Absolutely outraged! Train drama

[Halfull]

So my 16 year old daughter was on the train going to college, busy service so standing. She fainted (as in full on dramatic woke up on the floor fainted), we don’t really know why. A nice lady nearby stopped her hitting the floor and helped her. However, she says all the men on the train stayed in their seats and so she sat on the floor the rest of the way into the city. Not one man offered her a seat although one of them did comment that he hoped her journey home was quieter so she could sit down! She said there weren’t any women sitting down anyway and they all just… sat there.

In the general sense of human decency, what the actual hell?

I'm genuinely confused at these stories where pregnant women just sat on the floor. Why not just ask someone in the priority seat for their seat? I did this is lot whilst i was pregnant.

Of course you shouldn't have to but lots of people are in their own worlds and just haven't looked up from their phones, I don't think it's that people are mostly horrible. Maybe it's more of a train problem than a tube problem though? In 20 years in London (mostly tube) i've never seen anyone argue when being asked to give up a seat.

And it's women who offer because they notice and can relate.

I'm sorry this happened to your daughter. My ds2 can't stand safely for any length of time on the underground he's deaf and dyspraxic. I worry that if he falls he would hurt himself and others. He has a Please Offer Me A Seat badge from TFL. If that doesn't work then I say very loudly that my son can't stand and please could someone give up their seat. 99% of the time it works!!

I would have definitely offered her my seat, and the same for pregnant women, it's just how I was raised. But on the subject of offering seats/letting someone go first, I've offered to let women 60+ on trains/give up my seat and a few times now they've been so visibly offended I don't like to anymore. I thought I was being polite, but now I'm worried they thought I was calling them old! I'm in my 20s and I would treat anyone over 40 or with a child the same just out of respect, not people I perceive on death's door 😭

I do understand your rage here - but, and I do say this kindly, if someone has fainted, sitting down immediately afterwards isn't necessarily helpful.
That said, it would not have gone amiss for people to have offered a seat, even if it was not required.

Hope your daughter is doing better today.

Settle down with the angst. I wouldn’t put someone in that situation in a seat. If I had a choice of seat or floor for them it would be the floor. If she’s already fainted then she should only gradually transition to a sitting position, and it’s probably safer in an environment like a train for her to be on the floor. I’ve had people on seats where, if they start and feel faint, you tell them to put head down between legs (not sure how feasible this is on train!), but they actually go anyway so now you have someone pitching forward, or sideways if lucky. If I’m iffy about it, and think they may go irrespective, I’ll try to get them proactively to the floor. So let your outrage be gone, as it’s misplaced.

I don't experience that. I've done many train and bus journeys while pregnant and/or with small children in tow, and I've always been helped rarely do I need to ask and more often than not by men. I often joke that I clearly look helpless.

I'd think though that one person round a fainted person is enough (from being the fainter) more is both embarrassing and too much crowding.
But also men may have been nervous going to a teen girl because of accusations. If there was a lady with her they may feel that's more appropriate.
As a fainter too, I'm better on the floor than in a seat for the next 5-10 minutes in case I keel over again.

That's interesting, I was saying earlier that it was young men who always help me but the offer, it is never the older ones but you are right older women do it as well not the younger ones so the opposite way round.

I'm 70 and offered to help a young dad down a flight of stairs with his baby, buggy and bags at a station, he looked so embarrassed to be helped by an old lady but as I told him I've done my time struggling as I have 4 kids. I'm fit and well so why not?

I think it gives a nice feeling to offer help and also when some helps you, don't know why people don't do it more, maybe they just need to try it.

I'd have told you to fuck off if you said that to me. Entitled much?

You'd tell a pregnant woman to fuck off for confronting you over taking the last available seat rather than just being meek and silent about it? I assume that if you needed it just as much, your post here would mention it.

All this tale proves to me is that some (too few) people are nice and will help others, but the majority are self-serving cunts.

I don't think it's that extreme. The majority are just not that quick/willing to get involved. I think some of it is just awkwardness or not quite knowing what to do, or a kind of passivity.

Its first come, first served on the Tube. She said in her own post that the boy got there first. Being pregnant is a choice, not a disability.

So yes, you would deal with the situation by telling a pregnant woman to fuck off. And you think that's OK.

From your posting history though, it's clear you've absolutely got it in for mothers, so I do wonder what you're doing here.

She was certainly better off on the floor for a while.

As I have got older I have found that I go very easily into organising mode when something is amiss on a train.

When someone faints - seen it twice quite recently - or needs a seat, I've found a normal, courteous "could any of you offer a seat" works just fine. People are oblivious or not taking initiative. Then when they're asked - not ordered -and knew what's wanted they usually seem keen to help.

Hope she feels better soon.

I hope your daughter is OK, what a scarey experience.

When I was pregnant on my last child and attending hospital appointments the amount of men sitting on seats and leaving pregnant women standing was disgusting. Their partners would be rightly pissed of when the midwifes would tell all the men to get of the seats as they were for the pregnant women. Not one of them ever looked embarrassed. As soon as a seat would become free they would sit back down. Vile.

I had to sit on the floor in the maternity assessment unit so a sea of dads could have a seat.

No of those men would be happy if it was their wife or child. But it wasn't so they didn't care. That's the bottom line. People expect to others to step up to do things they can't be arsed to do themselves.

It’s kind of sad but we live in the world of me too so men are extremely cautious of interacting with women they don’t know especially physically. It’s sad but that’s the reality.

NO?! Didn't a midwife or nurse or something come out and tell them off?

I remember being sexually harrassed by a bunch of about 5 or 6 teenage boys on the bus once and though One tried to forcibly kiss me and I ŵas jelly inside, I just had to humour them until they got off the bus. It was obvious what they were doing and they were loud and obnoxious but absolutely no one helped me. Not one person.

I arrived at hospital in labour carrying my case, my husband was walking with a stick. A midwife arrived to take me through and told him off, I told her off. If he lifted the case, let alone carried it, he would be flat on his back for days. I needed him to be able to go home to look after our two year old.

He was disabled in an accident when I was pregnant, at this stage we didn't know it was going to be permanent.

It is best not to Judge until you know the circumstances.

Disgraceful behaviour from the men,but unfortunately I can't say I'm surprised. I am visibly disabled but I've lost count of the times I've got on a train or bus and every seat has been taken, including the priority seats. But I very rarely get offered a seat. People just look the other way or are too engrossed in their phones to notice. I think there is a fair amount of over-entitlement going on these days. I witnessed an example of this a few months ago on a bus when a woman with a buggy was shouting at a woman in wheelchair that 'buggies have priority over wheelchairs'. Hope your daughter is OK OP.

It’s kind of sad but we live in the world of me too so men are extremely cautious of interacting with women they don’t know especially physically. It’s sad but that’s the reality.
Yes, poor men [sadface]. How awful for men that pregnant women and fainting teenagers have to stand or sit in the floor all because of Mee Too and similar movements that have cast aspersions on innocent men. How could a man, in this day and age, possibly assist a fainter or give up his seat for a heavily pregnant woman without someone accusing him of being a molester. Because of MeeToo. And feminism dammit.

I fainted on the train in the middle of summer when I was heavily pregnant. Came round to a woman trying to help me and a stream of men stepping over me to get off the train. They'd all put their papers up or pretended they'd not seen me when I got on. Twats.

Is there only ever one woman in the carriage when these things happen?

I was sexually assaulted on a train once while a bunch of football fans sat there and did nothing. Essentially, if you don’t “belong” to them somehow, you just don’t matter.