Every now and then, people do things that they just don’t need to do, for entirely selfish reasons, or just to make a wider point about their personal disregard for a rule. One of the ‘best’ ways to see this in action is by trying to park in a parent and child bay at a supermarket or attraction.

While we have suffered the ‘frustration’ previously of wishing we could park closer at supermarkets, or wanting to have wider, easier parking bays to pull into, we have never taken a bay when we haven’t had our little girl with us, and we hadn’t taken them before we had her either.

Of course, it’s all very well thinking that parents are lazy sods who can’t park or don’t need all that room, but it really isn’t OK to follow through on this by actually wrongly taking a space because this can really screw over a parent with a child.

“How?” you may ask. The answer is very simple. If you don’t have a small child or a baby you can park, get in and out of the car, and roll your trolley up behind the car nice and easily (maybe worrying your car will be dented but realising that in most places that rarely happens).

Parents with a toddler, meanwhile, have to open their doors pretty wide to get the child out without banging their head, they then have to deal (potentially) with another kid with them, cope with the faff of getting their baby gear out of the car to take with them, and then chuck in the fact that ideally you don’t want your child in a trolley behind the car while you unload the trolley. You really also don’t want to have to assemble a pram or pushchair in the middle of the road behind your car.

Add into the mix that you also don’t really want to have a toddler who is learning to walk or a child learning road safety walking miles across a car park and you might just realise that you don’t need to park your Bentley or two-door sports car in that space because you’re better than people with a child. For a bit of added fun you can also be aware that if you fancy being a ‘big person’ and stealing one of these spaces you can be fined now and while we don’t normally side with traffic wardens this is one instance where we do!

Have you seen someone rob your parent and child space and move away without a child? Do you think these spaces are a waste of time? Let us know by commenting below.