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AIBU?

Share your dilemmas and get honest opinions from other Mumsnetters.

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Waitrose Mum & Baby carpark - parking without child!

306 replies

NZMummy15 · 12/09/2019 15:07

So today I parked at Waitrose (in a normal car park as didn't have the kids) and noticed a middle aged woman had parked in the mum and baby carpark (with no kids).

I went up to her in Waitrose and said you've just parked in a m&b carpark but you don't have any children with you. To which she replied I have a baby it's just not with me and I'm in a hurry, anyway who are you the police? Long story short I said she shouldn't be there and also mentioned this to the customer service desk who didn't care.

When I was putting my groceries in to the car she came over to me and said I shouldn't judge without knowing the full story and she actually has medical problems. I said she should be parking in the disabled car park then if that's the case, but of course did feel a little bit bad about whether I handled it right and if she was telling the truth as she didn't mention any of that earlier?

What would you have done it that situation? It's making me feel really awful now, but on the flip side I know how awful it is when you can't get a car park and you have a small baby/child so it always gets my back up!

OP posts:
Durgasarrow · 14/09/2019 02:50

The Parent and Child parking spaces have brought so much joy into this sad old world, haven't they

Derbee · 14/09/2019 03:03

Not RTFT but has the OP come back?

saraclara · 14/09/2019 09:35

This place is mad! The poster who mentioned the emergency services responding to those stickers, retracted it almost instantly when she was told she was wrong! Yet she's getting more grief than the OP now!

Marriedwithchildren5 · 14/09/2019 15:52

I know! It was a bit of a pile on in the end. I was genuinely bemused by the response. To be fair I was a pretty easy target as I was by myself. Lucky I've been on aibu a while Grin

GinDaddy · 15/09/2019 23:27

God this is an odd thread.

Someone earlier shared their experience that four springy looking young chaps drew up in a car, parked brazenly in a parking space that the landowner has designated for customers they would like to offer assistance to...then run around the store purchasing beer...and the response from people piling in is

"you don't know if one of them had a hidden disability".

OK...

So here's my question.

Should shops (their parking attendants, wardens, or shop staff chosen to look after car parks) ignore or refuse to challenge anyone who parks in these spaces without children, due to the fact that it's impossible to know (and therefore prove) if one of those people had a hidden disability?

I'm just curious because therefore it's impossible to manage them, therefore it's no longer worth having them.

I'm going to dare to say this though, but there are child-free people I know who have parked in them, and they don't have any "hidden disability", they're just people who hate the idea someone else could have something and they're missing out, so they take the best space.

That's it. Nothing more, nothing less.

They just wanted the space.

Fair enough, but can we acknowledge these people exist too, the "give me what I'm entitled to rather than favouring parents", instead of sheltering them under the umbrella of "they could have a hidden.."

because the people I've mentioned above, I've known some of them for twenty years, closely. They don't have any disability. So if I know those folk, there's probably a lot more like them.

Alsohuman · 16/09/2019 09:16

No supermarket I know polices those spaces or takes them remotely seriously.

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