to think a parent of a young child

[MurielTheActor]

should take them to the side when an older person is coming through with a full trolley.
I was coming out of supermarket along narrow walkway pushing my shopping when a father with a small girl (about 6 years) was coming the other way and just stood taking up the whole space so I had to go the side to let them through.

How are children going to learn to consider others when they are being shown that they have more rights than anyone else?
As a child I was constantly being dragged out of the way to let grown ups pass.
This really makes me so angry.
And don't get me started on children taking seats on buses and trains while adults are standing...
What is going on?

I'm not that old (early 30s) and tend to agree with Thyme and Valium...

There's a big difference between "children should be seen and not heard" and teaching children some basic manners and courtesy about holding doors, standing to one side to let others pass etc, surely?

do you know something? i find my parents' generation to be rude, cold and entitled. (people born in the 1940's)

i can only think of one couple who are warm, undjudgemental and interested in anybody apart from themselves.

god save us all from their 'values'

I am 43 so not prehistoric, but I do seriously think things have changed so much, as thyme and familes describe. I was brought up to respect my elders, in fact to respect everyone. I am raising my children the same way, and meeting some resistance. Despite my advancing years, my eldest is only just turned 6.

Good lord, you expect children to be dragged out of your way? Are you famous?

I think children should respect their elders but that adults should respect a child. Both of those principles are broken often.

I'd ask my DC to step out of someone else's path in the same way that I would. I'd give my seat up to a child who was young enough to be better off sitting down and didn't have a parent with a spare lap.

It's shocking indeed that a child should be asked what they would like for dinner. And to think that a parent might even allow them that choice!

When my son said he wanted spaghetti with meatballs, well what a ridiculous suggestion! And as for my daughter asking for lasagne. How very dare she!

They should have stood aside for you with the trolley, not because one of them was a six year old, but because you had a trolley. Two pensioners nattering and not noticing they were in your way would have been just as bad.

I really don't see any reason why a child should stand for an able-bodied adult in a bus and I currently live in a country (France) where 1) many adults will spontaneously stand to let small children sit down on a bus and it is in the bus company regulations that they should and yet 2) discipline is generally much stricter than in England.

I always move my children out of the way of incoming trolleys as my kids have been taught manners so yanbu, BUT if that man would have had a heavy basket and a child to deal with aswell the yabu as baskets are extremely heavy and cumbersome with lots of shopping in, a trolley is not.
My one bugbear is when people ram me complete with trolley, out of the way when i have a pushchair, a huge basket and a walking toddler to deal with-one time my toddler nearly got knocked over and i nearly dropped my basket trying to help her.
I think letting a person pass you depends on the situation iyswim, and thankyou should always be applied, not that i ever get a 'thankyou' from the grumpy old sods in my local Tesco

I think it's possible to agree with both sides here!
I agree that children ought to be taught to move out of the way - it's not something they know automatically and most of us want to bring up people who know how to be polite. You do this by getting them to move when they are in the way. But it isn't a total obligation, every single time - there will be times when an adult needs to move out of the way for a child. And they should equally be polite enough to know it. A child who assumes they are always more important than an adult is obnoxious. So is an adult who assumes they are always the most important one present.

In a supermarket, a child wandering around should move out of the way of an adult. At a Punch and Judy show, put on for kids, the adults should move out of the way to ensure the children can see (lady in the fluffy jumper thing, standing up in the second row, I am glaring at you...).

Surely it's all about the situation, not a general "I am more valuable than you are and you need to get out of my way". In the situation described in the op, I'd be asking dd to get out of the way (she's 3). I do also expect that if she doesn't then the adult who wants to pass will ask her - she's still learning this stuff and doesn't always get it right. I really don't get what the problem was with this - why on earth wouldn't you ask, instead of assuming that 'This is what is wrong with the Youth of Today'? I may not always move my offspring the precise second you think I should - I might not have noticed - I don't walk around on full alert every second of the day and I don't mind someone else stepping in if what I am doing is keeping only half an eye on her while I think 'Crap. Forgot the shopping list. What was I supposed to be getting?'

If a child does move out of the way, do you say thank you, as you would to another adult? Or do you take it as your right? Because if the latter, then you are really not practising what you preach in this whole 'respect' debate, and you are exactly the sort of person that I don't want my child turning into - a rude, entitled individual. I find it ironic that my child would have to defer to you in order to learn not to become you! (Can I just say I used 'you' not directed at anyone, but because using 'one' sounds ridiculous. I'm not accusing or targeting anyone.)

This debate seems to have become polarised. It isn't a choice between either making kids into second class citizens, in a world where the adults are always right, or turning them into little brats. It is perfectly possbile to bring up polite, well mannered children, while still acknowledging that they are people too, with the same rights as everyone else. This is what the vast majority of posters are saying - not that children shouldn't be taught manners, but they they do not automatically become subservient to adults in every situation. Everyone should be considerate towards everyone else, and that includes adults being considerate towards children.

What the actual fuck?

Not making a child move for you isn't the same as giving them too many choices like asking them what they want for tea.

I can't believe some people would move a child from its seat on a bus. That's disgusting. Unless the adult needing to sit down had a health problem, then they should stay there.
It's nothing to do with the child having to show respect, they can be very respectful but that doesn't mean they should be treated like second class people I'd feel ashamed of myself if I made a child move so I could sit my arse down.

I was always very respectful and when I have kids they will be taught the same. I never spoke out of turn, and I hate these over confident kids that you see on this morning who just won't shut up and think they're on par with the presenters. but that doesn't mean I'll allow adults to think they're of higher importance.

Regardless of whether it was a child and adult or two adults, politeness would dictate that one should move out of the way of someone pushing a trolley. It is much easier than manoeuvring an unwieldy trolley.

I,ve always moved my children to sit on my knees/lap to let Adults sit down, even when they were much older than toddlers and I,ve got one balanced on each knee but so many adults don't even bother to say thank you. Now that is rude.

I didn't know there was a law regarding trollys having right of way.
If this had happened to me I wouldn't have give it a second thought, some people let you through some people don't. It's just in the case it was a child that you think should have been moved. Sometimes it's easier for the trolley to wait whilst the people get passed... It's not black and white

And I've been very judgy when people I've been with, haven't put their much smaller child on their laps when I have, to make space for more people.

given the difficulties of steering the aveage supermarket trolley, the non trolley pushers should get out of the way of trolley pushers... whatever their age. this should be done with a thankyou and a smile.

and about children walking 4 abreast on the pavement.... well I was going past the local innercity secondary every single group of young people (and there were a lot) went single file, if one in the grrouop did not notice, another hoiked the "offender" out the way. all were politely thanked.

about children on buses. children have hidden disabilities too.

yabu and a bit of a twat

My DS2 isn't obviously disabled. But he IS disabled, and needs a seat on the bus. Round here, we have to pay for a ticket for all DC over 5yo. And it isn't half fare, either. When I catch the bus in the morning to get the DC's to school, they charge a 'Peak' fare for children's tickets that mean they cost the same as an adult ticket.

If I have paid the same amoutn as an adult ticket for him, then IMO, he is just as entitled to take up a seat as an older person. With the caveat that he moves for an elderly/infirm/disabled adult. In which case, I would then stand to give him MY seat, as he is disabled and NEEDS a seat himself. But then I am also disabled, and need a seat too...

My only answer to your OP is

So children should get out of the way, be polite and let you sit down? What about you saying excuse me to children? or thank you when they move to one side? Manners work both ways - my daughters usually get out of the way for adults but adults very rarely thank them, they say excuse me when they have to get passed someone but very rarely get it back! I think a lot of adults need to have a look at themselves before they start going on about the behavior of children!

I think YANBU OP. I know exactly what you mean about the bus thing - I have often been on a crowded bus where children who are clearly under 5 are taking up seats when they could easily be sitting on their parent/adult's lap to free up a seat for an adult.

Also agree with ThymeOut's post - so many children get pandered to and parents try to 'reason' with them instead of just saying no. I'm all for giving children choice but in a restricted way that is appropriate to their age. Also completely agree that at some point they will have to learn that the world doesn't revolve around them and that they can't always do exactly as they want to, and that will be a nasty shock!

Though my DC's DO have excellent manners - to the point where the HT of their school actually praised me on it, and said that he wished others would teach their DC's the same.

I would be mortified if my DC's didn't thank the bus driver when they got off, and didn't say thank you in a shop, and didn't offer their seats to someone who needed it more than them (though in DS2's case, that isn't many people...).

My DC's have impeccable manners - but I do NOT feel that they are somehow 'second class' to adults. Respect has to be earned. My older DC would automatically move out of the way for an adult who was more encumbered than they were themselves (My DC have to help me carry the shopping, or push the trolley), but they WOULD expect a thank you - and have been known to turn round to people when they have held doors open for them that haven't thanked them, and politely tell them that "Manners cost nothing but buy you the world."

IMO, it should be a two way street, manners - it should be about assessing the situation and the one who would find it easiest to move out of the way should do so, irrespective of whether the other person is an adult or a child.

My DC WILL move out of other people's way if it is possible for them to do so. However, if it is not, then the other person SHOULD move for my DC, regardless of the fact that they haven't been alive for as long...

I teach my children manners and to respect everyone equally. I also teach them to respect themselves and have confidence and self worth. They have a right to sit on a seat on a bus but it is up to them to give the seat up for someone else moreneedy of it. Guess what my 3 yo has offered his sit to five people in the last year off his onw back all refused but no one thanked him but he did get a kindness star for asking.

Manners and respect work both ways.

And NOT everyone CAN sit a child on their knee. I have a disability that makes this difficult, though not immediately obvious, as does a poster above. Should we never travel on public transport because we can't sit a DC under 5yo on our lap on a moving bus? In my case, certainly, that would leave me housebound, unable to shop, take my DC to school, go and pay my bills, or carry out any semblance of a normal life.

Things aren't always black and white...

I was in the supermarket yesterday thinking of this thread. My trolley was quite full and heavy,and it occured to me that it would probably be safer to stop and let a small child pass rather than pass them and risk the trolley veering into them.
I also noticed how many adults bumped into DC2 and didn't say sorry. I never really noticed how much it happened before this thread. DC walking along,holding the trolley and adults too busy gawping at the shelves.

its not safe IMO to sit a child on your knee on the bus
have none of you ever been on a bus that did a sudden stop? really?

• I got a nasty bruise on my sternum from the bar on front last time that happened to me, at least if a child has its own seat it only hits the bar with the force of its OWN body, if on your knee it hits the bar with the force from your much bigger body behind it!