Coming to a market near you

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P1000126.jpgI seriously laugh at the latest addition to the supermarket parking lot – the child parking spots. Since when did having children become the equivalent of being handicapped? I bet some quadriplegic driver sees this and shakes their head.

I’m sure it’s a pain in the ass sometimes to gather all the kids and such, but wasn’t this a choice?

This past weekend my family and I were talking about all the things that are different these days for kids. We had none of this shit – my mom had to drag our asses on the bus at times to get to the market – but now we have to have special parking spaces for parents.

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  • http://www.blogger.com/profile/11887977 Cyn

    Ah Spencer…spoken like a childless man.

    Personally I wish these spaces had been around when I was “with child.” I pretty much believe that these spots are primarily to be used by pregnant woman (ya know, it’s a natural state and all, but seriously, it can be pretty disabling.)

    Imagine having a beach ball sticking out in front of you…your legs swollen…you’re not sure if you even have matching shoes on because you haven’t seen your feet in a month or so. You free your existing toddler from the myriad of staps and buckles holding them into their carseat. Hopefully your little one wants to cooperate, otherwise it’s like trying to hold onto a greased pig.

    Then you’ve got to run the gauntlet to actually make it into the store — evading crazed suburbanities so fixated on finding the best parking space that the hapless pedestrians are effectively invisible — and also make sure you’re not in the blind spot of the humungous SUVs leaving their parking spots.

    It gets even worse when the kids get too heavy to carry — your arm pulled out of its socket as you attempt to keep little Johnny from darting directly into the path of the Hummer because he sees a shiny rock in the middle of the road…

    Believe me, every inch you don’t have to walk to reach the sidewalk is a godsend.

    Oh sure, having children is a choice. But many times it’s lifestyle choices (smoking, sedentary lifestyle…) that end up causing the disabilities that have our older folks using handicapped spaces. And I don’t begrudge them that.

    This ends the rant portion of the comment section.

    Have a groovy day :)

  • http://www.blogger.com/profile/9081238 Spencer

    Sorry – I’m not buying what you’re selling. When I see a pregnant women getting out of these cars – I’ll let you know. If I were to have kids I would still think it’s a bit crazy to equate having children to being handicapped. (And yes some handicaps are self-inflicted but not all).

    I’m sure it’s hard but somehow our parents where able to survive. Maybe we should just have people that wheel pregnant women around the mall so they don’t have to walk.

    To me it’s just another sign of the suburban trend of trying to make everything easier. Out here in the burbs we spend more money on everything – and everything looks better and seems easier – but what does easy get you?

    I guess growing up in the city where people didn’t always have cars that the child parking just seems a bit decadent.

  • http://www.blogger.com/profile/1672140 Ryan

    Speaking of handicapped spaces, those are getting out of hand as well. I don’t begrudge the spaces at all, but it seems like overkill.

    The Wawa by my house just put three of them in. 3 out of 8 spots in the front.

    I’ve been going to Wawa’s since I moved here. Sometimes almost daily when I was a smoker. How many handicapped people have I seen in a Wawa?

    Zero.

    But Wawa should be prepared for a run (hmmm, perhaps a bad choice of words) of them at once?

  • http://www.blogger.com/profile/12226909 radiocynic

    I agreed wholeheartedly on the smoking thing, so hopefully you can abide my big grey area with this one. [I'm a little sensitized to this recently, as my niece's husband just became a parraplegic a couple of weeks ago. (It was indeed sort of a lifestyle-related result, btw, as he was injured in a snowboarding accident.)]

    Anyway, if we could trust the existence of a decent moral compass in all, it would just come down to common sense. I personally know some legitimately “handicapped” though slowly-mobile folks, who never park in handicapped spots, choosing to save them for the folks who truly might need them more. Another example — my mom ligitimately needs to park in the spots, or would never make it the distance into a store. However, despite her urging, I’ll never park her car in one after dropping her off at the door, if I’m the only one remaining in the damn car.

    Same deal with the parent spots. I agree with Cyn that they originated as pregnancy spots. Again, many pregnant folks, especially in certain situations might legitimately need them, being in a legitimate (albeit temporary) handicapped state. I can also see it in certain rare cases of a parent trying to wrangle a whole mess o kids as well, but again, with only my two kids, I would never use one of those spots, just on the principle that someone else might likely need it more.

    That said, the reality is that the likely majority of folks using the parental spots are indeed your basic stuck-up “entitled” suburbanites, so even if I might disagree slightly with your original point in theory, your point is well-taken in actual practice!

    – Randy