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AIBU?

Share your dilemmas and get honest opinions from other Mumsnetters.

Original poster

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

702 replies

Bouttimeforwine · 15/08/2014 12:14

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?

OP posts:
BathshebaDarkstone · 15/08/2014 22:48

It depends. I was asked to put my DD on my lap on the bus when i was 8.5 months pregnant and wearing a "Does my bump look big in this t-shirt! Angry

Gileswithachainsaw · 15/08/2014 22:52

I'd be offering them my seat if one of you turfed them out!!!

No hanging off poles at three half asleep if I'm
About.

lettertoherms · 15/08/2014 22:54

But Giles, you're bigger and stronger, so they should automatically respect you, more than you respect them, being little and weak and not having having achieved the commendable feat of living longer.

angeltulips · 15/08/2014 22:55

Yanbu absolutely

When I grew up it was actually law that children had to vacate seats for adults - the theory was that you got a discounted seat so you had to give it up for full
Paying passengers

I am constantly amazed at the number of times I'm on the tube and some daft family is sat taking up 4-6 seats between them, with the kids lolling about on the seats whilst adults stand crammed around them. Incredibly bad manners, IMO - kids should be standing (sen excepted ofc).

Gileswithachainsaw · 15/08/2014 22:56

I'm an adult, I'm not disabled and I'd take the hit!!

RiverTam · 15/08/2014 22:58

why shouldn't I be snidey, seven, when you have been totally disbelieving of my posts? And it's not snidey, it's bloody true - DD gets bumps and brusies from the playground, zooming around the house not paying attention, this, that and the other - but not from travelling on the tube. She has been fine. She is very confident. I am confident that she is safe and I am keeping her safe. You have never been there with us, you don't know - oh, but apparently you do, somehow? How is that, exactly? Were you on the Jubilee Line with us this Wednesday at about 5.15 pm? Start of the rush hour? When she sat on my lap to make way for an elderly lady then decided to stand, holding firmly on to the pole, standing right next to me, for about maximum 10 minutes between Green Park and Canada Water?

Right now I couldn't give a flying fuck if not another child in the universe can do this. I have been called selfish, irresponsible and implied, twice by you, that I'm a liar, simply because, it transpires, my experience of travelling on the tube with my daughter has not been yours. I travelled on the tube with my mum from a young age, without an adult from around 12/13 - we always doubled up, it was a laugh sitting on each other's knees and squashing up, and not one of us every felt like we were less of a person that any adult.

Thank you to those who have not seen to question my every post. Bowing out of this now, what has transpired to be one of my nastiest experiences on MN.

MostWicked · 15/08/2014 22:58

All the more reason why he should give up his seat to a grown up who has paid full fare.

I have a free disabled bus pass that entitles me to free bus travel. Am I less entitled to a seat than an adult paying full fare?

SevenZarkSeven · 15/08/2014 22:59
Grin

That happened once actually. This woman was sitting on the floor at the end of the carriage looking really ill so I sort of indicated did she want to sit and she nodded and stood up, so did I, and this middle aged businessman plunked himself down in the seat! I asked him to get up again. he was really pissed off...

DioneTheDiabolist · 15/08/2014 23:00

AIBU: where people jettison comm

Gileswithachainsaw · 15/08/2014 23:01

Between buses and trains I've been knocked, feet trodden on, hit head on pole after a sudden stop, had people fall into me, drunks leer too close, rammed with buggies and trollies and had poppers shoved in my face. Hit with back packs.

No way a kid should have to stand with that lot at 4/5 or even 8/9

DioneTheDiabolist · 15/08/2014 23:01

AIBU: where people jettison common sense, just to be contrary.Hmm

YANBU OP.

SevenZarkSeven · 15/08/2014 23:05

"She is very confident."

Yes because that will really help when she is squished at just under hip height amongst a load of commuters who are looking up not down and can't even see her.

You said you travelled regularly with your 4yo DD on the tube at rush hour, and had been doing so for 4 years, and she stands up and holds on and you have never had a problem she has never been pushed or shoved and everything has been hunkydory.

I said, you have been bloody lucky. And I don't think it's fair or reasonable to imply as strongly as you have that 4yo who would not be up to it are sub-par in some way. Lacking in confidence. A failure in the balancing stakes. Wusses who are obviously going to be incapable of using the escalator. Etc etc

TheysayIamparanoid · 15/08/2014 23:06

YANBU. Its good manners to stand up for an adult on a bus. My kids eventually did this without me asking them. A few times on a crowded bus, if I'm standing, I've asked teenagers to stand up so a pensioner could sit!

aintnothinbutagstring · 15/08/2014 23:08

Funny, when we were in France on holiday, adults leapt out of their chairs to let my dd, 5yrs, sit down on the subway/bus... lots of strangers helped us navigate the system which never happens over here.

EmeraldLion · 15/08/2014 23:12

Why has this become solely about seats on transport? That's not what I read the op as.

It's nice for a child to give up a seat to an adult. Kids can more easily/happily sit on the floor or perch on someone's lap.

As an example for those seemingly thinking the op is bu. A small family function. Ten people, 9 chairs.

Would you really, really 'allow' your three year old to sit on a chair whilst another adult had to stand? Rather than just perching the three year old on your knee, or the floor where they'd be likely just as happy.

Would you really allow that other person to stand? If so, you're incredibly rude.

SevenZarkSeven · 15/08/2014 23:15

I think because transport situations are where people are not agreeing.

aintnothinbutagstring · 15/08/2014 23:16

IMO, you see far more entitled adults not making way for elderly, disabled, pregnant.

In our area, a childs ticket is not half fare, more like two thirds.

Gileswithachainsaw · 15/08/2014 23:27

When we were on holiday and dd1 was about six, the bus we got from the site was really really packed. A lovely elderly lady let dd sit with her and offered to get up so I could sit with her. I declined but thanked her for thinking of what my still young dd might have needed.

She chatted to her and was ever so nice and when she got off instead of taking the seat I let another young child the same age take the seat next to dd.

Gileswithachainsaw · 15/08/2014 23:28

(I was standing up the aisle and was next to the seat)

yellowtaxi · 16/08/2014 00:17

Totally agree with lettertoherms. I don't think anyone on this thread has said that they wouldn't expect their child to give up their seat for someone elderly, pregnant, disabled, etc, or that they wouldn't give up their own seat for someone who needed it more, just that they don't see why an able bodied child who was there first should have to move for an able bodied adult simply because the adult is older. As an healthy 20- something I would never accept a seat offered to me by a child (or indeed anyone else) and allow them to stand as I don't see why I deserve or need it more than them. I also don't understand how questioning the opinion that children should always give up seats for adults regardless makes you a "Jeremy Kyle mum" that puts bags on seats and allows children to stretch across 3 seats while others stand, as some on this thread have implied.

Sunna · 16/08/2014 06:03

I wonder if the people who sit despite people in greater need standing around them are the children of parents who never made them give up their seats when they were children. Teach children that they are entitled to a seat at a young age and they'll carry on believing it into adulthood.

TheRealAmandaClarke · 16/08/2014 06:07

Some people's attitudes worry me. Really.
Yes ill make space on transport for someone by popping my 3yo on my lap. But not if 1yo is already on it.
No i will not make him stand so a grown up can sit. You can fuck off with that suggestion. And of course its dangerous for little ones to stand on the tube. I would give up my seat for a 4yo.
And i don't think i need to teach my DCs just to blindly defer to adults in order for them to become mannerly.

TheRealAmandaClarke · 16/08/2014 06:08

Wonder away Sunna, you are talking nonsense.

Sunna · 16/08/2014 06:14

And you are talking like a Jeremy Kyle mum.

lettertoherms · 16/08/2014 07:07

But why does teaching a child to stand for any adult teach them to stand for someone in greater need? I cannot see any logic in that. They are in a position of more vulnerability than an able adult they might give up their seat for.

To teach your children to stand for elderly, disabled, or pregnant women - you teach them to stand for elderly, disabled, or pregnant women. Not that being an adult trumps their own vulnerability.

Surely children taught to stand for any adult would then feel, as adults, that they are always entitled to a seat, despite a more vulnerable person being there before.