Like others I think partly worsening attitudes to disabled people, which is definitely a thing, has a lot to do with the last government’s appalling scapegoating of people with disabilities and encouragement of “woke culture wars” to distract from the absolute carnage they inflicted on the economy and U.K. as a whole. I would also agree that people in general in the U.K. are getting more selfish, and more individualistic rather than community-minded over the past few decades (I personally think the decline of Christianity in the U.K. as well as an increase in capitalistic thinking are responsible for this) and that change was undoubtably made worse by an individualistic ideology in government for over a decade as well as the more recent pandemic situation, where people naturally started to worry most about themselves and their immediate family or those closest to them emotionally. The huge societal changes in neurodiversity and poor mental health, which historically would not have been seen as disabilities except the most severely affected, has contributed also (and for neurodiversity this extends to increased diagnosis also). Hidden disabilities are being much more recognised than previously but the older generations in particular don’t necessarily accept these as what they really and truly consider a “real” disability due to the rapid pace of social change.
There has been a huge pace of sociocultural and economic change taking place in the past decade or so in our society, which has an impact, and I don’t think this is being talked about enough. The pandemic accelerated trends already happening to a huge degree so we have had very rapid change happening. The impact of the pandemic itself on all of our psyches has been completely swept under the carpet to an astonishing degree, there seems to be an unspoken agreement that we should just pretend it never happened which is ridiculous. And although I agree as a country we are not “starving”, the truth is that although the super-wealthy are fine, much of the country is actually “starving”. Maybe not literally, which is only thanks to the multitude of food banks we now have which were not previously necessary, but basic public services for nearly everything have been cut to the bone and are not functioning well, and almost everyone’s quality of life has reduced with the cost of living crisis, plus stress levels have gone up as just meeting our basic needs is increasingly difficult, let alone being able to access the small luxuries we used to take for granted. This definitely means there is a sense of scarcity which always creates panic and selfish behaviour (remember the toilet roll crisis during COVID?), but I think it’s silly to say that the scarcity isn’t real even though I agree perhaps we should also all be “counting our blessings” a little more and recognise that at least we are not living in Gaza etc.
When I first had a baby and went out on the buses with a buggy I was shocked to discover that we are supposed to somehow “share” the wheelchair space on buses. In my oblivious previous life, I’d simply never thought about it or noticed the problem. That’s a ridiculous thing which just pits 2 groups of people in need against each other. I agree in a head-on clash the person in a wheelchair clearly needs the space more, but the point is, it would be so much better if buses were built to accommodate both groups ie have a space for both. Especially given they can now put those fold up seats in so if they aren’t being used, it’s not like seats are lost. That whole clash only happens because of actual scarcity of those spaces.
Regarding the original post this didn’t even happen in the U.K. anyway I think, but in some other countries attitudes to disability are even worse. Unfortunately OP it’s easy to miss the odd tube or wire unless you are looking closely, especially if you are an older person with poor eyesight. Plus in some other countries there are those that still would not regard a child with such things as disabled unless they are literally in a wheelchair. I’m not justifying that, just stating a fact, in some countries particularly for older generations, if you are not in a wheelchair you are not disabled end of. Given that this woman went to the extent of removing the disability sticker it suggests to me that she had a serious problem with that “label” being applied to your kids unfortunately. I’m sorry this happened to you, it’s shit.
I really hope somehow that things are going to change for the better in the future in the U.K. at least. A lot of progress HAS been made when looked at through some lenses, in terms of “official” channels there is much more recognition of disability (though sad to read that in so many cases just lip service is being paid to it in reality in terms of wheelchair accessible spaces etc in this day and age), but the general public aren’t totally on board with it it seems. I agree with others though that from my age (Xennial) and below the attitudes towards disability are in general more encouraging and less extreme. The youngest generations (Z and alpha) are I think generally amazingly understanding of disability and considerate of others, even if they sometimes in my opinion misunderstand nuanced situations and can be too dogmatic in their thinking. And we now have a new government. So there is hope for the future.