......to expect that people without children have the common decency to NOT park in the 'parent and toddler' bays!!!???

[Heebychick]

Grrrrrrrrr!

It drives ('scuse the pun) me mad when you have a toddler on your hip, it's pouring with rain, you are pregnant, have bags and purse to hand and have to park at the opposite end of the supermarket car park and make a wobbled dash to the shops.

Then as you run past the 'parent and toddler' marked bays you notice some lazy sod who 'didn't want to get wet running to the cash point so decided a parent and toddler bay would be easier'

"i'll only be a minute love, i'm just getting some cash out and it's raining"

ARGHHHHHH!!!

"i'm only about to slash your tyres .... LOVE"

Ok rant over, calm thoughts.

thats what i think trillian. if is such a huge task to walk a few hundred metres how can you even contemplate negotiating your way through the fruit and veg section.

I certainly would never have complained at someone heavily pregnant using the parent and child spaces, nor someone disabled using them if all the disabled spaces were full.

I do think that there's an attitude amongst some in society that we've chosen to have our children so why should we get any special help - which seems pretty selfish to me. I have even heard of people who will deliberately park in the parent and child spaces just to make a point. Fair enough, but they'll have to forgive the parent who bangs the car door into their car whilst struggling to put a child into a childseat!

Well, it's easier if you don't get the trolley from the other side of the car park, but get it from outside the store. As to holding 3 small children, pretty much the same as you hold onto them in any other public space...By the scruff of the neck

I think Stroppyknickers said she was just going to the coffee shop to meet her NCT group, right?

i agree with SSG - there is a real section of the working population (mainly women IME) that DO dislike the special treatment given to mums... When I worked, there was a big feeling in the female workforce that we didn't have kids, so why did we have to pay for those who do etc etc. I am sure feelings like that are worse in times of recession.

Old person, possibly blue-badge holder, fed up with all the people with kids pinching the disabled spots, finds no disabled places, so decides to part in P & T space. Children are basically a life-style choice, disability isn't.

God, I will never understand how anyone can leave their kids in the car, out of sight.

I can just about leave DS in the car on a petrol station forecourt to go and pay.

sorry, that's a different thread completely isn't it????

"

have bags and purse to hand and have to park at the opposite end of the supermarket car park "

hmm i always thought it was the space needed not the convenience?or has that all been a subtle distraction ploy?

i park in them if theres no other spaces available (without kids), but i don't go out of my way to park in them like some seem to do.

jee - I'm a blue badge holder and I still wouldn't park in a p&t spot without a T! Because I hate to find disabled spaces taken and go bonkers if they are misused, if I then turned round and misused a p&t space - it would make me a great steaming hypocrite, wouldn't it?

I think that if a disabled person, who cannot get out of their car without the wider spaces, can't get a disabled spot they are completely entitled to a P & T space. I do see your view though, Hecate.

It's always middle aged very polished looking women at ours. My Dad thinks that I should tackle them on it every time I shop, but I just don't have the energy.

Very annoying I'm sure.

Wonder how our parents managed

But, Jeee, I can PROMISE you that those 'executives' in their sports cars feel entitled to jump into disabled and P&T spaces 'because of the taxes they pay' - and they too will often quote the 'lifestyle choice' of parents (In fact, I've actually heard that chucked at disabled people too... it was, apparently, a lifestyle choice to leave the house )

One larger supermarket I use occasionally has come up with a good idea though: The spaces for parents are larger and close to the store, but they take quite a bit longer to DRIVE to (and there are bollards to stop illegal turns)... so you really WANT to park there, to make the extra effort to drive over there (and equally extra time to get out of the car park)

I think that's a good idea, but obv. wouldn't work in smaller places.

Our parents didn't live in a world with so many cars though, did they? My Mum did the shopping on foot at the local shop. She didn't have to wrestle a car seat out of a car trying not to dent the one next to it.

Does this include those with three teenagers?I saw at tescos car park the other day?

Snap hedgewitch.

I agree re disabled badge holders parking where they can to gain access to the store, their need to have a larger space is a 'must have' surely?

As for the space being near the entrance to gain convenience, it's more of the carrying a heavy toddler (who can't walk) when pregnant and it's raining that is the issue, when the spaces for P&T at this particular store were right close by (as they usually are) to stop the wet dragging of small children across a busy car park. I wouldn't mind where they were, although i do think they should be in a safe area if possible (i.e close to the walk way into the shop for example?) the space and safety aspect should surely be the primary concerns when placing these spaces.

hedgewitch - this is what prompted my outburst on MN, the guy parking in the bay was right next to a 20 min loading bay and was waiting for his partner to get money - he stayed in the car.

Nice to have a debate, i don't think it's a god given right for P&T to be available, just that it might be nice if you are a driver and you have the option of parking in a normal space then maybe think twice about taking up a P&T space.

I'm a bit sensitive about the disability thing. My sister was disabled - a wheelchair user, and needed the wider space to get out of her car. All too often the spaces were all used up, meaning that she couldn't get out. I chose to have my DC (and know that I am really lucky to have them), and don't actually care that much if non-parents use the P& T places. My sister, on the other hand, didn't choose to be disabled (though from various comments about the benefits disabled people get - a blue badge, for god's sake, that makes it ok to be in a wheelchair...), and shouldn't be excluded from things as simple as going to a supermarket because of it. Mind you, I always got dirty looks at the supermarket. People would watch me loading up my DC into her car, not realising she'd already got in. I would slink red-faced into the car, desperate to say that we weren't abusing the space, honest, guv.

Did anyone else on here ever get stuck in their car when pg? I think this may have been pre-p&T spaces, but I (on a few occassions!) couldn't get out of the car when pg unless it was WIDE, but found it much easier once dd was born, as I had an isofix seat that you could take out and just click back in-not as faffy or fiddly as a toddler seat with straps.

no , they are twats

People just couldn't care less is my experience.

They either don't know or don't remember what it's like to be pg or have small children and they just think me me me.
That's our society now pure and simple, most people couldn't care less