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??!

People managed fine before they existed Cars used to be smaller, one reason why so many don't fit in garages now and also car seats exist (and have got bigger year on year). So it's now much harder to park in an ordinary space and get the door open wide enough to get a heavy toddler in or out a car seat who isn't yet capable of climbing in or out themselves.

Blue badges are available for those who have children with ASD who are known 'runners' and have little awareness of danger around cars. We have a blue badge for my son before anyone contradicts.

I do think it's unreasonable for a 9 and 12 year old to use the space as they can get in and out of cars by themselves and are not in car seats. I think they were morally wrong to use the space.

Sorry Frizzy I'm not buying that. When my DC's were tiny I drove a shitty old Land Rover which was huge. You manage.

But on this thread it's 'older kids need the p&c spaces so they don't bang the neighbouring car!'

My son isn't likely to bang the neighbouring car door. He's likely to run into the approaching car without looking as his sense of awareness of danger is zilch. Or if it's just a good day he'll only run headfirst into the poor sod pushing the Congo line of trolleys back to the space. He's 8 now. He's still going to be like this when he's 9/12/15.

Gosh this thread has reminded me why I love online shopping so much. I avoid all this batshittery.

Blue badges are available for those who have children with ASD who are known 'runners' and have little awareness of danger around cars. We have a blue badge for my son before anyone contradicts.

Not contradicting. Just wanted to say they are impossibly hard to get at the moment. Even harder if a parent is still waiting for a diagnosis or appealing against a DLA decision to enable them to get a bb. A friend of mine was waiting for over a year.

People managed fine before they existed Cars used to be smaller, one reason why so many don't fit in garages now and also car seats exist (and have got bigger year on year). So it's now much harder to park in an ordinary space and get the door open wide enough to get a heavy toddler in or out a car seat who isn't yet capable of climbing in or out themselves.

Yet funnily enough it's only in supermarkets they have this problem. Never a problem in places like legoland.

I am sorry you are not fully recovered. YABU, even more so if your behaviour was in front of the other family's children and bad enough to report you. It was your choice to shop there, at the time you did and to wait for the space. You then made it another family's problem. Shop online or off peak times.

There's no age-limit is there? My mum's parked in them when I've been shopping with her (although to be fair she's disabled and sometimes there are no spaces for disabled people).

9 is still a child to me, personally.

There's no age-limit is there?

It depends on the car park. Some state they are only for children below the age of eight (my local Sainsbury's).

YANBU - that would piss me right off!!! You don't need to tie in an 9yr old or a 12 yr old with their seatbelt like you would a smaller child. You need to be able to open the door wide to lift the child in and tie their belt. I'm sure if there was a reason why these kids could not she would have said so.

Why should she? I wouldn't.

Cars used to be smaller
No they didn't. That's just one of the crazy excuses for twattish parking. I managed without the p&c spaces, getting dc out of the car without any drama, as was the norm then.
When did all this angst/entitlement start about a simple shopping trip?

PunkrockerGirl

Whilst parking is twatty these days, cars have absolutely got bigger. If you look at an old VW Golf next to a new one, they're a lot bigger.

It's my belief, based on common sense, that the parent and child parking spaces are for mums struggling with babies/prams or for toddlers that can't walk far. People parking in them with school-aged children are taking the piss.

I've not RTFT because it's long and I can't be arsed, and I imagine this has already been said repeatedly - but why oh why do people with babies not do their shopping online???? I can think of nothing worse than taking my 11mo to the supermarket.

Who cares if they didn't used to have them? They do now and when you need to get a baby into a low car seat and make sure they're safe, they're amazing. She was an ass for parking there. Such a pain trying to squeeze in when someone decides to park close to you. They should move them further away so the lazy shoppers are put off.

Thank you for your email.

I can confirm that we ask customers to leave the parent and child parking spaces for customers that need to aid their children into seats and customers that need to use prams etc, this is simply for accessibility for our customers with babies and small toddlers. I would like to assure you that I have passed all your feedback forward to the Store Management, I am confident that will be looked into and hopefully improved in the future.

Thank you again for making me aware.

Kind regards

Sam Jones
Tesco Customer Service
Tesco Customer Engagement Centre

Definitely don't agree with actually challenging someone when you don't know the full story (esp since many on here have pointed out circumstances that would not be immediately obvious).

But I also don't like the way so many people take such delight in explaining (erroneously, surely?) that there's absolutely nothing anyone can do about non-parents parking in those spaces, with the obvious implication that they will and do take full advantage of this, and to hell with everyone else. Surely if you behave like an arsehole (by wilfully abusing the facilities) then the supermarket can ask you to leave? Sainsbury's have big signs threatening to fine people who park in p&c spaces if they don't actually have a child under 12 with them. Perhaps that's bullshit, but they still have security who could move you on. They're not compelled to be dictated to by the sort of people who think that anything that's not actually illegal is 100% fine, are they?

As I said, I don't agree with the OP's stance, but I do wish we didn't have to have this wildly polarised argument, where, as soon as you express the mild opinion that p&c spaces should really (according to politeness, not law) be for, umm, parents, suddenly you're a special snowflake who needs psychiatric help to manage life.

Yeah, sure, there were no p&c spaces a few years back. So? Does that mean they can never exist and be managed with consideration? It's a bit like saying that, because the nice new park wasn't there when your kids were little, it's now ok for your teens to sit on the swings all day drinking coke while the little kids wait fruitlessly for their turn.

Obviously p&c spaces need to be managed with common sense and politeness. OP didn't manage this. Neither have the 'back in my day' brigade on this thread.

OP did you finally fall asleep?! Ridiculous to say you "haven't slept for 6 months" as an excuse for your behaviour towards this other family. Probably most of us on here with children of all ages would like more sleep. Stop the dramatics - you wouldn't be alive if that was the truth!

OP, clearly your main crime is to still feel the effects of major surgery six months later when all the other women on here who had C-sections were skipping/running marathons/hauling sacks of coal around THE VERY NEXT DAY. Shame on you for not being superwoman. I hope you haven't done anything as unbelievably spineless as taking maternity leave.

As for all the 'I need a bigger parking space because my DCs bash other cars when they open the door' comments - just gobsmacked. If they're old enough to open the door, they're old enough to do it properly (barring issues with dyspraxia etc).

I genuinely don't see what's so difficult about accepting that some people's need is greater than others. It makes life better for everyone if we accept that and behave accordingly.

Fwiw - I had multiple womb, bladder and scar infections - as well as four lots of antibiotics, yeasts infections, blood loss and (severe) iron deficiency - and it was my THIRD csection / hence STILL not recovered.

Old VW Polos were narrower than new ones.

Baby
No they really really haven't.
The same model I drive now was like a fucking tank when my dc were small. It's not about car size or parking size though is it?
It's the thought that there's a generation of parents unable to park in a normal space and get their children out of the car that worries me.

AnySecondNow, that sounds really horrible. I'm sorry you had complications from your C-section and i'm also sorry you've been forced to spell them out because of the spiteful, bullying comments you've faced on here.

Sounds like you've had a rough time of it after your C-section, OP. Hope you're feeling better soon.

Blue badges are available for those who have children with ASD who are known 'runners' and have little awareness of danger around cars. We have a blue badge for my son before anyone contradicts.

Then you should know how difficult they are to get, especially at the moment.

If it's been a while since you were last put through the lottery that is DLA renewal then you might be in for a shock. There was a Mum in my local paper last week with a 10-year-old with no road sense, can't read his name, needs his food cut up, needs constant supervision etc who had assistance from the local autism centre filling in the form and support from GP, consultant at hospital for various issues and family support worker who got 2 points which meant lost of mobility car and she won't be able to renew blue badge (appeal could be months and months away).

Classic fob off template email OP.

YASBU