In thinking mother and baby places should not be used by those without children not pregnant etc and then laugh about it treating it as a joke!!

[2luvlyboys]

PILs park in the mother and baby space all the time as a matter of course using the fact they have a child seat in there as an excuse!! Never take my dcs shopping never why would they? That is very very unreasonable imo and makes me ! They have been challanged about it and they say they make a joke about they left the kids at home!
Observant ones will notice I put this on another thread but then thought it deserves an aibu in its own right iyswim!

Juule, I don't need advice or suggestions on how to go shopping - my point throughout has been that I believe P&C spaces serve a purpose (and have tried to explain why) and that I use them although most of the posters seem to relish in misunderstanding or misconstruing what I am saying. I don't, and will never leave, a baby or child unattended in a car. I hope all the posters on this thread will never be so hypocritical as to use a P&C space!

i have had kids whilst having no car or pc, had kids whilst having a car but no pc, had children whilst having both a car and a pc , including having a child in a wheelchair

i am in agreement with expat, chonky et al

i want to be in their gang

Gangle - i suspect you will, at some point, leave your child unattended in the car.

I was never going to give my child chocolate, or leave him to cry ever and guess what?

Try not to set yourself up on a pedestal, seriously, it makes for a very uncomfortable fall.

Gangle - if it works for you, then fine, carry on. I think if we did have P&C spaces here I'd probably use them just for the convenience factor. But I think you're missing the point that however nice and useful they might be, P&C spaces are not really necessary, they are a luxury. Just keep on using them, enjoy it and appreciate them for the luxury that they are.

Leaving a child unattended in a car is crackers - IMO.

3 children, one severely autistic (needs 2 hands to control) - believe me it is far safer to leave the children in the car. The 'always take my children and never leave them in the car' usually refers to 'child'. Toddler twins? Far safer left in a car than walking across a busy forecourt. With increasing numbers of children it gets more mad to insist they're with you to pay for petrol/fetch a trolley.

I have seen a carpark attendant get cross- a father had got his 5 year old out of the car and stood him next to him whilst he was filling the car with petrol. The attendant was saying that she had told him off about that before as the child was the right height for the petrol to splash in his eyes and children should stay in cars in petrol stations (as mine were ). She was having a right rant about people who get their children out of the car in petrol stations unnecessarily.

I did park in a P&C spot - 10 points to me. There were 2 spaces free (no disabled ones- they were all full). I have no problem using them- far easier than parking a 7 seater in a small space, not into cutting my nose off to spite my face. I don't however think it's some sort of right, or get stressed if if someone is parked there, or imagine for one moment it's like being a wheelchair user. I just park somewhere else and use my amazing things called legs and arms to transport my children safely across the car park.

3andnomore you did say:
"chonky, what I meant was parents that get annoyed about p&t issues are, in every hread about it, told to just shop online.....so, the same would go for disabled people, doesn't it...they could also shop online then."

• I was pointing out that the difference is parents have a choice - even when there are no P&T spots. They can still drive to the supermarket and do their shopping onsite if they want to. Many disabled people do not have a choice if there is no disabled spot.

OMG. Can we just ban this topic forever, please?

I know it's never happened, but what a horrible thought though, a baby being left in a car thats crashed, only to be discovered later.

Message withdrawn

I never realised that P&C parking bays was such a contentious issue!

I think they're great but instead of banning them, I would rather see all bays widened.

AFAIK, only Tesco provide disabled trolleys (those that can seat a single, older disabled child) and given that 1) there are generally only ever 2 or 3 such (working) trolleys available and 2) they are always parked near the store entrance and 3) my severely ASD ds is not eligible for a blue badge, then when I have to take him food shopping (so far, I have been able to limit this to just once this year), than I simply must park close to where the disabled trolleys are kept. Walking him to the entrance from the back of the car park is not feasible. As we all know, the bays closest to the entrance are usually always filled first so unless I get lucky and find an empty space, I will wait until a P&C bay is freed up. I cannot leave ds in the car alone for a second. He gets unbelievably distressed, kicks about, tries to get out of the car, etc. So there are some cases where P&C bays are very useful indeed.

I could not push a supermarket trolley with the weekly shop in and DD in a buggy at the same time no matter how hard i tried.

just tell the shop and they will give you a person to push your trolly round. I used to do this when asda got rid of the only trollys dd(sn) could sit it.

because it is to hard?

I struggle to steer a full trolley on its own TBH.

Really admire how you cope, dont think im physically strong enough to?

But besides the point really cause i don't have to anyway - just shocked at how well people cope with situations id be useless in

Manny- how old is your son? We qualified for a higher rate mobility (plus blue badge) once ds1 reached 5 see here. I think it would be hard before 5 for LD's. There are times when it's useful (although I don't really do shopping with ds1- I occasionally take him for 'educational purposes' - and to kill some time).

'Ban P&C spaces and put in more disabled ones.'

Well, that's OK if you happen to qualify for a blue badge but my ds does not. In fact, his very mobility is what causes him to be a danger to himself.

I still do not understand why P&C bays is such a contentious issue.

Manny - read my post above- seriously once he reaches 5 he will qualify easily- you just have to fill the form in in such a way that shows you know he qualifies. At age 5 people get stroppy if you dare to use the P&T spots anyway- never mind that your child is harder to handle than one baby.

I struggle to push the wheelchair (well Major Buggy) and a trolley, but it's either that or no shop sometimes, so I just resign myself to the shop taking longer.

Must have been looking really frazzled last week doing this at an airport(Major buggy and trolley loaded with luggage)- as a kind man offered to help. I declined, but it was lovely for someone to notice and to offer to help . Thank you whoever you are.

Ds1 would probably have qualified before 5 tbh, I think it's just harder to justify the safety side of things to them or to demonstrate the difference between disabled and NT. But the only difficult bit of the application was actually persuading the idiot person on the no helpline to send us the forms.

I'd go for higher rate mobility rather than Blue badge (then you get the blue badge anyway) for LD's - the law is quite clear- they like to ignore it but if you quote it at them (in the 'any other info' box at the end) they can't get away with ignoring it.

Think blue badges can be harder to get as you're having to deal with the council (whose 'solution' for us not being able to park outside our house was to unload ds1 and leave him by the road whilst we went off to park somewhere else - they don't really 'get' the concept of a disability that doesn't involve limited mobility).