to think parents should make room for adults by getting their kids to sit on their laps.

[Bouttimeforwine]

I have always done this, in waiting rooms, on buses, anywhere really. Even till they were too big really to be sitting on laps. Even now I will get them to sit on the floor at friends houses so that adults get the chairs. It's polite and the way I was brought up.

I often see children taking up a space, when it would be easy just to pop them on your knee for a short period of time. I know for a fact that some of these parents have no physical reason not to do this. They just think that their child has as much right as an adult to have that seat. True but it's not good manners is it?

AIBU?

Tam I am interested to know what, exactly, your child is holding on to. You? Another commuter? Because if you do it a lot there is no way your child has always handily ended up near a pole.

seven - belatedly answering your question - DD holds on to a pole. Every time. If we are standing I make sure we are next to one. When she stood on Wednesday (which was to make way for an elderly lady in a long sari, should you be interested) she held on to the pole that was next to the seat. If there hadn't been a pole she would have had to have stayed on my lap.

But thank you for implying that I'm lying.

You should see what happens to adults that don't wear seat belts in vehicles. Buses aren't like normal vehicles, I think that's important to remember. They are bigger and can take and absorb more impact than a regular car could.

Almost 9000 injuries sustained on buses each year

emj.bmj.com/content/22/2/108.full

If my DC could sit on my lap, they would. That's still quite a young age. After that, they'd find it very embarrassing. I don't see why I have more of a right to a seat than them, though. Or why a stranger has more of a right to a seat than them. They and I would both stand up quickly if anyone we even thought could use the seat came on and it would be whatever that person chose, if any, but being an adult does not mean you deserve more respect than a child.

Those 9000 injuries are non collision, so clearly some dodgy bus driving and sharp braking.

I once was called "a rude inconsiderate cow, who wouldn't let an elderly man sit down". The 'elderly' man was maybe late 50s, and i was just out of hospital following a surgery. Couldn't help but pull a face...

I would do it in a waiting room or in someone's house without question.

On public transport, not so much. DS is too big to sit on my knee, and at the minute (recent injuries) I wouldn't be able to stand for a length of time. DS wouldn't be safe to stand as he would run off or fall over even if he was holding on.

Need has nothing to do with age.

"seven - belatedly answering your question - DD holds on to a pole. Every time. If we are standing I make sure we are next to one."

How, though? Which line are you travelling on? I know the layouts of the carriages vary between lines but I am still surprised that you are able to manage that. On the lines I travel on poles are pretty far apart and when you are moved down and squashed in you end up where you end up.

I don't think you're lying (!) but I do think you have been inordinately lucky, managing to get DD hanging onto a pole and not being crushed when you are travelling with her on the tube in rush hour. I also think that implying that other people and/or their children are unusual if they are not comfortable with their 4yo standing at rush hour on the tube is out of line.

You say you can't understand why it's not safe. Other people can see very easily why it's not safe. Each to their own, don't imply they are being over-protective or selfish etc though it's not on.

And why the hell people are having a go at me because I offer my seat when I see young children without one is beyond me!

MN really is nuts at times.

Not everyone lives in London seven which might be why people aren't quite getting where you're coming from.

Where I live it would be easy for a child (not a very young one of course) to stand holding on to a pole.

I haven't given up my seat for a child on a tube, because invariably the parents stand and seat the children instead. I have stood up for a parent though. I think I achieved the rare experience of receiving eye contact and smile from a normal person on a tube in doing so!

Tam is talking about the tube and 4yo though.

I can't understand where she's coming from at all.

People cram in and will not even be aware there is a child down there amongst their legs. When everyone pushes down she will get pushed along irrespective of where the poles are. She will not be strong enough to hang onto a pole with a press of adults pushing against her. Even adult women can't hang on when people really start shoving let alone little ones that people aren't even aware are there.

I really feel that it is not selfish to have a 4yo sitting in those circs and honestly, truly, people give their seats up for little ones even more than older people or pregnant women because it is so obviously terrifying and risky for them.

I really don't think that the message that young children should be expected to stand in these circs is the correct one. It gives me the heebiejeebies quite frankly.

nice of you to offer your seat alis

alis in case people aren't aware what rush hour on the tube looks like here is a handy 1st hit on youtube

well, I can only speak from my own experience of the tube, and on the lines we travel on, when we travel (which when we do catch the rush hour on the way back from my mum's is the early rush hour, I'm not talking 6pm) we have managed it. And we're fine. If we're getting on a train and it looks super busy, we wait for another. If it becomes busy and we're standing I protect DD with my body.

It doesn't happen all that often that it's that busy. But when it is we manage fine.

You clearly do think I'm lying, don't pretend otherwise, the scepticism in your posts to me is shining through. I'm not sure why I'm having to explain to you in detail how I manage to do something that, for me, is not some horrific journey from hell.

I now know that we are unusual in this respect with a 4-year-old. Who is safely tucked up in bed, having had nary a scratch from her travels around London (unlike trips to the park and playground where she's acquired many a bump and bruise). Goodness, she can even get on and off the escalator unaided.

Yabu. Its not a reasonable blanket rule and totally depends on the situation.
Ywnbu to suggest that sometimes, some people ought to give up their seat for some other people, depending on the circumstances of the individuals and their journey.

You see there you go again Tam implying that people who have 4yo children who would not be comfortable with standing on the tube at rush hour have inadequate children.

If you and your child want to stand that is absolutely fine but please can you stop with this idea that what you are doing is and should the the standard as it's not and it shouldn't.

A normal 4yo in amongst a standard rush hour tube mob would likely be shit scared and it is not fair of you to imply that a young child in that situation is being weak or mollycoddled.

How is Tam implying that?

Are we not allowed on MN now to say what we or our kids can do in case it is somehow implying that someone else is inadequate?

God do I really have to cnp it all?! Yes she has implied that in all of her posts. Give them a read.

However it now seems that she hasn't actually been travelling with DD regularly on the tube at rush hour after all so who knows. Having travelled on the tube for yonks her comments about it's not out of the ordinary for a 4yo child to be able to stand in that situation and she can't see why it's not safe etc etc felt all wrong to me.

People give up their seats for little ones, I keep saying, and people don't believe me!!!

Personal interpretation - that's not how I've interpreted her posts.

I believe you about the seats. I always stand up if its busy and someone gets on with a small child. I would also move my small child onto my lap if it was busy to make an extra seat for anyone.

I stand by my last point. Why on earth is it inconceivable that someone else, or someone else's child, does something you haven't yet experienced?

It varies my eldest is 5 we have to commute largely by bus and a lot of walking which is tiring for a little mite who has been ay school all day or wherever, its a given for old, disabled, pregnant women but im unlikely to force my tired DS to shift for a perfectly healthy young adult, especially when I'm stood up with a pram a whole journey, obviously when he gets older it will be different.

Would not dream of expecting my kids to give up their seat for an adult but would expect them to give up their seat for anyone (adult or child) that was less able to stand than they were. As I would (I hope) most decent human beings.

It's not inconceivable that someone does that although she is now backtracking rather on the situations she is talking about.

What is out of line is the implication that people who do not do what she does (or doesn't do, as it turns out) are doing it wrong in some way.

If you read her posts, they are very clear. And quite snidey as well, frankly.

I mean this:

"I now know that we are unusual in this respect with a 4-year-old. Who is safely tucked up in bed, having had nary a scratch from her travels around London (unlike trips to the park and playground where she's acquired many a bump and bruise). Goodness, she can even get on and off the escalator unaided."

So snidey. And all the stuff about "well my DD can hold on tight and not fall over I didn't think she was unusual in that respect maybe she is". Snidey.

Anyway. I'm not going to stop offering my seat when I see young children on my commute, and if one of them happens to be Tam then she can say no thanks in a smug tone and everyone will be happy won't they.

Oh well. I definitely read the thread the other way, which is Tam being the recipient of some rather personal and nasty digs.

I thought AIBU was supposed to be getting nicer. It seemed like it had. This thread - not so much.

Since no one offered me their seat when I was 8 months pregnant and commuting across London (in fact, I was the only one to offer a seat to a woman who obviously needed it during that period- none of the young men in the carriage bothered themselves to move), I'm not going to make the resulting child stand up for such selfish adults, no. An adult who is physically disabled, elderly or pregnant of course I or my older child would stand to make room for, but not an able bodied adult. If children today need to learn manners, the 20+yos should start modelling appropriate behaviour, not bullying children while they all sit on their smug arses faffing on their iphones.

Thurlow I just know how people read these things and the idea of people going away thinking "right so the correct procedure is that I make my child stand on public transport and that's that" especially the idea of 4yo being made to stand on rush hour tubes I just find it distressing.