Would you say yes if at front of line and was asked to let a disabled child first ?

[Nearlyfinished2023]

Today my DD with her aunt went to some Xmas pop up thing, which had a character meet n Greet with one of her fav characters.
her rang me on the way home whilst I was talking with a friend and said how when they got there the line was massive and she took DD to the front to speak to the lady ( DD has visible tubes ) to ask how long the wait was in which they replied 2 hours. Aunt told DD there was no way she would stand in that cold for 2 hours and that maybe they could do something else. The worker then asked the front people if they didn’t mind if they Let her quickly run in to do the meet and greet, they were fine with this and DD got to go in.
my friend was mortified 😂 she was like I would be fuming and what about the people behind the first family what if they cared ?
she thinks it was very unfair as it was such a long line that everyone had to wait.
would you have minded ?

You're assuming it's just one person though. 6 people = half an hour! Which is 25% more queuing time.
OP, I'd be fine if it was just your daughter but I've been in quite a few queues where it's been a constant stream of people cutting in. That's unfair.

Also as @SiliconHeaven pointed out - who's worthy?

Disabled people aren't a 'small' minority neurodiverse people alone account for 1 in 5 people if properly diagnosed before you include everyone else (FTR, I'm ND).

Letting people go ahead isn't to make up for the 'unfairness' of being disabled it's about genuinely being unable to queue. I'm not sure how a wheelchair for example automatically precludes a child from waiting in the cold (obviously they're not standing).

Furthermore, 'non-disabled' kids might also have an issue, they might cranky due to being cold, hungry, needing the toilet if accompanied by a solo adult what are they supposed to do? They can't leave their place in the queue.

The usual disability passes work by allowing the person to come back in 2 hours and go straight in so they don’t have to queue. Nobody is going to say no to a visibly disabled child skipping the queue but I do agree with your friend that there are generally fairer ways to do it especially when it’s a very long queue of young children

A wheelchair itself doesn’t stop someone from queuing but for a lot of people with disabilities queuing in the cold for two hours could be dangerous for their health

Awww, how can you say no?

Especially if she has visible tubes and you can see the illness is genuine.

I don’t think asking the person at the top of the queue for permission was the right way to handle it, but I appreciate the person was probably doing their best in the absence of an actual policy on disability.

I have a child who is perfectly capable of queuing and one who is not and accessibility policies make an incredible difference, not just to the child who cannot otherwise take part, but also to the one who would otherwise rarely get to go anywhere.

It’s not great that people are queuing for two hours in the cold either, and that’s worth complaining to the organisers about too. But that’s an entirely different issue.

Under those circumstances I genuinely can't think of anyone I know who wouldn't have let her go first.

Exactly.

I think one child is fine, a few children is still ok but it can be a problem when too many disabled children cut in.

I've been in a similar line with my younger cousin who is autistic but was still waiting for diagnosis at the time, she struggled with queueing like a lot of young children do. Our wait was more than boubled by various different children cutting to the front. Some were visibly disable. I didn't mind the first few but it got way too many all different families one after the other. The queue wasn't even that long and should have only taken about 20 minutes. I could see the front the whole time. I wouldn't have joined otherwise as knew she would struggle to wait for too long.

It was incredible frustrating and I put a complaint in after with the company. I have no issue with the cutting to the front in theory but it does need to be spaced out.

1in 5 may be ND but the majority of that number can queue! The bigger group is dyslexics who are not going to get a skip the queue pass!

"Disabled people aren't a 'small' minority neurodiverse people alone account for 1 in 5 people.."

But since when has 'neurodiverse' been a recognised disability?! It isn't!

There are 67 million people in this country, so by your 1 in 5 reckoning, that makes 13.4 million disabled people then! (Which there clearly are not!)

Actually I wouldn't be in the position because I wouldn't queue for anything for 2 hours in the cold!

But I wasn't talking about general 'people with disabilities'. Surely that's obvious? I was talking about wheelchairs, as an example because for many PP that's an 'obviously genuine' case for queue jumping.
These people have clearly never watched the Paralympic Games.
A wheelchair just means you can't stand. If you're an amputee for example you could otherwise be in perfect health and, in fact, MORE than able to wait in the cold compared to the average person.

While someone, with say autism that might result in a meltdown not 'obviously disabled' could be just dismissed.

I disagree that someone with a visible disability is 'pitiable' and that their life is so much harder than others with non visible disabilities and other difficulties in life.

People with disabilities are part of society, not a special group that we must all pity. Sometime this means that they too must deal with the same difficult situations like queueing. Sometimes because they have particular difficulties, it means that they cannot - and that accommodations need to be made for them.

We have no idea of the make of up the queue and whether there were individuals in there that had equal difficulties because of their age, abilities and other factors with waiting for two hours.

What if there was a whole group outing for people with additional needs, - would we make those with visible differences go first, even if they actually had a greater capacity to wait than others with non visible difficulties?

It's not as simple as people are making out.

I’m astounded that any young child would queue for 2 hours in the cold tbh!

People think about disability in the wrong way, we should be making everything more accessible not having ridiculous systems and accommodating the disabled. Why on earth couldn’t people just be booked in and return after 2 hours- everyone will be better off. No need for jealousy from the non-disabled who don’t have a clue how their lives are so much easier either!

@penjil Google the 'Equality Act' and neurodiversity I think you don't need my guidance on how to do that?
@BungleandGeorge How do you know who can queue and who can't? Same as the wheelchair example above. It seems to be accepted that the majority of wheelchair users need to skip the queue... but.... why? It's obvious for someone in crutches, but a wheelchair? Solely based on being in a wheelchair obviously but not any other conditions. Happy to be educated. Genuinely.

The point I'm trying to make is. The answer to this question hinges on the premise of, at most, a 'few' people skipping the queue. And it being '5 mins', a small inconvenience. But as I and @greedygreattit have experienced, that's often not the case. Because you can't guarantee that the number of disabled people who can't queue is tiny enough for it to not be an issue!

Btw I think the friend was wrong to scold OP, the staff member offered. But the OP's question is 'would I have minded'? Yes, if too many people were doing it. No, if it was only a few.

How can you be genuinely sure it's the latter and not the former?

I'd be happy to let her go in first

Exactly.
@BungleandGeorge , I completely agree. But you are wrong about jealousy from the 'non-disabled'. Assuming that everyone else is perfectly able to queue with zero problems.
In same cases the issue could even be from other disabled people whose needs aren't 'as great'. While I'm not at the point of totally being 'unable to queue' the sensory impact of cold is very hard for me. Am I selfish for not wanting my wait time to be extended drastically?

It's all very nuanced and situational. Nobody can say, for sure, in all situations that their attitude is right. If you are at the front of the queue. it's fine for you, because you're definitely going to go next but... at the back of the queue... the impact of the drip drip drip of people is greater.

But maybe, you guys believe, there wouldn't be that many disabled people with queuing issues out in these conditions anyway.... because... erm... there's not many and they should all be at home? Therefore, it will be only '1 or 2'? And so, too many people going ahead would never happen?

Btw in this case OP is entirely blameless the staff member offered for them to go first. But if someone showed up and asked to go first they have no way of knowing whether they were the first or 10th person to make the same request that day....

Of course I wouldn't mind. Having a disabled child is difficult enough. Cut them some slack. Life is hard enough already.

I shall add my daughter isn’t “ neurodiverse”
well she probably is but that’s not what the issue was.
I get the whole thing we see it a lot on theme parks which is why the system changed to the virtual line situation.
I get a lot of yeh I agree my son has adhd / autism but that is not what the situation was or is.
the same goes when the convo changes to the whole offensive about blessings and people with neurodiverse children who clearly have their own set of issues get offended like well we wouldn’t change it why is it not a blessing.
our situation isn’t like that I would change it in a heart beat and I’m not ashamed of that.
I am glad that all children / adults etc have their adaptions made in certain places but not every disabled person is “ neurodiverse “
it always becomes about that.

the difficulty is I suppose that every disability comes with it own set of challenges and that each person has their own abilities and struggles that it does make it hard to be fair.

for what’s it’s worth I would never ask, and if we were in a situation where something wasn’t accessible to her or she couldn’t do then we would go else where.

My view is that people letting others go in front of them in a queue should cede their own place - i.e. go to the back if the person they're letting in is not already in the queue. You don't know the circumstances of everybody who is queuing - there might be others struggling.

@ANightmareBeforeChristmas do you mean the really nice couple who let a child who needed it in front should then re line up for 2 hours that they already done so then making it 4 hours for them because they were kind ?

@Nearlyfinished2023 Yes.

I think in that situation I wouldn’t have allowed it and would have removed my own daughter and taken her home.

No idea why your friend was embarrassed. Seems a very odd reaction.