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AIBU?

Share your dilemmas and get honest opinions from other Mumsnetters.

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Original poster

To feel a bit disgusted by this

113 replies

picketingpanic · 01/10/2021 18:21

NC as this is potentially outing.

My DS attends a specialist provision for children with profound, severe and complex needs. Many of the children in the building are reliant on wheelchairs and some have very limited mobility, understanding or communication. Many are attended by nurses every day at school, as they are immunosuppressed. Every single child in the building, age 3-18, is disabled in some way.

Many children will have had the jab already, due to being extremely clinically vulnerable. Nearly every parent/guardian is a carer and would have been in one of the first six groups to receive the vaccine. Staff were vaccinated early too, due to the nature of the setting.

So why the actual fuck did anti vax protestors choose to stand outside their school and picket today?

I am actually heartbroken that they could be so cruel and thoughtless. Our school community has been hit very hard by covid, some of our children have been orphaned by it.

None of the children in the building are really capable of understanding the picket, it just frightened a lot of them.

It just felt like being spat on tbh. I asked them why they were targeting a school full of disabled children and they jeered at me. It's so depressing.

OP posts:

DrSbaitso · 01/10/2021 20:16

People with disabilities are always being used as props in the narrative of someone else's life or self-serving campaign.

frumpety · 01/10/2021 20:17

People do all sorts of weird stuff when they don't feel in control of a situation are terrified. These people have no control over covid so they choose to 'take back control ' by picketing a school who will largely have been vaccinated. Horse/bolted/stable door springs to mind. Maybe they could try Nightclubs , oh hang on .....

x2boys · 01/10/2021 20:21

@frumpety

Why the hell would you target a special school though, these children will be some of the most vulnerable in society, why on earth would they think its ok to frighten them.

JaniceBattersby · 01/10/2021 20:24

Please do ring the local paper. I’m a reporter. I’d fucking go down there and confront the heartless bastards myself if it were on my patch.

HMBB · 01/10/2021 20:25

Awful - I am so sorry the children, you and the staff had to go through this.

FlyingPandas · 01/10/2021 20:29

Bloody hell OP this is awful. I'm so, so sorry that this happened.

To me, it shows how low the anti vaxxers will sink. They don't have the guts to target a robustly mainstream setting (with parents, staff and DC who will probably either laugh at them or tell them to bog off). Oh no. They have to target the most vulnerable and fragile, trying to cause as much trauma as possible. Horrible, awful people.

Agree with a PP about hoping the DM (or any mainstream publication) picks up on this.

nancydrew · 01/10/2021 20:29

I stand with you OP. The protestors behaviour was utterly abhorrent. I hope your child has not been upset and frightened, if they have then I’m so sorry that happened to them.

Lemming20 · 01/10/2021 20:31

That’s absolutely disgusting.

I am so sorry OP

Funnylittlefloozie · 01/10/2021 20:32

@fucketyfuckwit

I would want close up photos of their faces ans plaster it in the press. Twunts!!

Totally agree. Along with a caption asking 8f these people are proud of themselves for frightening and upsetting disabled children. You BET I'd go public.

BabbleBee · 01/10/2021 20:35

I’m disgusted too. I have a DD with special needs in mainstream, she’d be very confused and scared by this. DH is a headteacher of a mainstream secondary and has had anti-vaxxers at his school. They didn’t stay long…

Antinerak · 01/10/2021 20:36

I'm glad most of the children didn't know what was happening, but so devastated that they and the parents and teachers had to witness that. Schools should be a safe place for children and their carers. I'm so sorry OP.

Peanutsandchilli · 01/10/2021 20:41

It just shows their lack of intelligence if they go and protest outside a setting where everyone, including the kids, are already vaccinated. I actually find it pretty amusing how dumb that is.

IveGotASongThatllGetOnYNerves · 01/10/2021 20:47

They are idiots and bullies.
I don't believe they care about others at all. That's not why they are forming mobs and hurling abuse They just want to shout and yell and intimidate people so they pick those they see as vulnerable and unlikely to give them a well deserved smack in the gob.

TheOnlyMrsM · 01/10/2021 20:51

Jeered at you? Heavens above. This says so much more about them than you. Please hold your head up high. I am sorry you have all experienced this at the school gates. Shame on them. Sending you all much unmumsnetty love.

Walkingalot · 01/10/2021 20:51

They probably chose that school to cause maximum outrage - it's all publicity to them.

Alekto · 01/10/2021 20:53

Yanbu OP, and I'm sorry you and your child were put through that. Such stupidity and obnoxious ignorance.

GatoradeMeBitch · 01/10/2021 21:05

Find numbers for the local press and keep them on your phone so that if you see them again you can call immediately.

Geamhradh · 01/10/2021 21:09

How sickening. Probably the same thick twats that scattergun MN with their anti vax shit all day.
I presume this will have been picked up by at the very least the local press if not the nationals. Hope so OP.

Waterfallgirl · 01/10/2021 21:10

Awful and frightening for everyone. @picketingpanic I’m so sorry that’s happened to you and your son.

Sadly there are people who are planning this well and all over the country. Schools were warned to expect this and every school for children between 12-17 has had to create a risk assessment and security plan for this very reason.

Very scary we have people who are willing to stand outside schools frightening children to get their point across.

TyrannysaurusXXrightshoarder · 01/10/2021 21:11

@BabbleBee

They turned up at DDs school in the first of the new term. Initially the HT said he could t so much because they were technically peacefully protesting legally (on the pavement outside school not actually in their school grounds). So the sixth formers volunteered to go outside and stop them getting to the new Year 7s as they got off the school buses. They made short work of them tbh, and so they left, helped on their way by a Year 9 who told them that they’d definitely convinced her……to have the vaccine

. However, when the HT saw the literature they had been trying to get the children to take, and was warned they intended coming back mob handed, he made it clear that he would call the police as a safeguarding issue and that he had also reported to the local Prevent Officer. The school shared the ‘Anti-Vax Playbook’ and the ‘Who is likely to share and spread misinformation’ literature.

MrsSkylerWhite · 01/10/2021 21:12

So, so sorry that you had to deal with that.

Nasty, vicious bastards.

Chickychickydodah · 01/10/2021 21:14

I’d would have flour bombed them. Pigs 😡

cricketmum84 · 01/10/2021 21:14

Absolute fucking idiots. I'm sorry you had to go through that!

NeverDropYourMooncup · 01/10/2021 21:19

@NewMutiny

What? Why??????

Not many men around - it's a soft target.

RainbowZebraWarrior · 01/10/2021 21:28

Huge hugs OP. I have experience of this myself and honestly cannot come to terms with how some people are acting this way. You are not alone. I can't get my head around why anyone would act like this. What is their gain?

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