Whoa! I am apparently not disabled enough (even when I was in a wheelchair) to have a blue badge. I went through hell and high water during both pregnancies, all down to my ME/CFS, morning noon and night sickness, and with my 1st also had gestational diabetes to cope with. However, I now have two beautiful healty children. We do need wider spaces than other car-park users, as we have to get children out of baby seats (or booster seats - legal requirement upto age 12), and sometimes one or the other can throw a strop - not often, as they've been bought up how my parents bought me up, and understand bad behaviour has consequences, but the littlest one (who will be a proper little madam when she grows up) is just starting the terrible twos, pushing the boundaries to see how far she can get.
All this is fairly academic though, as it's well worth the £3.50 to £5 for the ASDA man to deliver my main monthly shop, so I don't really need to drag the kids round and fill the two trolleys I need to feed my family for a month, I get the nice ASDA bloke to do it, then all I need to do is dash out for bread, milk, fruit and veg once a week. So even though we might look fit, some Mums are anything but. A friend of mine had cancer (oesophagus and stomach), she's regularly in hospital as she gets stomach acid in her lungs and gets lots of lung infections.
The thing that really annoys me, having been a wheelchair user, and pushing my late Father-in-Law in a wheelchair around Tescos (when I was well), is the bone idle folk who just use the space nearest the door cos they're popping in for fags or a lottery ticket. It doesn't matter to them that there are people that really need these spaces, as they are so selfish. My only consolation is if they're popping in for fags, they'll end up in a wheelchair with an oxygen bottle on board later on in life.
Don't get me started on the bone idle parents who live 5 minutes from the school, but insist on dropping off their little darlings in the car. Even with my ME/CFS I ALWAYS walk to school with the little ones, my son on foot, my daughter in the pushchair (it's something to lean on sometimes!) I know of parents that have bugger all wrong with them, who live nearer to school than me, who put their little darlings into school, meaning I have to take my life into my hands crossing the road with the pushchair, as they all expect to park on the school doorstep to let their offspring out. Sorry, but if you have to drive your kids to school, then they're at the wrong school, they should be at their nearest primary.
There's another hot issue for the rants thread -cars and schools. There's a scrum at schools morning and evening - teachers' cars, parents' cars, school buses and, at secondary schools, sixth formers' cars. There are yellow lines to prevent parents from obstructing the way into the school but they park there anyway. Often, parents drive their kids to school because they believe that it is dangerous for them to walk, or simply because it is raining. It is dangerous to have so many cars, even with the usual 30 mph limit near a school. But it is another sign of the times - people are busy and they want to do things the fastest way. Really, schools should be built with space for parental parking and also for school buses to pick up the children in safety. It is too expensive, or the school building is from another era.
My Son's school is down a tiny side road - so the yellow markings are down there. None on the road in the estate that I have to cross over with the pushchair, think it will be a matter of time before someone's child gets knocked over there. Just hope it's not me, or more likely the pushchair - I try to pop my head out before I cross, but it's such a scrum there in the morning.
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Whoa! I am apparently not disabled enough (even when I was in a wheelchair) to have a blue badge. I went through hell and high water during both pregnancies, all down to my ME/CFS, morning noon and night sickness, and with my 1st also had gestational diabetes to cope with. However, I now have two beautiful healty children. We do need wider spaces than other car-park users, as we have to get children out of baby seats (or booster seats - legal requirement upto age 12), and sometimes one or the other can throw a strop - not often, as they've been bought up how my parents bought me up, and understand bad behaviour has consequences, but the littlest one (who will be a proper little madam when she grows up
) is just starting the terrible twos, pushing the boundaries to see how far she can get.
All this is fairly academic though, as it's well worth the £3.50 to £5 for the ASDA man to deliver my main monthly shop, so I don't really need to drag the kids round and fill the two trolleys I need to feed my family for a month, I get the nice ASDA bloke to do it, then all I need to do is dash out for bread, milk, fruit and veg once a week. So even though we might look fit, some Mums are anything but. A friend of mine had cancer (oesophagus and stomach), she's regularly in hospital as she gets stomach acid in her lungs and gets lots of lung infections.
The thing that really annoys me, having been a wheelchair user, and pushing my late Father-in-Law in a wheelchair around Tescos (when I was well), is the bone idle folk who just use the space nearest the door cos they're popping in for fags or a lottery ticket. It doesn't matter to them that there are people that really need these spaces, as they are so selfish. My only consolation is if they're popping in for fags, they'll end up in a wheelchair with an oxygen bottle on board later on in life.
Don't get me started on the bone idle parents who live 5 minutes from the school, but insist on dropping off their little darlings in the car. Even with my ME/CFS I ALWAYS walk to school with the little ones, my son on foot, my daughter in the pushchair (it's something to lean on sometimes!) I know of parents that have bugger all wrong with them, who live nearer to school than me, who put their little darlings into school, meaning I have to take my life into my hands crossing the road with the pushchair, as they all expect to park on the school doorstep to let their offspring out. Sorry, but if you have to drive your kids to school, then they're at the wrong school, they should be at their nearest primary.
Rant over.
There's another hot issue for the rants thread -cars and schools. There's a scrum at schools morning and evening - teachers' cars, parents' cars, school buses and, at secondary schools, sixth formers' cars. There are yellow lines to prevent parents from obstructing the way into the school but they park there anyway. Often, parents drive their kids to school because they believe that it is dangerous for them to walk, or simply because it is raining. It is dangerous to have so many cars, even with the usual 30 mph limit near a school. But it is another sign of the times - people are busy and they want to do things the fastest way. Really, schools should be built with space for parental parking and also for school buses to pick up the children in safety. It is too expensive, or the school building is from another era.
My Son's school is down a tiny side road - so the yellow markings are down there. None on the road in the estate that I have to cross over with the pushchair, think it will be a matter of time before someone's child gets knocked over there. Just hope it's not me, or more likely the pushchair - I try to pop my head out before I cross, but it's such a scrum there in the morning.