To think people in UK are becoming more selfish (and then angry when challeneged?!)

[Bellerophon]

First post here so go easy on me please!!

AIBU for thinking that people are just becoming more and more selfish and aggressive these days; and then quick to yell at you when you challenge them about it?

Mumsnet regulars will know this all too well when they come on and post about parent and child spaces. I don't think it's unreasonable for a mother expecting children or with young children, to hope for the nice little bonus to her day that is a P&C space. It is NOT her right to have the space, it is clearly first come, first served. But, you get extra space to get out the buggy, you get extra space for the bump! So why not leave these spaces for those who really need it?

But from the look of things, that thought is for the weak and feeble mothers. Because there are plenty out there who don't have young kids who need space, or don't have bumps, but yet they despise and viscerally hate the fact that others might be getting a "privilege" of some sort. So they will rush to take a P&C space just because it's closer to the store. And immediately focus on the fact that these spaces are offered as a marketing-style incentive by stores, and are not a "right" in themselves.

Of course P&C spaces aren't a "right" - but what happened to society? I live in London and every day I get on the tube and see pregnant women ignored...by other women. Usually young, usually uptight looking and ready to shout at anyone who reminds them that there's more to life than grabbing the first seat available.

We have got to the point where anything which favours another person needs to be snatched out of their grasp on a first-come first-served basis. If there are seats on the Tube? Tough luck for daring to be a mother and commuting - you should have got up earlier. Daring to shop during rush hour, with a 8-month bump? You should use the spaces at the back of the car park like "everyone else" who is foolish enough not to grab the big spaces at the front. Oh wait, I forgot - we should have an Ocado account of course, at that stage of pregnancy.

My parents shudder when I tell them these stories, talking about how people, men an women, used to open doors for women with children automatically; would give up their seats without hesitation for pregnant women; would follow rules that helped society remain harmonious. However back then people used to fear being shunned in society. Today, people assume they'll never see that person again, so act accordingly.

AIBU?

I live just outside London and, yes there are a few twats but generally I find people helpful and willing. Strangely, the only time I really come across the me me me lot is on here. Mnetters get their knickers well knotted up if you dare to suggest you'd quite like to park in a particular space or anything. Quite depressing really.

Ha ha Manic...no I am a saggy tittied minger ...unfortunately.

That's okay then. Just checking. Would have had to doff my cap and tug my forelock.

I find people are perfectly delightful when I am out with my 16 mo. This is in Scotland.

Sometimes I find it hard to tell if a lady is pregnant so don't want to offend (e.g. my hairdresser; I thought she was but she could of just been bloated that day but next time I saw her it was pretty obvious she was pregnant). Where someone is clearly pregnant I will always offer my seat but 99% of the time I can't get a seat so can't really give one up.

What ticks me off are people who stop walking right in front of you - how hard is to to quickly check over the shoulder or move to one side before stopping. Also large groups of people in the middle of a pavement outside a busy station just chatting to each other whilst everyone else has to try and get past.

I do have an amount of sympathy for what you're saying. However my DM commuted while pregnant 35 ish years ago and tells me she stood every day as nobody would give up their seat.
I often take DS & buggy on the train and it's very rare that I'm not offered help getting up & down stairs. I also never had a problem with getting a seat while pregnant, although I rarely travelled at rush hour.
I really think the p & c spaces thing is a mumsnet thing. My experience of rl is that most people have no resentment about them and accept that they're really supposed to be for people with children.

I think the awful people have probably become more awful. But there are still lots and lots of nice people around.

I don't look at who is occupying P&C spaces. If I am on my own with DD I check to see if one is free (if DH is with me I don't use them, I leave them for someone who needs the extra help more). If one is free, great, if not, I try to forget they exist.

Sure if I watched to see who was using them I'd probably often see some lazy fecker abusing them, but I don't need to see that. AIBU has my blood pressure raised high enough!

I think there is lots of kindness and civility out there. I walk around town most days with DD toddling holding my hand or in the buggy and overwhelmingly people are lovely, patient and helpful.

Northern people tend to be friendlier.

YANBU - totally agree.

Teenage boys in particular get an unfair rap I always think.

So many nice boys around where I lived in London. Holding doors and lifting buggies and just generally being pleasant albeit in a 'teenagery' fashion, actually I will adjust that to all teenages getting an unfair reputation. When the local high school let out the older kids used to push the little ones on the swings and spin the roundabout for them.

I didn't drive in the UK so no comment on P&C parking/London driving.

I agree morloth teenage boys are quite lovely really, there was a group outside the corner shop yesterday and one of the girls was swearing and shouting and showing off, saw me coming with two young children and 2 of the boys started to tell her off about her language with dc about

I find they usually jump out their seat on the bus/tube/train without being prompted to.

Everyone who has posted about having to stand up did you not try asking for the seat?

I agree with iusedtobefun about smiling at the world and it smiling back.

I did not, however, smile at the old bats who have queue-jumped me in the past week.

I now live out of London but the difference is noticeable. We only lived on the edge of London but I certainly found driving far more stressful, and driving into London could be terrifying (when I returned down south it took me a while to stop "leaping" into gaps in traffic and realise that people let each other in etc!)

Certainly tube and bus journeys while pregnant/small baby were "interesting". Yes there are lots of times people were helpful but also a lot of times they weren't. I stopped taking a pushchair and only used a sling when I realised how unhelpful people were. Again back south and buses far easier (does help they are less crowded in general though) and people more considerate.

Poppy said exactly what I was going to say!

Generally speaking - People, through history, have always been selfish. (for how many years were babies and children starving in this country while the rich failed to give a shiny shit? Think it's changed much?)

People will help others only if it suits them to do so - and generally if there is some sort of benefit to them to help another person. a lot of what comes across as caring about others is only done because there is a benefit to the person doing it. This can be as simple as it makes them feel good. People rarely do things that benefit someone else but which causes them harm. There are homeless people, for example. But they're not getting MY house - can they have yours? (extreme example for illustrative purposes only )

People care about others only to the point where it affects them. At which point this loving caring all inclusive we're in this together I want to help you stuff vanishes like a fart in a force ten gale.

People always put themselves first. If it's a time of plenty - some may be generous. But if times are lean and it comes right down to it - they'll kill you for a slice of bread.

I have a very low opinion of the human race

I think the problem with driving in London is that people expect it to be so awful (which it is) they kind of put their twat hat on and go for it. Like throwing yourself to the lions really.

Generally I think YANBU but I also think there have always, and always will be giant nobs in society.

Poppy you make some really interesting points. I'm sure you're right about people all pulling together in times of crisis but then becoming more inward looking and selfish in times of relative peace and prosperity. Your theory is sort of backed up by the sense of community in my own 'deprived' neighbourhood, where nearly everybody is really skint but lots of people help each other out in practical ways because they understand how hard life can be if this doesn't happen.

However, do you think that there has been more of a general cultural shift recently, and that in this society we now think in terms of our rights rather than our duties? Also that maybe as families and communities become more geographically fragmented, there is less long-term social comeback for people who want to be selfish, so they get away with it more?

Morloth such a good point about lovely teenagers - I have met lots of polite, helpful and socially aware young people as well.

about history I mean. That there was no time in history which was some sort of golden age of selflessness

I live in SE Asia and really miss how polite the Brits are. Here, people will have no qualms about pushing into and past you to get the last space in the lift, leaving you with double pushchair behind, or handing cash over your shoulder to pay for goods. Driving is mental, because no-one lets anyone in, ever. You have to barge, forcefully, without caring what the person next to/ behind you is doing. It isn't natural to me!

The person who has made a stupid sweeping generalisation about northerners being friendlier has evidently never been lost in Rotherham and asked for directions.

I don't recognise the London painted here. I don't think people are any more rude in London than anywhere else. I am often surprised by the kindness I see on the tube. And the apparently 'uptight' women the op refers to who don't acknowledge a pregnant woman - perhaps they (like most people) on the tube are just miles away in their own thoughts and don't recognise that you are there. Ask them for a seat. Just because you are pregnant and constantly aware of the fact it doesn't mean that people automatically notice.

I don't think there was a golden age of chivalry, but I certainly don't think that people's respect for others has gone to the dogs either.

I always chuckle to myself when people hold up London as such s terribly rude place compared to the rest of the UK because half the people I come across on the tube, in the street or shops or whatever aren't actually British at all!

YANBU - this is part of the reason I left London. In the end I couldn't make a single journey in my car without someone telling me to fuck off.

When DS was 6 months old, I had to go to sainsbury's - it was very busy and i had to park over the 'line' of a space in order to open the door wide enough to get the car seat out of my 3-door car. When I came out of the shop, someone had deliberately parked so close I couldn't open the driver's door of my car. I had to do a tannoy call for the owner, an aggressive German guy who said "yes I did it on purpose, you cunt", as I pushed baby DS back to the car. Shocking.

My mum was saying only the other day how polite shopkeepers etc have grown since her young days and how helpful they are, even recommending you another shop if they haven't got what you want, would never have happened in her young days apparently.

Agatha Christie mentions in her autobiography how very rare it was for anybody to give up their seat on the tube for a pregnant woman when she was pregnant- that would have been in the 20's, I suppose.

Perhaps they both lived through cycles of incivility.

Balls. I commuted daily in London while pregnant and people were falling over themselves to offer me seats. Occasionally I'd get on a packed train and people genuinely wouldn't notice; in that case I could either stand, ask for a seat, or get off and catch a less busy train. Since I've been out and about with my pram shopkeepers and other members of the public have been nothing but helpful and kind. I live in east London.

Sometimes people are busy and SHOCK HORROR thinking of themselves. But how do you know these 'young uptight' women (nice misogyny there btw) don't have illness or disabilities? I have a friend with ME who would struggle to stand for a tube journey for example, but feels that she would be judged for asking for a seat.