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AIBU?

Share your dilemmas and get honest opinions from other Mumsnetters.

Original poster

To put DS on my shoulders at the jubilee pageant.??

175 replies

thereinmadnesslies · 03/06/2012 15:35

I took the DC into London to watch the flotilla. Got there by 12.30, hoping to find a spot where we could see the action. Expected it to be busy but OMG it was carnage. Security just seemed to be herding people into enclosures without exits. No information on where to go.

Finally found a spot where we could see a big screen, just as the queen started boarding. Only for some woman to have a go at me for blocking her view by putting DS, age 3, on my shoulders. As if he could see any other way ?!?! So we left, and I had a bit of a sob on the tube.

Surely having a small child on my shoulders (I'm 5 ft 5, so hardly a giant) is not unreasonable?

OP posts:
Hulababy · 03/06/2012 19:04

Had I been the woman and seen another woman with a young child in front of me I would have been expecting her to lift the child or put him/her on their shoulders. How else would the child have seen?
Could the woman just have moved to stand beside you?

w3dnesday · 03/06/2012 19:31

YANBU at all, i'm a short arse and always manage to see past taller people, I'm sure this woman could have shifted slightly in order to get a good view.

OutragedAtThePriceOfFreddos · 03/06/2012 19:32

Why didn't you offer to let the woman stand in front of you?

squeakytoy · 03/06/2012 19:37

yabu...

there was a near riot at a Green Day concert I went to when some prat decided it would be great to put his small child (who should never have been in a crowd like that anyway) on his shoulders, blocking the view of quite a few people stood behind.

knowitallstrikesagain · 03/06/2012 19:48

Gosh squeaky Are you sure the riot didn't start because people realised they had paid good money to see Green Day?

ChippingInNeedsCoffee · 03/06/2012 19:52

Of course YABU.

It was for everyone not just for your children. Other people wanted to see it too, including the woman behind you, who had a view until in your entitled way you put your son in it. You should have picked him up and put him on your hip, he could have seen, she could have seen - everyone would have been happy. If you had another child who could not be trusted to stand at your side without their hand being held, they should have been on reins.

I'm short, I get to places early etc - I find somewhere that I can see what's going on, when possible. If people then put children/girlfriends on their shoulders so I can't see it's bloody annoying. IF its an event mostly for children, I suck it up - when it's an event for everyone it pisses me off.

knowitallstrikesagain · 03/06/2012 19:57

OutragedAtThePriceOfFreddos

How much are freddos now?

Pinkie29 · 03/06/2012 19:59

squeakytoy that's surprising I've been to a few concerts and you see plenty of grown women on their partners shoulders Hmm

Olympia2012 · 03/06/2012 20:00

We are on our way back. De was on shoulders. Loads of dc were. We were packed in on Chelsea embankment and nobody said a word. I'm almost 6 foot too. There were teens on boyfriends shoulders. It was all fine. You were unlucky
I think the problem here is your lack of confidence

CatholicDad · 03/06/2012 20:55

I'm afraid I disagree entirely. What on earth was OP to do? If you put a three year-old on your shoulder then he or she will (unless very big for his or her age) still not be high enough to see anything. If he or she is, then that will block someone else's view.

As for the event being for everyone - well that's the point. Everyone includes kids, and I have to say I encountered at least one adult today who acted more childishly than any of my (four) kids in the way he complained his view had just been obscured.

I liked the poster who challenged a complainer to prove she had a right to an unobstructed view. We all complain in this country - or used to - about Germans putting towels on the poolside sun loungers before breakfast. Now it seems we Brits have taken to the practice with gusto. To hear people on the TV news saying there was a great atmosphere - not where I was! Lots of flag waving and a good bit of oohing and aahing but when Brits get all sniffy about kids getting in their way I tend to lose my enthusiasm just a bit.

A final point: I couldn't help noticing, as did my BH, how many out-of-towners there were down by Blackfriars bridge today. Clearly outside of London, the Victorian view of children is still very much alive...

greenplastictrees · 03/06/2012 21:38

YANBU at all! Different but My DP is 6ft 4 and regularly gets yelled at by people who stand behind him because he's in there way! It's not like he asked to be 6ft4!

OutragedAtThePriceOfFreddos · 03/06/2012 22:05

What on earth was OP to do?

Well she could have accepted the fact that at such a busy, overcrowded event, there was going to be a chance that her dc wouldn't be able to see what was going on onthe first place. If she hadn't been so determind that her child would get a view, then she wouldn't have thought it was acceptable to ruin someone else's view. She would have just accepted that she took a chance and it didn't work out.

Or, she could have held her child on her hip so that he had the same chance of a view as she did, instead of elevating him to a place where he was guaranteed a view, and other people were guaranteed to have their view ruined because of it.

A three year old hasn't made a choice to go because it's something they really want to be a part of. Nor will they remember it for years to come. The opposit is true for the person whose view OP decided to ruin.

OP did the right thing going home.

LuvileeJubilee · 03/06/2012 22:17

YABU but not as U as the dad I saw standing on a rickety-looking wooden chair with his 2yo in one of those metal framed back things Shock

thisisyesterday · 03/06/2012 22:19

i would say it's quite unreasonable yes.

everyone wants to see! and it's not fair to block other people's views by having your child on your shoulders.

he's 3, he won't even remember it or really know who she even is :-S

CatholicDad · 03/06/2012 23:46

Outraged:

"She would have just accepted that she took a chance and it didn't work out." And so do what? Leave this small child on the ground because it was crowded? I don't understand that logic at all.

"Or, she could have held her child on her hip..."
I believe I dealt with that already? I might add it is a very uncomfortable way to hold a child..

Outraged / Thisisyesterday

A three year-old won't remember the experience? That's where you're wrong. My earliest memory - more or less - was cheering the Queen as she came through Brighton for her silver jubilee. This was 1977... I was three and-a-half. That's why I was there today and why I made sure my kids got up high to get a view of the Royal barge. That made it all worth it...

OutragedAtThePriceOfFreddos · 04/06/2012 00:13

What's hard to understand about the logic that says that in an extremely overcrowded area, you might not be able to see exactly what you want to see? Confused

Isn't it logical that if you stop someone else seeing the thing that you all have equal right to see, then that person is not going to be happy about it?

And op did have one child on the ground, so she can't be that adverse to it.

it might be a very uncomfortable way to hold a child

Yes, it might. But if you can't do it, then don't put yourself in a situation where you choices are A) Hold child in an uncomfortable way, or B) Do something that is inconsiderate and guaranteed to ruin something special for someone else.

Jinsei · 04/06/2012 00:25

Is noone else wondering if the OP's other child got to see anything?

CatholicDad · 04/06/2012 00:26

You seem to be speaking as if putting a child on your shoulders is a peculiar and rarely-practised custom. It's not. It's done all the time. So OP may well have realised it would be an occasion where her DCs would struggle to see but at the same time would have been prepared to create a view for them by putting them on her shoulders.

If you have shoulders, and reasonably strong arms, then not putting your child on your shoulders seems a bit weird to me if they can't see otherwise.

As for ruining it for someone else, you could argue that the adults in front are ruining it for the children who can't see over them!

Finally, why has "women and children first" become "women first and children nowhere"?...

WorraLiberty · 04/06/2012 00:28

Errr why should 'women and children first' even come into the equation when watching a river pageant? Confused

Jinsei I wondered that too Lol!

Toughasoldboots · 04/06/2012 00:36

This reply has been deleted

Message withdrawn at poster's request.

CatholicDad · 04/06/2012 00:42

Ha! I don't feel entitled to anything. And my kids weren't blocking anyone's view as it happens as they weren't on my shoulders when the Queen came past - they were clinging to a statue on a plinth! And when they got up I made a point of checking they weren't obscuring anyone's views of proceedings.

Toughasoldboots · 04/06/2012 00:43

This reply has been deleted

Message withdrawn at poster's request.

iceandsliceplease · 04/06/2012 00:52

YABU. I've taken my two DC out to various public events and we either a) get there early so we can get to the front or b) I hoist them (one at a time) onto my hip so they can see as much as I can. Very occasionally I lift them up over my head for about three seconds, then put them back on the ground.

I took DS to a big outdoor event a few weeks ago and it was bloody impossible to see anything because of the number of people who'd put their kids on their shoulders. If they'd carried their DC on their hips, the rest of us would have been able to see. I ended up carrying (7yo) DS on my hip for about 90 minutes - wasn't so bad. I had to ask a few teenage couples who were piggybacking each other to stop so that we could see - they were individually as tall as/taller than me, I asked politely, they apologised.

Aribura · 04/06/2012 02:02

"had I been there I would have thought 'it's a small child they want to see the boats I'm a grown up I can move a few inches"

I'd have thought "I'm an adult who will actually remember this event as opposed to a small child dragged along by its parents who are ignorantly blocking the view" and been pissed.

YABU OP. Rude woman.

Pinkie29 · 04/06/2012 07:57

very immature attitude the woman could have easily moved but chose to stamp her feet, like a child