Non-Moan no.1 (Week 6)

Parking your prejudice.

I don’t have children. I don’t want children. I don’t even really like children. They’re messy, noisy and frankly at times quite irritating. I send apologies to all you parents out there, though I wonder if you feel the same about other people’s kids?

I’m not disabled, unless you count my mouth which sometimes speaks when it shouldn’t. I am physically very able.

Yet I’ve noticed more and more at my local supermarkets that there are fewer and fewer parking spaces for those of us who are in childless families, or not disabled. It seems there are spaces for people who are disabled, people with large children, people with small children, people with short children, people with tall children.

Okay. I’m exaggerating now. And I should point out that I do understand it must be difficult to go shopping with kids, not to mention worrying as they cross roads and car parks.

Now obviously being disabled is not a choice and if it were I doubt anyone would choose to be. But having children is a choice. Of course if people didn’t, I’d be out of a job, so I do appreciate the irony of what I’m about to say.

Should having children give you the right to park closer to the store? Should it provide you with a wider, easier to use, easier to slide a trolley between and unpack your shopping, space?

I don’t think it should.  Where are the spaces for the young professionals who are in a hurry after a hard day’s work? Where are the short stay spaces that allow me to pop in to a shop and quickly grab a pint of milk? Where are the spaces that cater for me and my needs?

I’ll tell you where they are. About a frickin’ mile and a half away from the store’s entrance, that’s where! I am in fact being discriminated against because I’ve chosen not to have kids.  So in order to remedy this, and much to the disgust of many passing vehicles, loaded with children bouncing off the windows from sugar induced highs, I’ve started using the family spaces near the entrance.

I have a family. I am part of a family. I just don’t have children. I have a partner. I have two cats. That to me constitutes a family. I have parents, brothers and a sister. Aunts, Uncles, Cousins etc.

So I say to all those who believe it is their given right and those who design car parks in such a way, Down with Discrimination! And until the day this prejudice is toppled I will continue to park in the wider, family spaces, closer to the store entrance!