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?

On the lighter side of things and being in the child give up seat for adult camp - ds 12 and I rarely travel on public transport and usually only when we are abroad. So nearly a year ago we are on the packed buses in Naples and twice I encouraged ds to offer his seat to a standing adult and twice he was turned down, including by an elderly nun.

It is now brought up by ds whenever I am trying to instil a general respect for your elders attitude...we can only try.

Really, we are getting into the realms of those who do and don't pay tax now?

obviously what should happen is that we board the bus with our tax returns in hand and seats allocated accordingly.

So the bus passes are not 'free'

they are not free for the public, but allow free travel for the user.

Why should eg a 15 yo girls stand for a 20 yo boy?
Why should a 17yo girl with a babe in arms stand for an unencumbered 28 year old?
Why is it entitled for an adult to stand if they chose and show their young child/ten to sit? That takes up the same about of seats.

I am happy to follow the rules prevalent on th transport I use which are based around need not done antiquated ideas around showing deference to your " betters "

It's not going to kill your 6 year old to sit on your lap for a few stops and it will make someone else's journey a lot more pleasant.

Exactly, i dread to think what these children are like as teenagers, their parents will be on MN teenage board weeping and wailing about what went wrong
Thankfully i have nice teenagers who happily give up their seats and quite happily sat on my knee when they were younger, or leant against something or sat on the floor. They have been both nominated or short listed for YOPEY and i am very proud of them.

I agree with bruffin, it doesnt seem to have done the dcs harm having sat on my knee occasionally to make room for someone else to sit down

But it would really hurt my legs so why is it wrong that I stand and let my child sit FGS.

Apart from the fact that there's two of them and there's no way they are both going on my lap and it's easier all round if I stand, for the people in the adjoining seats and everyone.

Surely the seats should be accorded according to need, not according to some outdated ideas about who is more important. Which, like I say, is how it is on our local transport. I would be horrified if a child stood up for me. I am more than capable of standing.

People should be offering seats to those who are less able to stand / safely, and that's the end of it.

I mean, the other day one of the DDs sat and I stood with the other one so that I could check she was hanging on OK.

A woman offered my other DD a seat.

So clearly not everyone in real life feels the same way as so many on this thread. In fact IME very few of them do, people seem to prefer to see young children seated on public transport, one way or another.

Theres nothing wrong with you standing if having a child on your knee would hurt your legs.

Theres domething wrong with refusing to sit a 3 yo on your knee to make room for another adult to sit down

YOu forget Seven you are not the only parent in the world who travels on tubes and trains and buses with more than one child, some of us chose not to make a drama out of it.

It really gets on my nerves when people automatically assume that an adult needs to have a seat more than a child. They should always get up for an older or infirm person obviously but I think that a young healthy adult is just as capable (or incapable) of standing as a child.

It's hardly dramatic to allow your children to sit.

And again, you seem to be talking about lap sized children.

Do you subscribe to the idea that the 15 year old should give up their seat to the 19 year old?

Whee does it stop? Child is less 'entitled' then an adult. Does that apply to younger adults vs older adults? If not, why not?

Most able bodied people arnt going to want a primary school dc turfed out their seat so they can sit down but all this my toddler will have its own seat because sitting on my knee is teaching it that it is not as important as an adult is utter bollocks

It's not going to kill your 6 year old to sit on your lap for a few stops and it will make someone else's journey a lot more pleasant.

It would kill me and make my journey unpleasant though.

Yes but that's a very specific 'rule' Havana which no one has really disagreed with, compared to the general blanket idea that children (age unspecified) should stand for adults (age unspecified).

Of course it goes without saying that one tries to make space for others around them. Of course it goes without saying that vulnerable users are offered a seat (which includes children who can't safely stand), but other than that, no one has given a decent reason why person X should automatically give their seat to person Y, just because person Y was born first.

Well the op is about yound dc sitting on knees, 15 yo girls getting up for 20 year old men. 17 yo with babies standing for people older than them is utterly rediculous.

Id think people should be able to use a bit of common sense

Nearly 700 posts in, the thread has evolved into a wider discussion.

And some posters have demonstrated a clear lack of common sense in their blinkered thinking that child = less important than adult regardless of circumstance.

It has evolved into crazy situations where common sense should just be used, I dont remember seeing anyone say that young adults or older children should get up for people slightly older than them.

Nobody is saying that older teenagers are more entitled than younger teenagers etc, its a silly hypothosis that people are making up to prove their point. FWIW my ds usually finds himself a somewhere to prop himself up, rather than sit. And yes i have had large size children propped on my lap. DS was on the 90th centile for all his childhood, i was very grateful he learnt to walk early.
He has a problem where he cant take heat very well and the tube made him very uncomfortable and fall asleep. I was more than happy to sit him on my lap, he didnt need a seat to himself.

There has been a blanket rule that "children come second to adults" and it's "just good manners for a child to give up their seat to an adult". In that last quote the child being referred to was 9.

Plenty of mums have more than one child, that's not a crazy situation. It is very very likely a mum could have a child on her knee and be sat next to another. I for one would not make that child move for a healthy adult.

And actually, by saying that child should give up their seat for an adult, it is exactly the same as saying a 4 year old should give up their seat for a 39 year old, or a 15 year old for a 19 year old.

That's the issue with blanket statements with no flexibility. There are too many situations where common sense doesn't apply in the least.

If it's a case of all bus users give up their seats for the more needy, great.
Add to which all bus users try and minimise the space they are taking e.g. by sitting children on laps where possible, fantastic.

But saying it's bad manners for a child not to give up their seat for an adult, which has been said in this thread - seems arbitrary and wrong.

Havana many have said that for young people (not old people) the question of whether they have paid a full fare points to whether they are "entitled" to a seat.

On TFL children travel free to age 16.

Where am I making a drama out of it?

I don't often travel on public transport with the children.

I do travel a lot on my own, and offer my seat to others that I think might need it. This includes people with children, even older children if it looks like they might be in danger of being squashed etc. I would always offer my seat to a person with a young child/ren, and like I say, this seems to be the group most likely to get seats offered on the transport I use, not vice versa at all.

If I saw an (apparently able bodied) adult tell their DC to give up their seat for an (again apparently) able bodies adult (rather than put DCs their knee which I agree should be done whenever practical) I'd think of the parent "lazy arse, why don't you get up".

DC1 offers to get up for elderly people without being prompted because they've seen DH and I do it.

OK I know I'm getting way off the topic here but I don't care. For what it's worth, I think we probably have gone too far in terms of children being aware of their rights and that that definitely plays a part in the deterioration in behaviour that we see in schools - I am genuinely horrified at seeing documentaries of children swearing at teachers etc BUT for those of you talking about children automatically having less rights than adults and automatically deferring to your elders, as a child of the 70's, that's exactly the sort of attitude that allowed me to be sexually abused by a teacher for 3 years and for people like Savile to get away with what they did.
Children may not be equally deserving of respect as adults but they have basic human rights not to be abused.
I was brought up to believe that I had to defer to what any adult said simply because they were an adult and I was a child which meant that I put up with three years of being repeatedly raped. It never even occurred to me to tell anyone because he was an adult and therefore anything he did was beyond question.
like i said, I'm inclined to think that the balance has tipped a bit to far in terms of children being aware of their rights but I'd prefer that to the situation my generation were in when no child was ever allowed to question anything an adult did simply because they were an adult. Hitler was an adult.