in thinking that 'I went without when I was little' is a shiteola argument

[flootshoot]

I?m sorry, I know there is another double buggy thread but this has pissed me off so much I need to rant. It?s not really about buggies anyway, just someone fucking pissing me off, this is just the latest thing!!

Ok, so a relative of mine, let?s call her X, has a slight issue with double buggies. I made the mistake of asking her if she?d got one and if she had any recommendations when I was expecting DD, and that opened the floodgates. Double buggies make children lazy, toddlers should be ?made? to walk (how exactly?) etc. You get my drift. Bear in mind that she actually has a car and her DS?s get driven everywhere?.! Anyway, for some reason this has reared its head again. I got a bit cross with her, pointing out, AGAIN, that DS at 2.5 simply cannot walk all the way to the shops, round the shops and home again if he is tired or hasn?t slept well/feeling ill etc. He is getting better, but there are still places that we enjoy going to that aren?t accessible by bus and would simply be impossible for us to visit without a double buggy as I?d never get him home again afterwards! Her argument against this: her mum didn?t have a double buggy in the 70?s and she walked everywhere when she was 2.

Well; AIBU in thinking this is a shite argument? I?ll bet if a double buggy had been available her mum would have snapped it up. Basically what?s she saying is that my DS should be made to walk everywhere in the pissing rain all through winter because she had to when she was little, while her DS?s are nice and snug in their car. Surely as an intelligent woman she must be able to see that this is a massive double standard. And arguing that we didn?t always have double buggies? Well, we didn?t always have washing machines either. Or central heating. Or electric ovens. Shall we just get rid of all mod cons because we didn?t always have them??

Ooooh, she makes me

[TheCrackFox]

She is talking out of her arse.

My mum was talking just the other day that she would have loved a double buggy.

[StealthPolarBear]

lol
DH's nan looked at my didymos sling when DS was tiny and started telling me how they didn't have all these new fangled gadgets in her day...5 mins after telling me how she'd had to have a pram specially made for her twins

[borderslass]

Crap argument, DS was 15 months when DD2 was born only took his first steps the week before so definitely incapable of walking plus he has SN's.

May not of had double buggies but most parents used coach built prams which you could put a toddler seat on.

[flootshoot]

I know. It just winds me up that I can't make her see what I mean. Her family have two cars, hence two sets of car seats. We have one car, one set of car seats and double buggy. Same thing, surely??

Gah.

[BananaMontana]

Ask her how far back she wants to take the argument.
iirc my great great grandparents shared a pair of shoes between siblings.
Spoilt.

[Callisto]

I hate double buggies too, but I also think her argument is shite.

[LydiaWickham]

yep - my mum had one of those massive prams with a toddler seat on top, that was the way most did it.

[flootshoot]

The thing is I know a double buggy isn't neccessarly a neccessity for most people, but why go without if you can afford one? It certainly stopped me going insane which I would have done if we'd been stuck in the 1 mile radius of our flat for the frist 6 months of DD's life!!

[borderslass]

I had a 3 in 1 double pushchair was fab DD2 was snug in carrycot and DS in pushchair.

[MmeLindor.]

Use BananaMontana's answer.

We didn't have car seats, our parents smoked in front of us, we all piled into the back of my Dad's Cortina estate, we roamed the streets, never wore bike helmets and thought that pie, chips and beans was a balanced diet.

That was the 70s. Things have changed. We have microwaves, and tumble driers, and automatic washing machines and computers and all sorts of gadgets that make life easier for us.

A double buggy is just one of them.

[StealthPolarBear]

floot, it's competitive misery

[StealthPolarBear]

Have you seen Blackadder? "Nathaniel sits on a spike. I sit on Nathaniel - two spikes would be an extravagance"

[flootshoot]

Thank you everyone, I knew I wasn't BU. I could understand it if I'd been bitching about my lot in life, but I really wasn't!!

[borderslass]

MmeLindor first car my dad had was a Morris 1000 wasn't big enough for all 7 of us so mum made a seat for me to sit on between the 2 front ones imagine the horror now.

[flootshoot]

Ha, Stealth - yes, I know the one. Was it in Monty Python.... '15 of us living in crack in't'pavement'.

[StealthPolarBear]

Maybe start quoting MP at her if she starts :o

[dirtydishesmakemesad]

my grandmother does this, I bought a rug once aparently this was a totaly waste of money because i could have made one from "old rags". I could have if i had wanted a rug made from old rags - but i didnt.

[griphook]

yanbu, in the 70's everything you needed was local. There were local shops and a local high street. Some are still about but there are a lot of big out of supermarkets and shoping centre that are out of town causes smaller more accessible places to close down.


If really pisses me of when people say 'well we didn't worry about that when mine where little etc etc. My mil says it quite often particulary about car seats, and now I just say but the infant mortallity rate was soooo much higher in your day. That normally shuts them her up

[borderslass]

Even my sisters eldest kids didn't have carseats but she is really strict about her grandkids safety.

DD1 was in a carrycot strapped on to the back seat of our first car as we didn't have rear seatbelts.

Times change.

[lemonmousse]

DD1 was 20 months when DD2 was born - I do not drive - without a double buggy (cumbersome though the bloody thing was!) I'd have been tied to the house for months! YANBU

Just point out to your relative that walking everywhere when she was only 2 has made her bitter and twisted and jealous of people with double buggies

[TheBigJessie]

Combine the broken record technique and your OP, like this:

You: So, what you're saying is that my DS should be made to walk everywhere in the pissing rain all through winter because you had to when she was little, while your DS?s are nice and snug in their car? Did that come out wrongly?

Friend: [half-baked justification]

You: So, what you're saying is that my DS should be made to walk everywhere in the pissing rain all through winter because you had to when she was little, while your DS?s are nice and snug in their car?

Rinse and repeat.

[Kayano]

My perfectly healthy and childless mum does this with Pand C car parking spaces lol

'I did without...'
'we never had them'

Does my head in!

[StealthPolarBear]

Maybe just point out that this isn't the 1970s and we do have them. And point out that many people in the world don't have clean drinking water next time she sips a coffee.

[flootshoot]

It's like buses too actually - so many older peole bitch about us not folding our buggies. Where I live, the buses are designed to have buggy spaces. Because it's quicker and easier to roll a buggy straight on than to arse about folding it and holding the bus up. The space has a buggy drawn on the floor - do not bitch at me parking my buggy on said space!!