Parent child car parking - so angry!

Marelli

I read your post and was about to regale you with when I pushed the pram back to the flat we used to live in only to find the lift was broken and I had to haul everything up 14 flights of stairs - then I thought of this:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Xe1a1wHxTyo

So I didn't mention it

elegran and others, you remind me so much of myself. I even used to tie my son's tricycle on to the pushchair handle with a strong piece of string, I can see him now pedalling furiously to keep up. And the fold-up pushchair fell backwards a few times before I learnt to balance the weight of the shopping bags hung over the handles with the weight of the baby in the buggy ...

Kept us fit though, didn't it? We didn't have a car either and I used to walk with the pram to the nearest town to do my shopping, then back home up the steepest hill in the world!

I was surprised at the general lack of sympathy with the OP. I can see why she did not want to leave a full trolley of shopping and go out to move her car.

If someone wanted to complain about where she had parked, they could have done so politely and certainly listened to any explanation offered.
I would have been furious too if I had been given a mouthful of abuse. Well, I'd probably have kicked off myself fairly early on in the interaction.

Reminds me of a couple of years ago when my DD was wrestling with the problem of a dog who had developed severe separation anxiety. She could not be left alone in the house without creating havoc and injuring herself (dog not DD).

So, desperate to pop to the supermarket for one or two essentials she put the dog in the car and left it for ten minutes whilst she shopped. When she came out a woman laid into her for leaving the dog in a car in fairly warm weather. The upshot was that it was the last straw for my DD and she took the dog to a dog's home the next day.

I used to walk to the shops, as did most young mums in my day, and we had big prams with a tray underneath, for the shopping, the youngest would be in the pram, the next sitting on a seat across the pram. and more shopping hanging from the handle, and I used to leave the youngest in the pram outside the shop! We at one time also had a dog, but that was short-lived.

Oh yes, we used to leave them outside shops, didn't we? I'd forgotten that...

petallus - several of us have in a way by pointing out that many mothers didn't go in the car to do the shopping but took the children as part of a walk and, of course, they helped with shopping . In all honesty, if I hadn't got a child with me, I wouldn't have parked in those spaces so, given the attitude of some people, it's hardly surprising nowadays that someone is laying in wait.

I used to borrow my mum's car if it was raining when the children were very small but I can still remember them getting excited if it snowed because I used to put the children in the sledge and pull them to the shops and they'd have the shopping loaded into the sledge with them. They must remember it as being great fun as my daughter did it with her children and my son suggested it with theirs (although his wife looked at him as though he was mad )

I left one of mine in the pram outside the post office once. Didn't realise until I'd walked down the hill and home that I was missing something.......
When my children were at the village school there were very few cars parked outside; I'd only drive if it was pouring with rain or if we were going off to the dentist or somewhere. The walk to school was round the harbour and through the woods - lovely. I notice now more than 20 years later that there are dozens of cars, setting down or picking up the little darlings, which is a very sad state of affairs.

Marmight - my mum said she did that with my brother

It's bliss in the school holidays isn't it - the reduction in the traffic approaching the start of school and at the end of the school day is so noticeable. Do you still have school buses in the UK? We have them here and the children can travel anywhere for 10p during school hours!

Seriously gillybob ?

If I'd had the children at the start of our marriage (that was the plan) then it would have been Shanks pony as we lived a 5min walk from the shops. We didn't get a car until 10 yrs later. I fortunately never had to use a bus with small children.
I don't remember there being M&C spaces back then.

Marelli you've just brought back memories of my two on our shopping expeditions! When we'd done the shopping, I'd pile it on to the seat of the pushchair, in the hood and on a hook on the handle. Whichever offspring I had with me had to either walk over a mile home, or I'd perch them on top of the shopping. It worked for us until the day one of the wheels didn't make it home - one bump too many down the kerb and the whole thing snapped off Trying to hold up and push a three-wheeled pushchair and toddler, plus the shopping was an experience never to be forgotten! Both of my kids still remember clinging on for dear life on the shopping trips! Happy days

Maybe supermarkets are listening to us after all. I've just been to a fairly new Aldi in Knutsford, and the parking spaces are huge.
Made my little Yaris look quite lost!

They're probably just trying to attract the 4 x 4 types, Lona, who've heard that Aldi is the new Sainsbury's!

That's right, Ana The 4x4 types have deserted our local Waitrose....WE'RE all down in Aldi stripping the shelves of £3.69 Merlot.

I have been to Aldi today and we can park our Mercedes GL quite nicely whereas M&S is a bit of a squeeze.

I went to Spain with a toddler and a baby to visit the in laws. There was a group of males golfers on the plane and when we began to disembark one of them offered to carry my toddler down the steps. When we went back to the airport for the return flight there was a display of photos of arriving passengers. There was a lovely photo of me and the children and my knight in shining armour looking just like a happy family. His golfing mates bought the photo but I bet it would have taken some explaining if his wife saw it!

I agree, carpark spaces are way too small. Everyone would have to use smart-cars to to be able to open their doors adequately within their space. The council carpark next to our primary school is appalling in that respect, and no P&C spaces either!
I am all for polite & considerate but mildly disruptive action in this respect, and like the idea of taking up 2 spaces by parking on the join line. My usual way of dealing with people who complain at what I do is to ask them to help me - usually works a treat. Like the chap who complained about the noise I made in my workshop (he works nights), so I asked him to help me insulate the roof, which he did for free, and we ended up all smiles.
Are there any campaigns on getting carparking sizes larger?

I was laughing at how this thread was getting more and more 'yes, well, all I had in Winter were clogs and a shawl' type of thing until harrigran spoiled it with talk of a Mercedes.
grandadR Do you look old and frail?I don't think asking any complainer to help me would work, sadly. Parking spaces, airline seats, you name it and it's getting smaller....... or, is it us that's getting larger? Discuss.

Its a right bu**er though if you cant get in a M&C space and then have to try to get squeeze the baby in the car seat out of the front passenger door without touching the car in the next space the weight of those car seats without the baby is incredible.

I tipped DD about 3mths old into the hood of her pram once when collecting DS from school, she ended up upside down in the hood.

Before DD was born and I had a good 35 min walk to school with 4 yr DS who was a very lazy walker, he loved the days I had shopping to do he would get a lift standing in the shopping trolley

I tried it last night on the school run, parking down the middle of two spaces, over the line, then told some of the other parents I was doing peaceful action for wider spaces in car parks. I guess I should run out some sheets that say:
"If these car parking spaces were half a meter wider I would only need one of them" or somesuch - any suggestions? (and I don't want to be the only one....).
I think actually, half a meter would be enough, for me any way. The problem is acute when you try to park between 2 SUV's or vans, both parked up to the line. I, in any case, usually park on one side of the space so I can open the door on the other.
R.

I always park over the line - because I'm sick and tired of coming back to my car to find it has been dented or scratched. I shall continue to park over the line until they make the spaces wider!