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

[thereinmadnesslies]

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?

[eye roll]

Sorry you had a hard time op.

Really - pageants aren't like queueing for a kidney. They are not exactly life and death. You want to examine proceedings in detail - stay at home & tweet along to bbc coverage. You want 'atmosphere' you go to London, wear a union jack , freeze your arse off , gossip with your crowd neighbours & peer at a little umobscured square of river. Children on shoulders are part of that atmosphere - the same way as old folk with thermoses & camping chairs and large groups of young foreign students.

We were also there with dc. Didn't even try to see anything in the end - just ate pizza & people watched. Thought it could have done with a couple more brass bands etc to liven up the atmosphere.

Thing is, if it was so crowded, if the OP had moved to one side with her dc on her shoulders, or if the woman had moved, there would then just be someone else inconvenienced by the toddler on shoulders. This action isn't just blocking one person's view, it affects lots of people.

I think it's ignorant and would never do it. It is deliberately blocking someone's view.

OP, you say you had 2 children with you. Out of interest, how old is your other ds, because if under say 10 they wouldn't have been able to see anything anyway, and with dc on shoulders as opposed to hip, you are less able and stable to e.g. bend and talk to the other dc.

BTW, I am only 5'2", and with my dd,( same height as your ds,) on my shoulders, our height is 6'4", and as you are 3" taller than me, I'd say your combined height is probably more like 6'7".

YABU!

CatholicDad Mon 04-Jun-12 00:42:57
And when they got up I made a point of checking they weren't obscuring anyone's views of proceedings

So even you agree that it is the thoughtful thing to do to check that your children will not be blocking the view of someone who is behind you...

Yabu. Why is your child's view more important than anyone else's view?
If you're saying the other woman could have moved- well, what's to stop you moving? I expect you would then have been blocking someone else's view then though.

I hate this attitude that because you have a young child, you are entitled to spoil someone else's enjoyment.

Personally I couldn't give two hoots about a jubilee pageant- but if I did choose to go along and the person in front of me hoisted a kid Up and blocked my view, I'd think they were utterly selfish

Yes, if you have at the last minute moved into a prime location and then lofted the children up on a statue. But if you're in the general crowd of a family event with children, of course you're going to put them on shoulders.

It's quite alarming how many people seem to think an adult's experience is important and a child's isn't worth a dime!

In my opinion it doesnt matter. in those scenarios there are always going to be people that miss out and are dissapointed. You have to ask yourself who out of the two do you care more about. Easy answer is your child because this random stranger is but a brief blip in your life

Depends also what you want to teach your child, minimisschief. Respect for others, or self-gratification without giving two hoots for its negative impact on anyone else.

Catholicdad- I don't think anyone is suggesting that an adult is MORE important than a child. Just that people have EQUAL importance!

Catholic Dad - It's not that people think that an adults experience is important and a childs experience is worth nothing at all.

It's that adults and children have equal right to the same experience. A child doesn't have more right to a view just because they are a child, and an adult doesn't have more right to a view just because they are taller.

The child can be lifted to the height of an adults eyeline, but not way above, because lifting them way above the level that most adults could see at is guaranteed to block someone else's view.

Im surprised that anyone thinks that it's ok to block someone else's view in favour of their own or their child's.

I know you got there early etc but how did you not think it would be insanely busy? I live in London and not for anything would I have attempted to take my 3 dc's. They would not have appreciated it one bit, and considering how rotten the weather was from first thing it would have been rubbish to go into central London on a normal weekend never mind this one. I won't take mine to anything like this until they're old enough to see as well as me, and they can clearly state their desire to go.
I'm sorry she made you feel bad though, there's no excuse for rudeness.

I vote yanbu

Last time I was in London for a big event all the children got pushed to the front by the barriers so they could see, don't think I saw a single person complaining. (and fwiw I was there without children, and moved back to let children in front). Sitting on a parents shoulders in a crowd is part of the British kid experience surely? The judgement on this thread is astounding, and contrary to any big crowd behaviour I have personally witnessed.

There's nothing wrong with putting the child on your shoulder, but when the woman behind you complained that she couldn't see, the normal thing to do would be to aplogise and take the child down.

You decided that the most reasonable course of action was to leave and cry? What's that about?

I think you were being unreasonable to take a pre-schooler out into the pissing rain and crowds and crowds of people to watch something which he wouldn't understand and would be unlikely to entertain him for long anyway.

I think it's utter madness to expect something like this to be a 'fun family day out' !!

Don't know if it's been suggested, but why didn't you just lift your child to be in line with your head height? That way, you would get an ok view, kid gets an ok view, woman behind gets an ok view. By hoisting your child on your shoulders, you get an ok view, kid gets fantastic view, woman behind gets no view. Hardly reasonable!!

I'm very unclear now about all this offering to move- surely if the place was as packed as you describe, moving elsewhere would either be impossible or obscuring someone else's view.

Whether the woman behind was nice, nasty or indifferent is the secondary issue really. The fact was, you assumed your kids enjoyment trumped other people's- and that's selfish

Sorry, I agree that you were being unreasonable.

I was on London Bridge yesterday - couldn't get anywhere near a point where I could see anything because of people standing on their chairs and millions of people with buggies.

Why couldn't you just have held your child in your arms for a bit? I don't understand why that wasn't an option.

It's the same with really tall people at gigs and stuff. Why are you standing right at the front? I'm 5ft tall and I can't see anything unless I'm near the front. If I was in a crowd of people shorter than me, I would stand near the back. I can still see, they can see.

It's just good manners.

Oh dear OP, I'm sorry you didn't have a great day out.

I don't think you were unreasonable. Sure, maybe you could have been more considerate (by only lifting your child to your hip) but I think in general lifting your child up so that he could see was a perfectly normal and understandable thing to do. He needed you to move him so he could see, the woman behind you could position herself and I doubt anybody got a great view from a crowd anyway.

The kind of person who when given a reasonable solution to a problem decides to swear in front of young children isn't someone I'd lose sleep over to be honest. She could have explained why that wasn't suitable and suggested an alternative (perhaps she could have stood in front of you), but she decided to intimidate you by making the place less family friendly by swearing.

I wonder how many people had their view obscured by those in front of them putting up umbrellas. Maybe if it had been a sunnier day people might have been in a better mood, less tightly squashed and the young children could have sat at the front. Who knows?

Perhaps, if planning something similar in future you could take a sling to allow you to comfortably carry your toddler at a more crowd-friendly height?

OP plus childs' given hieght, they would be slightly under 8 and a half feet tall.

(8 feet 5 and 3⁄16 inches approx)

should be

8 feet 5 and 3 / 16 inches approx

I don't understand why you didn't just offer to swap places with her yabu to deliberately obscure someone else's line of sight and in those circumstances should be prepared to move back. you coudl then lift him form time to time to get a glimpse and still have the atmosphere. We took ds to Millenium daytime celebrations and it was a nightmare with his buggy on the Southbank trying to leave. Not sure I'd brave such a crowd again even now (he's 14!) unless we had reserved seating.

That's a bit obvious! (swapping places).

They wouldn't be eight and a half feet, you only count the child from crotch up and teh adult from shoulders down, more like just over six foot! Remember adult and child are doubled up from top of adults head to about waist/child's foot to about chest (gets technical hehe)

I've boringly measured it, and it's about 6'7".

I'm really surprised by how many people think tough luck on everybody else, it's fair enough, you'll never see them again, who cares? Think it's pretty sad.

I'm also surprised ErnesttheBavarian although yesterday I was stuck behind a load of people who were standing on chairs, so maybe I shouldn't be. Why do you need to stand on a chair when you're right at the front? Just sit on the chair, you'll still see as much.

Created a really horrible atmosphere in my opinion, especially as there was a naffing great fence between those who had paid/been invited and the plebs.

yup sorry

around here the child actually stand on their parents shoulders.

not many sit down, it involves the parent holding on to the childs ankles to stop them falling.