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?

You obv do if you think a small business with no space but making an effort to include accessible facilities and baby change to increase their audience and income - is working against you. Yes, being disabled sucks - but so does being poor and not affording food or heating like 80% of the world outside the UK, being homeless, growing up with abusive parents, being infertile, being old and vulnerable and alone, being the victim of sexual assault and civil war, having nerve pain which can't be fixed with any medicine, having a terminal disease. And the list goes on - there's many ways to live which are isolating and difficult that aren't visible.

There are MANY groups who have a difficult life and no, they're not all catered for by every establishment and organisation. I understand being disabled is not an easy life, but please don't act like you have it worse than absolutely everyone else because of it.

Do you actually know it's parents that do this? I find that it happens absolutely everywhere, including at my work which isn't a place where children ever are. I agree it's infuriating but I'm not sure it is something parents specifically are doing.

No it’s not. A larger cubicle within a standard facility of other smaller cubicles can be used by either disabled people or those who need more room. That’s an accessible facility. Stand alone disabled toilet rooms which are separate from the standard facilities are not. They are for the use of disabled people only.

Is there any reason why parents don't actually lobby for parent and child toilets instead of using disabled facilities?

Our local shopping centre does have a parent and child toilet. The local hospital has changing areas in both male and female toilets

Nah - it's just saying this is primarily a disabled toilet and baby cha ge facility. So all you able bodied people / non baby changers, please dont come and spend ages pissing and crapping in a toilet facility not primarily in existence for you

In any event you can be sure it’s not disabled people who are doing it.

Agree. What an appalling post.

This has to be one of the most frustrating things about the theatre - people avoiding the huge ladies queue and 'nipping in' to the disabled - worse still sending a gaggle of tweens in together who don't realise a disabled person may be waiting to use the only loo they can access ..
Same at theme parks usually - oh they'll be quick, says the parents of the little darling while I wait there feeling desperate 🙄

What a load of ignorant and offensive bullshit. Why would you come on a thread mainly about disability issues and post like this ?

Maybe it means don’t stop and breastfeed ? Though I don’t know what the set up is, we have a large one at a shopping centre in Aus with chairs sectioned off for breastfeeding.

@Persianpaws I've been in a situation where I ended up with poo literally all over me due to not being able to access a baby change room fast enough when mine was a newborn - baby wasn't embarrassed but I sure was! That's life though, I didn't blame the people in the queue ahead of me or expect them to make way for me. What if your friend had to wait for other disabled users without bowel and kidney issues, would you have yelled at them for not letting her through first? Yes of course everyone should be considerate and not faff about unnecessarily in the toilets while others are waiting and ideally there would be separate changing facilities and disabled facilities everywhere but I don't think it's reasonable to expect to never have to wait for a public toilet.

I think that is not what the poster was implying at all. If they are unable to provide a toilet that someone in a wheelchair, for instance can use, then why should a person in a wheelchair patronise them?

I imagine it’s there because there have been disputes in the past about who takes precedence. Similar to people thinking their buggy takes precedence over a wheelchair user on a bus.

Ridiculous response.
40 years ago when I had my ds there were no facilities for changing babies nappies, no mother and baby parking spaces, not even child car seats.
I’m delighted that things are better for parents now but yes you are coming over as entitled.
An able bodied parent can manage a dc in most situations whereas a disabled person absolutely requires special facilities to function equally in society.

This. Childbirth is a choice. Disability isn’t. 🙄

Some of the responses on this thread are exactly why disabled people can never expect anything better than the dreadful facilities they have and if they dare to they will be swotted right back to their rightful place…at the bottom of the heap.

Maybe the sign is there for parents with older kids not baby changing?

I'm disabled. Lots of kids (and adults) who are capable of using non-disabled toilets do not do so. They just jump in the nearest toilet out of laziness.

That might be the only toilet in a whole building that a disabled person can use and we are having to hold in our pee waiting for someone to come out who is able to use the multiple toilets available to them but we can't go anywhere else.

Yes I know disabilities can be non-visible (mine are non visible) but if you can use another toilet you should do so.

You're just showing that you don't get it. I hope you never have to.

Thats not the case at all.
Legally anyone can use them
Its not the same as a disabled parking space
It’s not against any laws to use them and when calculating facility requirements for the purposes of building regs all toilet facilities are included in the calcs.
Its a misunderstanding to think accessible toilets are just for disabled people.

There are lots of injustices in this world but don’t pit one group against another. I have disability in my family and know first hand how very difficult it is for them to access places everyone else takes for granted. I’d like to think we are a society who wants to create equal access to all. I’ve been a victim of sexual assault but I still consider the needs of those who are less able than I am. The two aren’t comparable frankly. It’s not a competition.

I know it's parents in a lot of facilities, and I'm sure it isnt exclusively parents too. I used to run an infant feeding group in a family centre so we would get people in multiples, lots of children, babies, toddlers and yes it is definitely parents in those settings. I've had to do a lot of gentle reminding, and putting up signage. Been told but it might catch on pram wheels, that their little one likes to grab things, that they make them too interesting by making them red. You name it, I've heard it.

I've also been shopping with my friend and her 3 kids and she's come out of the disabled toilets saying how it's fucking stupid that they leave the alert cables around for kids to grab a hold of, and I've had to tell her she's completely missed the point of accessibility and gone in after her and unwound it.

Before that I worked in a shopping centre and found the same sorts of attitudes, and I think a general ignorance that not many people understand WHY the cable is long, red, and in an easily grabbable place. Except in shopping centres the general toilets are usually placed next to the disabled so you don't get as many people using those facilities because they're lazy, but usually because they're disabled, have children and babies or both. Especially in our corner of the centre because in a rather inaccessible architectural way, the disabled facilities were the last down the corridor. Whoever designed those toilets didn't really think about those with mobility issues at all.

And lord knows if you've ever been to the disabled toilets in a mcdonalds it's like someone's tried to play cats cradle, every single time.

So yeah I was probably being a bit hyperbolic, I'm not saying it's just parents but there are a lot of parents out there that feel their temporary comfort outweighs the genuine safeguarding needs of disabled people in these shared facilities.

It’s clear from here and everyday occurrences that nobody has any idea how hard life it if you are in a wheelchair or have mobility issues. People walk into wheelchairs, talk only to the person they might be with who is standing, or if they must talk to a wheelchair user, they do it very loudly, because obviously they must be completely stupid. Prams in the wheelchair space on buses with the parents refusing to move and now this faux outrage and head tilting over a sign that says, well you all know EXACTLY what the sign means, if you are able bodied then give the fuck over, you have it a million times easier than life for the disabled!

Quite. But we're being put in our place. It's nothing new.

Unless my ds had a poo blowout I wouldn't use baby change facilities. They're so gross. If you're out for an hour or so you can change before/after

Well having a changing station in the womans toilet is completely useless for my husband.

I guess I sometimes get judged by a load of yii for going into the disabled toilet with my 4 year old. We are going in because I need a toilet with a sink to meet my own medical needs but guess a percentage of you are too busy judging me presuming I am using it for my 4 year old to consider that because a parent doesn't prevent you having other medical needs