This annoys me so much/ parking.....

[anniebear]

why do people argue that it is just as hard getting NT children/babies out of a car in a supermarket as it is getting a disabled child out or a disabled person getting out (depending on their disability of course)

and that M&B spaces are just as important?

I know they are important but not as important as disabled spaces

Just having a slight disagreement with a good friend on a small forum I go on and never to rant a little on here

Having had 3 NT children under 3 (they are now 14, 13 and 11) and one severely disabled child (3) I'd say there was no comparision. When I had a car it wasn't that hard getting the double buggy out the back, sticking the two youngest into it and clamping the eldest to the side with strict 'don't run away' instructions. I did think ita pain at the time but now I struggle with the wheelchair and a child having muscle spasms I look back and think what a wuss I must have been! Those with one NT child have a breeze!
I'm fully expecting to be flamed now and told car parks 10 years ago were safer than they are now etc etc. Not so. When we didn't have a car we caught the bus. Baby under one arm, double buggy folded, 18 month old holding leg and 3 yo held in place by a hard stare. Or we walked the 2 miles into town (I had a flat stomach back then from that! Great Malvern is hilly). The 3yo walked. Not like todays kids who appear to be in buggys till6 or so.
Number 4's wheelchair weighs more than a double buggy and 2 kids combined. Getting it onto a bus is a nightmare and I'm considering getting a wheelchair accessible vehicle.
People are a bit wussy nowadays mayhap?

There is a difference anniebear, from the age of about 2 I could say to ds1(nt) jump out. he would get out of the car himself & walk in to the shop nicely holding my hand & walk around the supermarket.
DS2 still has to be lifted out & put into his major buggy - the bigger they are the wider the door needs to be open. ds1 normally pushes the trolley.
Personally the nearer the door the better for me it means on the way out I don't have to help ds1 (7) negotiate moving cars with a full trolley while I'm pushing ds2 for the entire length of the car park.

Surely the people who put that argument don't have a disabled child.

no comparison. up and till recently I had to lift an 11 year old out of the car. you can not compare that to getting a baby/toddler out of a car end of story.especial when you consider she can suddenly kick out or extend with no warning and not by choice,
I think the trouble is we all think we have it hardest even if our child is nt. I know this from comments my bil has made about respite "oh how I would love that" duh your kids go out to play, to friend houses and can go to the toilet by them selves.

Maybe no-one appreciates what they have until it changes. I didn't appreciate how life was with my older 3. The whole walking and talking thing. Now I have number 4 who can't move or speak I look back and wish I'd tried to enjoy the others toddler years more.
Your perspective changes according to where you stand I imagine. I have a friend who's child is missing one toe so needs shoes of different sizes. Lots of complaining there about expensive shoes and time. Often after I've explained we need to raise 2 grand for some piece of equipment or another or been exhausted from 6 hours of hospital appointments or yet another seizure. In the end I prefer to hang out with SN mums because they understand.

Just come back from seeing my cousin and his 2 NT (very lovely) children. It's a different world, but how would they even know??

I just dont get why people have to make out that thye have it just as hard with NT children

I know they can't appreciated how difficult it can be having a child with SN but some poeple just have to make anything you say, the same as them

I HATE the "Oh we are like that with our DD"

But their DD is 2 and healthy, mine is 6 this year and has SN

I posted something the other week similar and I know people may just be trying to be kind by saying its the same for them

But soemtiems you just dont want to hear it do you!?

i know what you mean as it is not the same. my sil once said it was the same for her with bathing.......ffs her son can now bathe himself. I will still be bathing dd when she is 40.
also the difficulties you have in life with an nt child are short lived where as with an sn child unless you are very lucky never change just get harder and harder.

have to add though i hate it when I am made out to be some kind of hero because I look after my own chid.

Hey 2shoes. I'll still be changing nappies when DD2 is 40 as well. Feels very scary and I feel very depressed about it today. Everyone else seems to go out, go on holiday, have things to look forward too and heck, have friends. I spend all day staring at a quadraplegic. So when someone moans about a NT child I don't feel my heart bleeding for them!

know the feeling the sheer routine of it all gets me. the thought that this is it..no change just harder...then................

she smiles and laughs

Yes 2shoes, I often think that I will be brushing someone else's teeth for the rest of my life.... and then someone else (who?) will have to do it. DD (NT) can be a little bugger but its really just so much easier. She's only just 4 but I can ask her to do so many things easily that are meaningless to DS.

yep 2shoes and Davros and boba- it's that "Ill still be doing this when he's 40" that gets to me like nothing else. He can say ear and eye now (as of 2 days ago -hoorah) but I'll still be wiping his bum/cleaning teeth/bathing/puttig to bed/geting dressed/preparing food/deciding where he needs to live/ etc etc when he's 40 and I'm 68.

(hello davros long time no see)
wow we have really cheered ourselves up

I'm going to have to add to this - the title caught my eye and Gess will know why (PS... anything back yet?)
I realise that there is sadly a minority out there that have the view that you report Annie. The majority, however, do (surely?) understand that having an NT child can not be compared to having a SN child, and a large part is an attempt to empathise in some way (I realise I may be wrong here, but I can hope!).

I do feel strongly, in terms of the whole M & B parking debacle (I was going to write debate there and changed my mind!), that the majority of the bile is spouted because the indiscriminate parking that goes off in M&B spaces is a reflection of the ignorance inherent in society and as such is the root of the anger. Disabled spaces comes into it, usually because some absolute ignoramus has parked there because they can't be arsed to walk as opposed to having a need for them, thus displacing a disabled person into the much needed spaces within a suitable distance of the store. (I'm all for sticking the M&B spaces at the back with safe access to the store, but I know the reasons that will never happen so you are going to have to harden yourself to parking threads!)

I guess what I am trying to say/add/blather on about is that I don't feel that many people who moan about M&B spaces being as important as disabled spaces really mean that. I think that they mean that the misuse of M&B spaces is as ignorant as the misuse of disabled spaces and do realise that the end result is not the same.

There is a chance I think too highly of people too...

i just feel the need to polich my halo - i have one dd who is 3.8 & i only use the m&b spaces if there are plenty around as i just don't feel my needs justify them! [preen]
well, i am an angel!

actually, the point of that was just to show how not everyone has silly attitudes, and i would NEVER park in a disabled parking space without FIL, who has a badge.