Parent and child spaces should be for those with children 5 and under

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Parent-child parking spaces at supermarkets should be reserved primarily for those with children aged 5 and under, aside from older children with special needs (although a blue badge might be more appropriate where they meet the criteria, in these cases).

I was alone with my 4 month old today, the trolleys with the baby seats are kept next to these spaces. The spaces which have the easiest access to the trolleys had all been taken with the last taken by someone just before me, I reversed into a space around the corner and the driver was shaking their head at me, presumedly because their space only had extra room on one side and my space came up to them (see picture). I was surprised to then see them get out with a child of about 13. I saw multiple other people using these spaces with children looking like teenagers. I was able to get a space which still had fairly easy access to the trolleys, albeit by needing to walk on the road and inbetween the other cars, multiple people had parked in the spaces with the easiest access with much older children. I was lucky to get a space at all, had I not I would have had to walk across the busy carpark holding my baby.

YANBU- Just because someone has a child under 16 doesn’t mean they should take up these spaces, they should save them for people who need them the most.

YABU- first come first served, who cares if someone with a baby is having to traipse across a busy car park holding a baby to get to the baby trolleys.

@ginasevern what a horrible experience. I have a blue badge also and would have simply shown him it and told him your card trumps his baby. I have to be able to fully open my car door to get out and would park in a p & c if I couldn't find another suitable space.

If you think a post is off topic then you are free to ignore it. That would have been 100x better than what you wrote.

She honestly never thinks about it beyond parking in one in the shop. Then returning. Loading the car and leaving.

I can't believe there's actual people that think of them past the moment they use them.

@Kalevala you are welcome to move along and annoy people on other threads with tangents that are irrelevant to the discussion.

You can say it’s not about disabilities until you’re blue in the face but the fact of the matter is you can’t know who is disabled and who isn’t. In your world you may think people fall neatly into little boxes, or having neon signs over their heads declaring the disability but you don’t know.

if ds isn’t in his wheelchair he doesn’t look disabled. If he isn’t carrying his feeding pump he doesn’t look disabled. But he is and people like you who feel entitled to judge, and even more people who feel entitled to comment in real life, make every trip out that bit harder than it needs to be.

focus on your car and stop worrying about other peoples

Actually no, I haven’t ever shopped at an Asda. It’s never been one of my nearest supermarkets wherever I’ve lived.

But on a serious note, I’m sorry you had such a bad experience.

People can talk about whatever they think is relevant. They are not derailing the thread by pointing out that some of the people who might appear to be abusing the p&c spaces might have hidden disabilities - this is a very important point and entirely relevant to the topic.

The original post might have stated that you didn't want the thread to be about those things, but that doesn't mean that people aren't free to discuss. What you wanted to talk about doesn't much matter to many of us.

I noticed in Morrisons the spaces had a sign saying "parent and toddler spaces" so I think you're definitely not the only one.

I personally agree with you.

Don’t agree with under 5. I have a 6 and 2 year old.
was out today with 6 yr old. Parked as close as could get as she has little sense of danger when jumps out car.
I would have parked in a parent and child space if one had been free. That wee bit of extra room is safer

Disagree with under 5’s but agree with under 12’s which is what the signs say at our local supermarket.

@Medschoolmum do you need assistance reading the OP, it doesn't say I don't want the thread to discuss it, it says that outside of children with additional needs there should be an age limit.

I was thinking about doing my next philosophy thesis on it, it’s such a profound topic. You wait, you’ll wake up in a sweat later wondering about who is in the bays and more importantly.., why.

You’d not know my eldest had additional needs if you saw him in passing. And why the hell should I have to explain his medical history to anyone for parking in a p and c space, he’s still obviously a child. Hence the Parent and Child space.

I have a 6 and an 8 year old. I use the parent and child spaces because there is always a safer route from those spaces to the shop door, pavement, painted walkway or whatever.

It's not easy corraling 2 children through a car park when you're pushing a trolley too so your hands are occupied and you need them to stay right beside you because they are too short to be seen by any reversing drivers. Parent and child spaces are very helpful in such instances. Shopping was certainly an easier experience when they were babies!

How would this age limit be enforced? Considering that the spaces are a courtesy only, you don't know the age of a child, you can not tell at a glance whether a child has a disability, and not all children have a diagnosis by five?

I’m not sure that over fives can all do up a seat belt by themselves.

My dd has a blue badge and all of my children are younger than the dd with the blue badge. Lots of seat belts for me to do 😁

well exactly - I didn't apply for one for DD3 who was 8 when she contracted encephalitis and almost died - came out of hospital unable to walk, talk etc and used a wheelchair - as she was recovering from a brain injury. It took over a year TO recover and during that time she was in a chair or only able to walk short distances before being exhausted - I used P+C spaces as she even struggled to get out of the car.

I didn't use them much when I had 3 under 6 as I didn't need to - but I chose not to carry the baby around in a hard plastic chair and mostly shopped online to avoid the issue.

YABU in the sense that 5 is a pretty arbitrary cut-off. My daughter is 6 and I use the P&C spaces when they're available because they offer a safe bit of road for her to stand on where I can see her (i.e. not really close to another car or in front of cars moving round the car park).

Having said that, slings are not a magic bullet for transporting babies. I fully intended to use one but it didn't work out. My daughter loved being in a sling when my husband wore it but I have massive boobs and she was far too squashed. We borrowed several from the sling library (and they were fitted by a friend who ran the sling library) but she couldn't settle in them with me, she could only settle in them with him. There was a point at around 6 months where I honestly thought I'd scream if I heard the words "just pop her in a sling" ONE.MORE.TIME.

But the point is that you can't possibly know who has additional needs, hence the discussion around hidden disabilities, which you seem to see as derailing the thread.

Anyway, most of the spaces do have an age limit - children under 12 near me. No reason to change it to children under 5 as far as I'm concerned. It's all arbitrary in any case.

Wherever they set the age limit, some people will be unhappy. And you will always get people without children using the spaces. You won't have any way of knowing whether or not they have hidden disabilities so why make such a big deal out of it?

If we just got rid of these silly spaces, people would no longer need to feel aggrieved.

I mean, the P&C spaces at 4 supermarkets I can think of are pretty far away from the entrance you can get and nowhere near the trolleys. Only one doesn’t require crossing a “road”.

The wider spaces are there so that you can fully open the door to extract a child from a bulky car seat.

My kids (no disabilities) are 4.5 & 7 & able to do their own seatbelts up, listen to instructions, wait patiently etc and so we do usually leave them for people who need them more now, whatever age they are.

I think we should question why the standard spaces are so fuck, stupid small. Add to that the stupidly large cars people buy.

I'd vote for small cars near the door, large cars at the rear 😁

Honestly Op there's better things to get upset about. I parked in them with over 5's because I have a small hatchback which has long doors. Children can't get out without smashing into the car next-door in a standard space. When I had a baby, I leaned over picked her up and slid here into my sling. I would park and walk.

From your diagram it looks as though you had a P&C space. And I don’t understand how it’s difficult to walk across a carpark holding a baby?

Though I do think that people who park in those spaces without kids are the living worst.

What annoys me most is when people with NO CHILDREN AT ALL park in these spaces