From where I’m sitting
Tim Rushby Smith
In my experience as a wheelchair user, the overwhelming majority of people are considerate in their encounters with me. If there is ever a problem it’s usually due to haste or people just not looking, most notably when they let the door shut in my face.
On the occasions when I am left feeling uncomfortable, it’s usually because of an exaggerated gesture, such as someone clearing a space big enough for me to drive a car through, or warning everyone within fifty yards that I’m coming.
This is particularly true of staff in music venues. I know it’s partly down to deafness caused by years of loud gigs, or a general weariness caused by years of dealing with drunken idiots.
Either way, it is charming to make your way through a crowd in the wake of a chaperone with shoulders like a rhino shouting: “Wheelchair coming through! Mind your backs!”
But lately, I have encountered one section of society that doesn’t always offer me such courtesy. I recently had a set of doors persistently obstructed while my presence was met with ambivalence. It was people from a certain demographic who were behaving in an inconsiderate manner.
I don’t like to make generalisations for fear of courting prejudice, but I feel I can remain silent no longer. So I’m just going to say it: parents. There.
Yes, I know the arguments: they have different cultural values (usually those of a toddler), but I’m still a little disappointed. Especially because I am ‘one of them.’
The door being obstructed was at the swimming pool as I tried to get my daughter through it so that she could attend her class. The obstructors were all jockeying for position so that they could gawp through the windows at their offspring drinking the pool water and hitting each other with floats.
On another occasion, I was attending school assembly, complete with massed ranks of recorder players (to suffer this cacophony is surely a badge of honour among parents), when someone stood right in front of me. When I pointed out that I couldn’t stand, I was told: “Well you should have got here in plenty of time then.”
Having choked back a gob full of expletives, I informed him that I had arrived in plenty of time. He looked sheepish, as if he had suddenly realised that the rest of us hadn’t come along just to prevent him from seeing his child, encased in cardboard and poster paint, mangling a line from The Very Hungry Caterpillar.
When I discussed this with other parents, I soon discovered that I was not alone. They too have been trapped in shops, walled in by buggies and micro-scooters adorned with Royal Mail elastic bands (come on parents, get your kids to hand them back to the sorting office and we won’t need a rise in stamp prices).
Buggy drivers or bipeds, the majority of people are considerate. There is camaraderie at the school gate, and generosity by the swings. But occasionally, parental love and enthusiasm make some people develop tunnel vision. It’s certainly not a great example to be offering to the next generation, but what makes it all the more frustrating is that we’re all just trying to see our children too.
And surely it’s obvious that my kids are the most important…
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