A local shop is refusing entry to single parents

[Throwaway667]

I feel completely enraged by this. With delivery and collection slots now going to the vulnerable (as they should) it’s becoming more difficult to buy essential shopping as it is.
To remove access to essential goods based on the person having a dependant they can’t leave at home is upsetting imo.
Surely this is discrimination?

If you was to.leave your dog alone in the car while you shopped you would be called a arsehole. But this issue shows that many people who dont get that single mums of young children dilemma and they would rather see your kid part bake alive in a car than risk catching covid from them.

Just dont leave the poor dog with the baby or people will be enraged about the dog.

The beauty of humanity right there

What's Russian propaganda?

And well done to Asda, at least SP know there is definitely at least one shop/supermarket that will let them in.

@aurynne for me it's not that I have absolutely no one, it's more that I don't want to ask other people to run around after me when I'm perfectly able to do it myself. If I got the virus I would ask my mum to do my shopping for me. But as I'm currently healthy and she is working 6 days a week as an NHS front line key worker I'm not going to put the added burden of doing my shopping on her while I can still do it myself. If I NEEDED to then I would, but it would be a last resort.

I wouldn't ever trust a stranger with my money so I wouldn't use a Facebook group.

Although it's not been an issue in my area to be fair, I've been able to shop in Asda and Aldi with DS.

Aurynne if I cat the virus and am well enough to stay home and care for DS I will. In the event I'm hospitalised DS will got to my brother and his wife who live 2 hours away. Brother has agreed to come and collect DS from the hospital and then take his chances with the virus also rather than DS go to emergency foster care.

All the people saying to go to a shop and ask to speak to a manager and explain situation etc, I get the gist behind this, but do you realise how absolutely degrading this feels?!

To have to explain to a stranger that a) you’re a single parent without any partner or help and b) your children are so desperate for food you’re practically begging entry??

"2) there is no proof that children are more likely to carry the virus"

In epidemiology jargon, children are known as "bug bombs" and "superspreaders" for a reason. Where did you get the notion that there is no proof for this? Proof is everywhere! In a pandemic situation it is not a matter whether something is "unfair" or not, the virus will not give a jot. Children in supermarkets run riot, touch things, have no idea about hygiene, put their hands in their nose and mouth (and sometimes down their nappy) and will grab anything in their reach, put is back and keep moving.

Not only is this a massive risk to the community, but also a massive risk to their own family, as after having touched everything in the supermarket they will then proceed to bring all the bugs back home.

Banning children from supermarkets in this situation protects EVERYONE, including themselves and their parent(s).

Instead of explaining why the ban should not apply to yourself, the best thing to do here is to find how to avoid having to take children to the supermarket, or do it in a way where they cannot have access to any produce and any other shopper.

Surely this can’t be true? That’s so unfair. If your on your own with kids and no support what are you to do? Children aren’t the ones that are causing the problems. It’s the grown adults that aren’t abiding rules. Two adults and a child going into a bargain store yesterday. Wtf one should have stayed in the car with the child.

And talking about COVID19 in particularly, it has been well proven so far that children mostly do not suffer the worst but are asymptomatic carriers. So yes, they do carry it around more than anyone else, and in a hidden way, i.e. no one will know if they have it.

I cannot believe the lack of compassion in some of these comments. Single parents cannot just leave small children at home alone, they are not supposed to get someone from outside their own family group to sit with their children, and no they can't leave them in the car (if they even have one) - what if a child was taken from a car? So as someone else said WTF - are they just meant to starve? My children are grown up but I am still angry at these unfeeling remarks. My husband was in the RAF for 25 years and for a lot of that he was away from home, often in another country for months on end, and I never lived near my family. This situation would have driven me out of my mind with worry.

YANBU. At all. I cannot believe some people think there’s anything reasonable about that kind of policy.

Children in supermarkets run riot, touch things, have no idea about hygiene, put their hands in their nose and mouth (and sometimes down their nappy) and will grab anything in their reach, put is back and keep moving.

This should say SOME children. Not all children do this. At all.

As myself and many posters have said across different threads, how many ADULTS still pick things up, read the ingredients/nutritional info, put the item back on a shelf.
How many adults think they’re immune or don’t really care and do this.
Yet we’re not banning them.

Yes preventing spreading a virus might be extremely important, but I’d say children not starving or going hungry is extremely important too.

Especially when adults can be spreading it in supermarkets just as easily.

Common sense; not taking children to supermarkets constantly, make other arrangements if possible.

But for those single parents without support on standby, who don’t drive, who have very young children and babies, who can’t get a supermarket delivery slot.. how about we let these mothers feed their children eh?!

@aurynne
OUT OF INTEREST.. Have you thought about what you will do if you get the coronavirus!!! I think your passive-aggressive, Sly little question about single parents,and if they've thought what will happen to their kids if they have no one is disgraceful. This is a situation that NO-ONE in this country has ever had to face,and of course we are all panicking, but that was a horrible under your breath jab at people who may not have any support at all, without even knowing what their situation is.. I thank god there are people in this world who know what empathy is, sadly you dont appear to be one of them

last i checked, no one was getting any test done.. so we don't know who has it and who doesn't until they are ill... but lets lay the blame on the kids shall we... it must be lovely to live on what ever planet u live on

@Mshappy1975 yrs, I have thought about that and about a lot of other things COVID19-related, considering I am working in the midst of it. Your outrage will serve to nothing if your mum or dad, or yourself end up in ICU with the coronavirus after other people spread it around. A virus knows nothing about compassion, about love, about fairness. We do know about those things, but in order to combat this enemy we need to play by its rules. Letting children run riot in supermarkets will not help aither them, their mothers or anyone else in society.

Children in supermarkets run riot, touch things, have no idea about hygiene, put their hands in their nose and mouth (and sometimes down their nappy) and will grab anything in their reach, put is back and keep moving.

My kids have NEVER behaved like this in a supermarket! When they were little they were sat in the trolley and when too big, walked with me by the trolley.
I see why SM are trying to limit kids coming in but common sense should prevail, there are people who have no choice. This is what the volunteer service is all about - helping those who need it.

People over 70 will die and people who cannot organise themselves to buy food will starve.
It’s a harsh world but you have to get used to it.
It is going to get worse.

Okay lets be bloody clear, a single mother abandoned by her babies father or domestically abused cannot enter a store with say a two year old child to purchase the basic necessities to survive?! And people are suggesting she leaves that 2 year old in a cold vehicle for the minimum of 30 minutes mum will be forced to queue just to enter the supermarket, or otherwise leave her 2 year old in their pram unattended outside. The alternative is to starve but that's okay because that's just the times we are living in and the stores are just trying to keep people safe. What in the name of god am I even reading?!

This is fake news.

The alternative is to starve but that's okay because that's just the times we are living in and the stores are just trying to keep people safe.

This is the terrible thing about coronavirus. Vulnerable people will go hungry, disabled people will not receive proper care, people will die alone, life saving operations will be cancelled, people with severe mental health problems will be abandoned, suicide rates will rocket. I don't know what the solution is, it's an impossible situation but you're not even allowed to say that those people matter too.

mshappy single parent or not, all parents need to think about what will happen to their children if they die or are seriously incapacitated. Even without the current situation there have been countless on threads on Mumsnet (over the many years I have been here) about parents who ‘haven’t got round’ to making a will or guardianship arrangements. It is vitally important and, to be blunt, probably even more so if you are a single parent without immediate, local support.

Put your plans & paperwork in place, hopefully you will not need them but statistically some of us will.

My family are currently dealing with a bereavement (not CV related) and just sorting out Death certificates and paperwork at the moment is incredibly difficult.

Every town now should have some community help where volunteers offer to deliver shopping to people who are self-isolating or otherwise can't get to the shops. Search on the internet for your area.

to reply to someone above .. there is nothing feckless about sending a child down to the local shop for some sweets .. i did that when i was a child .. totally normal 🙄

@LotsaDo uhm in this situation the solution is pretty bloody simple, allow children to enter a store when accompanied by an adult... store policy to force a family to starve in order to protect others is a horrific policy. No other group of people are being rejected from purchasing vital supplies.

Also this mother CAN get to the shops but is being rejected entry because she cannot leave her young dependant child alone and must take said child with her. Honestly what in gods name is society becoming that so many are here saying that this is acceptable?!