Last week on Mommyish, I referenced a PostSecret entry that said: “I always park in spots reserved for expectant moms but I’ve never been pregnant… I just stick out my stomach & waddle into the store.” This shameful, naughty disclosure got me thinking about the many mythologies that surround parent parking, despite it being a pretty new phenomenon. For one thing, parents who get enraged by the Others who take up “their” parking spaces act like these spaces have always existed – like they’ve been sanctioned off in every parking lot throughout history. Either that, or hostile parents are like, “Hey, my ancestors didn’t fight for my right to occupy this parking space just so some asshole who's shopping alone could come through and take it!” Parking equality be damned; it’s 2014, and it’s time we showed all the parents and expectant mothers out there the parking lot respect they so richly deserve.
Granted, I’m not one of those people who thinks that parent parking (which boasts a variety of official titles including ‘Parent and Child,’ 'Expectant Mother,’ 'Family Parking,’ and 'Entitled Minivans’) is that big of a deal. I don’t care either way. If I saw a space, I wouldn’t race to it, nor would I outright dismiss it. I suppose that’s because even though parents may be the Chosen People for whom the spaces are intended, the only designated parking spaces that are legally recognized are the disabled spaces. (And sanctimommies would really appreciate a vote on that parking lot ratio.) Sure, it’s nice when drivers leave the parent spaces available, but is it a crime not to? No. In fact, some people even park in them on principle, simply because they can.
It is this unmerciful loophole that absolutely infuriates parent parking crusaders and causes them to lash out both in real life and online with nary a shred of dignity to be found. Let’s check out several new examples:
1. Stoopid Bitches
Daaaaamn, Trish, way to reduce Steve to an overly aggressive-yet-exceedingly sensitive wad of twisted up underwear. He may be chock full of character flaws, but there’s no real reason for him to “need” to park in those suggested spaces, as Steven (a person with a similar name but an actual disability) so helpfully pointed out.
And yet, Steve still felt every bit as entitled to scold, shame, and “cuss out” a random stranger whom he’d apparently expected to do him a favor. This is the failed logic that angry parent parking crusaders use to justify screaming at people in parking lots in front of their kids. “You didn’t do me a favor by parking elsewhere, so now you must SUFFER THE CONSEQUENCES, you ignorant bitch! FEEL THE WRATH OF MY WORDS AND THE HEATED GLANCES OF MY INNOCENT CHILDREN, you stupid childless idiot!”
2. Disabled Spaces > Parent and Child Spaces :(
Jen’s problem isn’t that Sainsbury’s doesn’t have enough parent and child parking spaces. It’s that she considers herself disabled just because she has a baby. Despite being an able-bodied mother, she genuinely doesn’t believe she should be fined for illegally parking in a disabled space, and now she’s taken to social media to get some answers!
But the truth is, the number of parent parking spaces is irrelevant. Big box retailers and grocery stores could dedicate 75% of their parking lots to those spaces, and they would still be occupied in the same way they are now – on a first come, first serve basis. Does Jen really think she was the only parent shopping at Sainbury’s that day who didn’t get a parent and child parking space? And why does her comment have 20 Likes compared to Sainsbury’s 10? This is horseshit.
3. Parking Police Mamas
Here are the rules for talking about selfish people who park in parent parking spaces:
1. Make sure to call out any big-haired, over-accessorized women on their appearance, because parking rudely opens a person up to full-body criticism. If a woman looks old, use that.
2. Carefully note that old, big-haired bitches do not walk across parking lots. They strut.
3. Do not, under any circumstances, witness a person committing parking fraud and stay silent. You must tell your story, either to a store manager (since you can describe firsthand the person’s hair and accessories that were stolen from 1991), or to friends and family on Facebook. In order to make a real difference, we must rise up and use our voices and our Facebook apps. Be the change you hope to see in that hellscape battlefield commonly known as the Lawrence Park parking lot. Be the sanctimommy version of Towanda that everyone knows and hates loves. Rome wasn’t built in a day.
Oh, and speaking of Panera, check out the random email I got this morning:
Good Morning,
My friend was traveling for work and had not gotten a chance to eat all day. When she finally ordered food and sat down at a Panera Bread, the plaque in the attached picture was in her booth.
Nothing like eating lunch and thinking about the woman whose water broke probably right where you are sitting!
I thought about blocking Gabrielle’s last name, but I mean…this is a plaque in a booth in a New Jersey Panera. It’s meant to be seen and appreciated. It also picks up where the story about the big-haired, over-accessorized woman drops off. Just imagine how nice it would’ve been for Gabrielle’s mom to park in a designated parent parking space on August 12, 2002, Before Parent Parking (B.P.P.). The woman’s water broke in this very booth. Let this be a lesson to us all when we eat at Panera Bread franchises. You just never know.
4. Arrogant Aresholes
At some point, every parent experiences that fateful rite of passage in which a baby’s dirty diaper goes from 'smelly garbage’ to 'handy vehicular weapon.’ Poop is all the rage in parent parking theatrics, so drivers, beware. The next time you innocently, or even perhaps greedily, saddle up to a pram parking space sans baby or stroller, you can expect to have human shit flung in your direction and/or smeared across your car. Aunt Sammy and her mommy crew will not be bullied or oppressed by arrogant arseholes any longer. You want to take up a space that belongs to mommies and strut across the parking lot? Fine. Just don’t be surprised when someone brings a soggy bag of baby shit to the shit show.
5. Generation Smackdown
Finallyyy, Sue and Jacqui, who are like a sanctimommy crime-fighting duo, say what fleets of drivers are really thinking. Parent parking, while helpful and courteous, is not all that important. In fact, it’s beyond unimportant – it’s precious and, dare I say, slightly offensive to prior generations of parents who didn’t always have the luxury of walking 3 feet to the entrance of a store after bravely excavating their children from the depths of their houses on wheels SUVs and minivans and prying stacks of electronics from their children’s cold, sticky hands. And it’s not just Sue, who’s reppin’ the older generation of moms, who feels this way. Jacqui, too, has gone on the record as a traitor to her generation, dispelling the myth once and for all that young parents should be treated as though they’re handicapped.
Personally, I’d much rather hang out with Sue and Jacqui in the back of a parking lot with a pair of megaphones, mocking the parents who scream at strangers for “parking wrong,” than police people and act like a jerk over something so trivial. Remember the time I posted about the drama surrounding cart depot etiquette? Life is too short, you guys. How about we just agree not to run each other over? (Or do stuff like this.)
For even more parent parking histrionics and rage-filled sanctimony, head over to Mommyish to read my column!
Related: Shopping Exceptions and Angry Parents
UNrelated, in honor of the XXII Olympic Winter Games: Olympics Marathon Round-Up, Part I and Part II, + Parents Go For The Gold
(submitted by Anonymous)