she was rude to park there, she said she was entitled to. Then her husband complained about me to the management!!!

Wtf!? Ainu??! Parent and child surely means young child that needs assistance??!

I have a toddler and I'm pregnant and it does annoy me when I see for example a 20 yr old with no 'obvious' disabilities parking in a parent and child space,

still so, so much work to do on this kind of attitude of 'obvious' disabilities. Regardless of the age.

That was insinuations. Fucking phone

We use parent and child spaces with our 6 and 10 year olds. My 6 year old has mobility issues (but not enough for blue badge) and both are on autistic spectrum and youngest has little road sense. I think yabu as you have no idea of the womans situation (did you guess at the ages or did you ask her?)

Car Manufacturers take note - Sliding doors in all vehicles is the way of the future 💡

...Of course then we would have nothing to fight about on mn for about 5 seconds

I have hidden disabilities myself thanks blah and I did read your posts. Admittedly I didnt see your second post as it's such a fast moving thread and I've been busy getting things ready for my DCs birthday today in between popping on to Mumsnet, well not until after you'd told me to fuck off and I went back to check anyway. Peace and love and all that.

where is the op

Busy looking up the contracts between the parking spaces and the landowners I imagine

I wouldn't use P&C spaces with my 10 yo. He is 5ft tall and hasnt been in a booster seat for over a year.

I wouldn't question someone elses right to use them. Park a little further away, get a trolley or shop online is no spaces are free. All things I did when DS was small. Also if you must go shopping, saturday is not the best day.

I use them if I have my toddler with me. The extra space is very helpful when strapping into car seat. I wouldn't use them with just the older ones though I'd feel too embarrassed as they are really useful for people with babies and toddlers. I'd feel I was depriving someone more needing of it. I'd be entitled to use them though as 1 is under 12 but just because I'm entitled it doesn't mean it's the right thing to do.

Why is it not the right thing to do if it's legal bigears?

Who do you determine who is more needing of it? The young baby being safely carried in in a car seat by the mother or the other mother who has a strapping 10yo in mid-meltdown who needs to get in to the shop in the safest way possible.

Someone who waits around for 15minutes and then accosts a random stranger with her 3DCs and her Husband who warranted her behaviour enough to report to management, obviously has too much time on their hands to begin with.

OP, if you do bother coming back to the thread, how would you have felt if someone started randomly telling you off in the car park in front of your DC? You'd have done exactly the same thing as her DH did and you know it.

why is it not the right thing to do if it's legal

Wonderful attitude

who do you determine is more needing

Well I'm quite capable of determining that myself and my 9 year old are far more capable thsn a mother and toddlers. So Id be less needing

If someone else with a fully capable 9 year old parked in it I wouldn't challenge them I'd think they are a bit selfish though for not leaving it to someone more needful.

The key there is fully capable before you all start off again. Anyone whose child was older but needed the extra door space or convenience then I would consider that parent more needing than me. Also would an 80 year old lady be more needing of it than me.

Iam just embarrassed to use it if I dont need to that's all. I wouldn't challenge anyone I dony think because if someone uses it who doesn't have a real need I'd assume they wouldn't care what people thought anyway!

I wouldn't dream if using parent and child with children that age if it's me and my 5 year old I don't if my son who's 10 months with me I do. I don't care if they are at the back of the car park for me it's the space to open doors to get my son out youneedto op open door fully! Normal spaces don't have that.

12?? Seriously I had no idea. Unless there's another factor at play,disability etc I really thought these spaces were to give extra room to parents unloading prams and strapping tinies into car seats. Some people are complete idiots OP.

My DC are 7yo & 4yo, both NT, both well behaved, both in HBB which the 7yo can do up. I rarely park in P&C spaces but did the other day as it was the only space available in the car park. The OP probably would have preferred me to sit & wait for a "normal" space to become available. Sorry but no!
I have experienced the problems of cars parked so closely that you can't open the door enough. The good thing is, car parks are often busy spaces so I have just asked a passer by to hold the baby (with the toddler sat in the passenger seat if they were also with me) whilst I reversed. Yes, the passer by could have abducted the baby or someone could have shunted me whilst I was reversing but the chances were laughably small. On the one occasion there wasn't a passerby, I left DD in her car seat in the diamond gap between the parked cars to the front right of my car, reversed, got out & put her in. The cars which could have got to her were empty so, again, there was minimal chance of her getting knocked.

I would have told you to fuck off.

Surely most people stop using these spaces once you don't need the extra room to manoeuvre your DC in or out of a car seat?
Selfish to use a c&p space with older kids.

I find it quite sad the number of people that would happily take up a space without needing it, I can slightly understand people without children not realising how important wider spaces are but for the ones with older children surely you remember when yours were small and in baby seats.

I think it's mad how people get their knickers in a twist about these parking spaces! Aren't they a relatively new thing? What did people do before? Mine are 3 and 4 and we just open the door really carefully so they don't bash the car next to us. Even when they had car seats it would not have occurred to me to wait 15 mins to park! My grandad cannot walk far but no blue badge as doesn't go out enough to bother applying. I absolutely would park in p and c place if one was available and he's with us- kids or no kids. Surely all this is common sense. Kids in op post were a bit old but I can't imagine a world where I would shout at someone in a supermarket car park for their choice of spot!!

My children are ten and eight and I use them. My daughter has attachment disorder and is prone to running off without warning, will not hold hands, very impulsive. Therefore the closer we are to the shops the easier for us. You would not know she had anything wrong to look at her. Also where we live they are signed for a child up to 12 or in a booster seat. YABU

Thinking further, who goes to supermarket management when some woman with a small kid challenges them about parking in the wrong place.

I would suggest they shouldn't have been parking there.

I use them if there aren't any disabled spaces left, whether I have my DS (8) with me or not. They're convenient, not a right and IMO a person with severe pain and mobility issues should take preference over someone who has chosen to have a child. Oh, and if someone accosted me in a car park it would cause me to have severe panic issues, possibly leading to my heart issue playing up, so perhaps think about that next time. I wouldn't have to display my blue badge in a P&C space if my son was with me - how do you know she didn't have one?

"No obvious disabilities" - this is THE most disgusting attitude. I cannot believe people actually think like this. How the fuck do you know what is going on inside someone's body?! I have a friend who is 30 with terminal cancer who suffers massively with pain. She looks fine. I know of a local lady who uses crutches because she has arthritis in her toe. She goes out clubbing on the weekend and dances for hours. I can guess which one you'd tut at for parking in a disabled space. It's these attitudes that make me too scared to leave my house sometimes because I've been screamed at way too many times for parking in a disabled space with my valid blue badge because I don't look disabled /am too young to be disabled/must have stolen my badge.

We ALL know that P&C spaces are meant for parents with young children, NOT parents with kids who can get in and out without help, NOT people with hidden disabilities, NOT lazy arsed idiots, etc

Right so you want to see people with hidden disabilities struggle.

I'm surprised some people require all sorts of conditions in order to park, yet seem very capable of wandering around a supermarket

None of your business. It is attitudes and assumptions like yours that mean that people disabilities suffer discrimination. What happened to minding your own business and stop judging others.