To hate it when people "help" me with the pram

Why though? Offering help is fine.

The OP just, totally reasonably, doesn't like people lifting the buggy out of the blue. It's just a basic politeness to communicate with people before joining their ongoing balancing act.

My daughter relied on buses with her first baby and she was regularly helped getting off a bus …did people ask for her consent? Have absolutely no idea ,but she certainly never complained about it ! Am sure she was grateful and thanked the strangers for their help .
Shall ask her when I see her later and report back 🙄

Who's damned anyone for offering help?

We are damned if we do, damned if we don’t help. I’m sure within a day there will be someone moaning nobody offers to help anymore

Are they really being nice?

If they verbally offered, that would be nice. Just grabbing the buggy and throwing the OP off-balance sounds pretty rude and dangerous.

Imagine being annoyed at people being nice.

Have you ever heard anyone to recommend to a man to just "flash a big smile" ?

Especially a man who was just put into potentially dangerous situation (see the poster with broken ankle caused by some dimwit lifting her buggy without saying a word first) by the one he should be smiling at?

If this happens all the time, why is it always a surprise?

Use your words, pre-empt unwanted help with a cheery "i don't need help thanks ive got a good technique "!

I never said that though, did I? I said ‘offer to help’ which means…ask.

Being reminded to ASK before grabbing a pram = well now no one can help anyone!!!!

That’s nice would you really just sit there and stare at someone who was trying to console a crying baby whilst trying to gather wet clothes off the floor? I wouldn’t, even before I had my own child.

Perhaps we had different upbringings

I agree people should offer to help or at least gesture before actually touching it.

I also get what other people are saying about it being nice people are willing to help but ultimately it's not helpful if it's unexpected or going to make things more complicated if your mind is focused & suddenly you have "help"

Ahahaha…. I was enjoying that cup of tea too. Not I’ve snorted some of it out of my nose all over my tablet… !😂😂

Yea, I once tried helping an elderly woman when her shopping bag split open in the middle of the road. I started gathering the shopping and was met with shrieks, calling me a thief and telling me not to steal her stuff. I'm a woman myself, groomed and well dressed, I don't look like a disheveled crackhead.

This thread also offers various: they feel entitled to help you (wtf), then have no manners to ask, foisting their help on you and 'women don't owe you a smile'. Yea, and nobody owes these women any help. They should remember that when they stand at the bottom of steep stairs with their pram and everyone just keep on walking past. I'd rather not interfere, just incase I inadvertently SLAM someone's baby, god forbid. I'm sure they'll manage to cary those prams up the stairs themselves. Your baby - your problem, happy now?

Is it? Can you explain why you think that?

This is like those men moaning that they can't even talk to a woman these days because they've been asked to stop sexual harassment.

I remember struggling up some steps with ds in a pram and a suitcase at Victoria, a really kind man all suited up with a brief case swooped in, picked the whole of the pram up and then can back down to help me with the suit case. He was worthy of Jane Austin novel 😂

I’ve a heavy double pram, I appreciate and tbh often rely on the help when getting through tricky double doors. Same with the single pram on and off trains (can’t even attempt the double with that as I can’t physically lift it if there’s a large gap myself) - and I always offer if I see someone with a pram on the train and I don’t have mine.

Wow. Just wow.

He's now not going to help anyone ever again. Do you really want to live in that type of world

Ungrateful you are, and I bet you are hard work in all areas

I took my 3mo DS swimming last week. I had my tiny baby in my arms as I went to get our stuff out of the locker to get dressed when a child barged into me and I dropped my changing bag upside down on the wet floor so all our clothes fell out. There was a whole group of people sitting on the chairs 6ft away waiting for their children in swimming lessons and NOT ONE OF THEM offered me any help but they were all quite happy to stare! I was trying to awkwardly squat to pick it all up whilst holding my baby, who was crying because he was getting cold. Luckily a staff member walked by and helped me, but all our clothes were absolutely soaked by then 😒

They’ve probably all come across you at some point and no longer offer to help anybody 😂

Manipulating with your baby…fuck me I’ve heard it all now 🤣.
Someone was trying to help, not have a fiddle and fondle with the kid.

People and/or their pushchairs or wheelchairs or belongings then.
Just don't grab, move or touch anything that belongs to someone else without asking.
Amazed that so many adults still need this explicitly pointed out.

I don’t know why people are being such dicks to you about this! I 100% agree with you. My children are grown up but I hated this and a lot of the time it is dangerous for people to help without asking first. I was once getting off the train backwards with the pram, as I was stepping down a man lifted the other end but the change in weight actually made me fall backwards on to the platform. Thankfully the pram stayed up right and my daughter was fine but I broke my ankle. He just then walked off as if nothing had happened.