To be annoyed at being told to be considerate of disabled people

[DefendingPan]

This sign was in the disabled toilet in a restaurant (which is also the only baby change in the restaurant).

What’s the point of this sign? What might parents be doing that they will stop after reading this?

I appreciate that was your intention in your post; though if you state in the title of your post the statement that you are 'annoyed at being told to be considerate of disabled people' that is liable to being taken at face value.

Yes, why should parents do a thing when they can just benefit from disabled people having fought for decades to get what they need?

How would they even word such a thing, without looking silly?

Oh, it’s just all so complicated and effortful, isn’t it? Parents should just be allowed to keep on using other people’s provisions, they can’t possibly be expected to fight for anything, the poor dears.

This thread is so depressing. People should be thanking their stars that disabled people fighting for so long has led to facilities being created that they can use without a single complaint. Instead, they consider themselves entitled to them at the expense of the disabled and all that fighting, and mock the suggestion that they do anything to help themselves.

i frequent a pub in Manchester. There is one accessible toilet at ground level next to the bar, it requires a radar key to open, and remains locked and you have to ask the bar staff for access.

The other toilets are up a steep staircase on the upper floors.

You know who uses that accessible toilet the most? the bar staff, as their personal staff loo.

I have a radar key, so i don't need to ask the bar staff for access, what i do have to do is have a friend guard the door because the staff keep trying to let themselves in to the fucking toilet while i'm in there.

They have no need to use that loo, they do it out of convenience.

This is the shit and lack of dignity we have to put up with when people think its their personal easy-use toilet.

And are you still annoyed by the sign?

All of this. Frankly I don't know whether to laugh or cry at the suggestion that there are plenty of available disabled toilets and accessing them is not a problem in practice. Maybe that is the reason why so many people try the door & try to barge in when we are using it with my DS, they assume it is always going to be empty.

That’s not quite right though
Post war, with suddenly lots of disabled people, it became apparent many people couldn’t even get into buildings let alone find a bathroom
Architect Selwyn Goldsmith ( who became disabled I think through polio ) wrote an article re designing for the disabled and it became a go to re access for architects and eventually legislators.
Toilets were part of that ( plus ramps. Lifts etc ) but were never exclusive. The problem started when others with access issues also pointed out they needed to use disabled toilets but felt they weren’t allowed to as the signs were confusing. So, therefore,in order to make availablitity equal for all including people with additional access issues and those with unseen disabilities the terminology was changed as the term disabled or ( in some cases handicapped ) was deemed unacceptable or / and not inclusive.

So This was to aid inclusivity for the good of all.

Interms of radar keys a lot of councils introduced them because disabled toilets, which remained open at night, were being abused by sex workers and particularly drug users.

Babies are not able bodied. They are incontinent and need prams to get around so their caregivers will need accessible spaces. Ideally all cubicles would be larger but space doesn't always allow so some facilities need to be shared.
I'm not sure mothers with young babies have the spare time to campaign for better facilities exclusive to them.
No baby should be left unattended outside a cubicle for obvious reasons.
Mums shouldn't have to go to the toilet with their cubicle door open.
Not all have support networks to take care of their children while they go shopping plus its not inclusive to say babies should stay at home.
Not all mums can use slings especially if they have shopping and toddlers too.
I say this as someone who has worked with disabled people for many years and had disabled parent in a wheelchair. Also its not only parents who are inconsiderate and leave a mess, anyone, including disabled people do that too.
I wouldn't begrudge a mum alone with a pram using the larger toilet or the baby change facilities. Since when did people think they have exclusive use of any facility and never have to queue.
I find peoples attitudes in this country towards babies and mothers quite upsetting. No-one has said that disabled people shouldn't have an accessible toilet but no-one is exempt from sharing or queuing.
And its not comparable to men wanting to be in women's bathrooms. Babies are a vulnerable group and need to be kept safe with their caregivers.

Disabled charities have recently asked for additional facilities but it was one individual who set the ball in motion. Not all disabled people
I’m sorry but this so-called fighting for so long is just not true

One disabled architect on a mission ….

The wider issue here is the lack of public toilets full stop.

All councils and local government and/or (partly) tax-payer funded facilities (like leisure centres and railway stations) should offer toilets.

They should offer normal toilets, changing places toilets and accessible toilets.

Woking station is an example - it has loads of loos!.

Most leisure centres have enough space to offer enough loos.

So do most shopping centres - most of them are half empty these days! Take a unit and convert it to accessible toilets.

And all car parks should have toilets too (assuming above a certain size/number of spaces).

Mothers and babies are treated with contempt on mn.

@yipyipyop strangely they are.

try being a disabled mother with a disabled child.

and they're not treated with contempt, they're just reminded that everyone elses world does not revolve around them, their baby and their PFB behaviour.

I’m not sure I agree parents are benefiting from disabled facilities as a direct consequence of the introduction of disabled loos.

Changing facilities can and so sometimes exist outside of the disabled loos - I’d say that is more to do with encouraging the custom of Mothers and is a conscious decision not an accident. Take supermarkets. A mother with her average 2.4 children has the biggest average spend so those are the shoppers food retailers want to attract - that’s why you see mother and baby parking spaces and car seat friendly trollies. It’s nothing to do with being considerate, aside from being considerate to the extent it gains custom. On that basis I don’t agree that if disabled facilities didn’t exist neither would changing facilities and parents have “piggy backed” rather businesses have realised they can kill two birds with one stone. That’s what I meant by families and kids being good customers many pages ago.

That people are actually equating their needs as a mother wanting to change their baby's nappy, with our needs when my late husband was in a wheelchair with his stoma bag leaking, is making me not know whether to yell in anger, or cry.

If a mum had demanded to go first, I suspect he'd never have left the house again.

Absolutely nobody has suggested a mother should demand to go first. This scenario resurfaces every few posts and that opinion has not been expressed on this thread.

Although I will add that having a new baby and the logistics of leaving the house is difficult for many mothers and it’s a prime time for them to become isolated and depressed.

Please don't risk equating the experience of managing a new baby with the situation @saraclara has described, that is just too much. And don't deny that disabled people are faced with this very scenario....and fear it happening again which believe me is almost as bad.

I’m not - but is totally disingenuous to suggest that having a new baby isn’t also challenging and for many mothers it’s an isolating time. Neither group should feel excluded. Although I wet myself more than once in public with a new baby owing to a difficult birth (and have ongoing urgency and incontinence issues) so I have experienced similar humiliation though from a different cause.

You did though.

Again, i remind you, i'm a parent, and i'm also disabled.. and trust me, getting out and about as a new mother with a baby was not nearly as difficult as having to plan my day when i need a wheelchair.

Not even planning my day as an abled parent with a disabled child (yes, done that too) compared to how difficult it is to get anywhere now.

you keep saying you don't believe that parenting is harder, or that they take priority, but then in the next breath do exactly that, and once again make an argument from the parents point of view.

I don't understand. You're not supporting the disabled, you're just proving, despite your personal experiences as a carer, that you think mothers with babies are more important than the disabled.

What's pfb behaviour? Not leaving your defenceless baby unattended outside of a cubicle or wanting to change your babies soiled nappy isn't pfb behaviour. It's basic care and safeguarding of a vulnerable person.

I’ve no doubt that navigating public spaces with a wheelchair user is incredibly difficult. My niece uses a wheelchair but (mood dependent) can get in and out herself so it’s not the same as someone who isn’t able to support themselves standing at all.

I think both parents and the disabled and anyone who falls into both categories should be accommodated and should be treated with respect and dignity. Neither groups presence should serve to exclude the other.

Absolutely nobody is denying that being the mother of a new baby is challenging.....but it is not the responsibility of disabled people or their carers to alleviate that.

You denied that anyone has said that mothers should demand priority over the disabled trying to use their own facility; that is disingenuous when there has been post after post on here suggesting that people with their own specific needs need to 'rub along' with each other. I know from personal experience that this doesn't work and the disadvantaged minority group comes off worse.

You then implied that there is some kind of parity of need between them, 'mothers have it hard too'. A poster above has even directly suggested this by helpfully reminding us that babies are immobile & incontinent. As the parent of a DS who was once a baby and is now a severely disabled adult, I utterly refute that there is any kind of parity of need & frankly am deeply offended and disappointed that on MN I need to state this obvious truth.

Wholeheartedly agree. But the present system doesn’t support that, and that’s the problem.

Mother and child parking spaces are a concession and not subject to legal enforcement.

Nonsense. Sorry but it’s so obvious that you’ve had a quick google. Those of us who have lived this journey and been part of the fight for our rights know different.

It doesn’t need to be suggested. Those of us who have lived experience know it happens. An able bodied mother leaving the house absolutely does NOT compare with the planning needed to get a profoundly disabled person out and about. You say you have been a carer yourself. Haven’t learned much from it have you ?