To ask Aquarium to put a radar lock on the disabled toilet

[Worrysaboutalot]

We went to a large aquarium centre today for DC2’s birthday. It was very busy with many families enjoying the centre. We had a great day out

As I am in a wheelchair, I have no choice in which bathroom I can use, I had to use the disabled toilet.

I had to wait until a mother and a couple of younger kids came out of the disabled toilet which surprised me. As it looked unlikely that any of the younger kids would need nappies.

Then I went in this was a dedicated disabled (not accessible) toilet with no baby change facilities! I do understand that the first mother might have an invisible disability, as might her children. So thought no more on it.

All the time I was in, the door handle was being rattled and I kept calling out that the toilet was occupied, which was frustrating.
When I left and an impatient mother with a pram was waiting to go in. I told her that there was no nappy changing facilities in that toilet, assuming she wanting to change the baby. But she snapped at me that she was a mother and had to use this toilet gesturing to the pram.

I felt that this second mother was just entitled and rude. Having a pram doesn’t entitle you to use a disabled toilet. Use the end toilet in the women’s bathroom, with the door open and the pram in the toilet doorway, like everyone else does.

Years ago, I had 4 kids under 6yo at one stage and I never used the disability toilets, except for the baby changing ones for baby changing purposes.

Therefore, AIBU to have asked the aquarium centre to add a radar lock to the bathroom. AS this was the ONLY disabled toilet, and the baby change facilities were separate. To increase the likelihood of ringfencing these limited facilities for those who actually need them, rather than those people who want to use them.

My son is an actual disabled person who you are stating has less need of disabled toilets than you do. You are wrong. And having a disability doesn't stop you being discrimatory about other disabilities.

@sofiegiraffe

Presumably you can carry her and leave the pram outside. If you were going to wet or soil yourself, I assume you would do this?

If I was at the point of wetting or soiling myself and there were zero other options, then yes. I would have get her out and hold her with one arm whilst removing my trousers, sit her on my knee whilst I used the loo, then awkwardly attempt to wipe myself with one hand and pull up and button my trousers with one hand. All whilst trying not to transfer any germs from the toilet to her. Or - I'd have to place her on the floor of a dirty public loo. You can see why I use the accessible option, surely.

Yes. And I'm not even staunchly opposed to you doing so! Literally my central point is just that if you have to, you could carry baby in - there is a way to go if you really, desperately need to and know you can't hold it. Same as the lady with the menstrual cup. I also don't really have any issue with someone wanting to change it in the disabled loo - but she could do that in the main loos.

All I want people to accept and acknowledge is that it's different if you are a chair user and there really is no way you can go into any other loo. In terms of how I actually treat people in real life - I tend to just assume invisible disability for everyone. It's not like there's any perks to being in one loo over another! But I hope you can see that there is a difference and when you have friends who literally have sat in their chairs and wet and soiled themselves... it is an emotional issue.

"All I want people to accept and acknowledge is that it's different if you are a chair user and there really is no way you can go into any other loo."

As is true of other disabilities.

@OldTinHat

Not at all helpful from me OP but I'm disabled and not able to work atm. A friend told me that radar keys can be purchased from Ebay so I don't think that is going to be a solution. Yes to family facilities though so that disabled facilities aren't over stretched.

I've literally just purchased a radar key from disability uk. I'm only very recently disabled so didn't realise these were a thing!

My Google search brought up lots available on Amazon and eBay.

@Sleepyblueocean

"All I want people to accept and acknowledge is that it's different if you are a chair user and there really is no way you can go into any other loo."

As is true of other disabilities.

You can keep insisting on this but all you are doing is coming across as extremely ableist.

All I want people to accept and acknowledge is that it's different if you are a chair user and there really is no way you can go into any other loo.

There are countless examples on this thread, and many more that aren't, as to why a normal loo won't be useable for many non chair users deposited the fact they as an individual might physically be able to get inside.

*despite the fact

And yet again we end up with the main issue being forgotten and us ending up as a disability top trumps again.

@kcha30

YANBU about her attitude but YABU about the toilet in general. Some toilets are really hard to get into with a pram.

I may have been judged before. My son is autistic but it's not obvious he has a disability. When he was younger he was petrified of people setting the dryers off so we'd use the disabled loos if Me or him needed to go to control the dryers going off. Even when he outgrew his fear of dryers, I would take him in the disabled loos too. I wasn't able to leave him outside the cubicle by himself. Disabled toilets give us more room! But to most people we looked like 2 non disabled people using the toilet. Not so bad now he's older though.

This is exactly why I take my five year old in the disabled toilet. She is disabled, and is diagnosed autistic and the too many people in a small space plus hand dryers (it's always the hand dryers isn't it!) will send her into meltdown. I've usually got my 3 year old with me too.

When my 5 year old is not in meltdown you'd be hard pressed to realise she has a disability. But I expect that I just look like an entitled mother. Incidentally I've got a radar key for this purpose... but I still get tutted at as I come out!

I have also used a disabled toilet when I had my pram years ago too, because I physically couldn't get my pram into the ladies! I couldn't lift my baby out, lock the door, unbutton then pull down my trousers, use the loo, wipe, unlock the door then wash and dry my hands all whilst holding her! It's not safe or approved of to leave them outside the toilets unattended! So what are you supposed to do? Ideally yes there would be more family rooms to use I completely agree. Wait until I got home? Hmm, not shortly after giving birth, I'd have wet myself. Perhaps I should've just stayed at home.

There needs to be more disabled access, absolutely, and people should not take the piss with it but there also needs to be a bit of give and take and someone with a baby in a pram sometimes just can't use the ladies. So they use the next best thing. I can't get worked up about that.

I just wish there were more toilets - bigger ones with individual sinks & changing facilities & if they are not single sexed they need to be individual fully walled cubicles with good locks that are easy to see if they are vacant or free
The debate is really about accessibility for everyone regardless of any issue & privacy
What I would say - Op, is that with current free for all situation (NT in some places) where they ONLY have one part cubicle loos - privacy & dignity is being put to one side
Oh & the loos have to be working & clean

"You can keep insisting on this but all you are doing is coming across as extremely ableist."

No you are coming across as extremely ableist in your othering of people like my son. You can stick up for your rights without trampling over those of people who cannot speak for themselves.

Tbh all toilets should be disabled toilets then we wouldn't have this problem. It's disgusting the lack of facilities tbh

I don't think there is anything wrong with asking for a radar lock. And the mother was unnecessarily rude to you. But your suggestion of mothers going to the toilet with the door open is not fair either. There are often mirrors in toilet which would reflect someone on the toilet with the door open. Not the end of the world with a quick pee but if someone has their period or an upset stomach its really unreasonable to expect them to go to the toilet in the view of others.

@Innocenta I'm sorry but I don't agree at all.

A person with a hidden disability but who is still mobile would be able to use a "normal" loo if they really really had to.

I physically cannot use a normal public toilet. I cannot stand without aid and I need the handrails to get me from the loo to the chair.

A while ago me and DH visited a place that didn't have a disabled loo. He had to come with me, stand in the cubicle, physically lift me on and off the toilet and pull my knickers and trousers back up for me. For someone who has just got some independence back after some home adjustments that just felt awful.

I'm not saying that some disabilities trump others and I'm certainly not being ableist. I'm just saying that for some of us there is just no choice.

Yes. And I'm not even staunchly opposed to you doing so!

Good. Because it's been implied on this thread that I'm "entitled" for using the accessible option when I have my baby with me in a pram. When I'm simply using the only sensible option provided for me and my baby.

Don’t see why some posters don’t understand that they’re not disabled toilets there accessible toilets eg for people who need the adapted facilities such as a mother needing to go to the toilet where her baby is safe, a stoma user who needs to empty their bag in private, a father who needs to change his autistic child with space to safely do so…really don’t see what’s so difficult to understand.

There’s more to disability than wheelchair users and it’s ignorant to not see that.

Imagine what we could achieve if we worked together to campaign for multiple ACCESSIBLE toilets everywhere, so that wheelchair users and temporarily disabled people and parents and grandparents and people with sensory issues and people who had just had an entire bowl of soup spilled on their head and down their front by a jostled waiter, who needed a place to take off their shirt and rinse it and rinse their hair and attempt to dry both under the hand dryer so they smelled a bit less like tomato and basil for the next 8 hours until they could get home (yes that last one was me, sorry if you were waiting).

But instead it's just arguments, people talking past each other, disability top-trumps, and most worryingly, some SERIOUSLY nasty ableism.

@Winemewhynot

Don’t see why some posters don’t understand that they’re not disabled toilets there accessible toilets eg for people who need the adapted facilities such as a mother needing to go to the toilet where her baby is safe, a stoma user who needs to empty their bag in private, a father who needs to change his autistic child with space to safely do so…really don’t see what’s so difficult to understand.

There’s more to disability than wheelchair users and it’s ignorant to not see that.

correct 🌸

Well as a granny child minder if I need the loo disabled it is. I don't pee in front of them but they're too young and foolish to leave outside never mind the sinister implications

You honestly begrudge a mother with pray using the space a available in a disabled toilet

@justasking111

Well as a granny child minder if I need the loo disabled it is. I don't pee in front of them but they're too young and foolish to leave outside never mind the sinister implications

I hadn't even thought about what childminders with a few kids in tow would do, actually!

@Innocenta

I'm with you partially.

Full time wheelchair users on their own would not be able to use an average cubicle. With help/support unlikely but maybe in a few cases eg a very physically small person with a strong carer or a child with a parent. Not many cases.

Part time time wheel chair users possibly as above, possibly with difficulty/ pain and risk falling/ not being able to get back to their chair.

Parents with children can at a push use a cubicle, they choose not to, it is nicity not a necessity. Using the disabled loo fulfils their needs, it's just not the intended need it's used for.

I think different disabilities do impact people differently and even within a disability different people can be differently affected. Thinking specifically about autism where you have people diagnosed who are drs and people diagnosed who require full time support.

Not all disabilities have the same impact on lives. I don't like disability top trumps but in real life not everyone who is disabled is equally as impacted by a their disability.

This thread is a kin to the bus space priority threads. Everyone knows wheelchair users should have priority over the space but irl it is used by prams and if they are asked to move they won't.

Don’t see why some posters don’t understand that they’re not disabled toilets there accessible toilets

Disabled or accessible toilets? I’ll try again.

Why don't you contact the Aquarium about their lack of facilities instead. They should have provision for baby changing and access for people with babies/small kids.

@Worrysaboutalot

We went to a large aquarium centre today for DC2’s birthday. It was very busy with many families enjoying the centre. We had a great day out

As I am in a wheelchair, I have no choice in which bathroom I can use, I had to use the disabled toilet.

I had to wait until a mother and a couple of younger kids came out of the disabled toilet which surprised me. As it looked unlikely that any of the younger kids would need nappies.

Then I went in this was a dedicated disabled (not accessible) toilet with no baby change facilities! I do understand that the first mother might have an invisible disability, as might her children. So thought no more on it.

All the time I was in, the door handle was being rattled and I kept calling out that the toilet was occupied, which was frustrating.
When I left and an impatient mother with a pram was waiting to go in. I told her that there was no nappy changing facilities in that toilet, assuming she wanting to change the baby. But she snapped at me that she was a mother and had to use this toilet gesturing to the pram.

I felt that this second mother was just entitled and rude. Having a pram doesn’t entitle you to use a disabled toilet. Use the end toilet in the women’s bathroom, with the door open and the pram in the toilet doorway, like everyone else does.

Years ago, I had 4 kids under 6yo at one stage and I never used the disability toilets, except for the baby changing ones for baby changing purposes.

Therefore, AIBU to have asked the aquarium centre to add a radar lock to the bathroom. AS this was the ONLY disabled toilet, and the baby change facilities were separate. To increase the likelihood of ringfencing these limited facilities for those who actually need them, rather than those people who want to use them.

You are being completely unreasonable.

1. Not everyone with a condition carries a radar key and your "surprise" means you were judging conditions which are not visible.

2. it is completely unreasonable to expect someone to have the door open in a normal loo with a pram.