AIBU to think DD(5) gets priority over handbags for bus seats?

[iProcrastinate]

DD is 5, we had to get the bus this morning to do some errands (we don't drive) we got on at the terminal, and sat about halfway down the bus (single decker, a few rows behind the priority seats). The bus was quiet but soon started filling up a few stops into the route. By the time the 'incident' took place, all the pairs of seats had at least one occupant, but the majority were taken up by one person and a small bag. I had DD on one seat, me on the other and a few carrier bags at our feet.

Bus stops and two ladies get on, middle aged, I wouldn't say old, they walk past the priority seats to around where we were, looking for a vacant seat, talking to each other. They spot me and DD - and one says to the other, loudly, about children should be standing if the adults needed seats. They ignored the people who had handbags etc on the spare seat. I wasn't paying much attention, until one of them said to me directly that children shouldn't be sitting while adults were standing. I have raging PMT and said to her, politely, there were plenty of seats taken by small bags, could she please ask someone to move their bag, she scoffed and said that that was 'a bit different to children being on seats' and anyway, luggage couldn't be put in the aisle

I wasn't up for the debate so pulled DD onto my lap and shoehorned us both into the window seat with the shopping bags under my knees. She did a rather sarcastic thank you and sat down, her friend sitting behind as someone had moved their bag. They continued to talk about the rudeness of children on seats and children in general and 'slack' parents not teaching manners......

Don't get me wrong, even though DD now pays to take the bus, if the bus is busy and there are only a couple of seats free I do put her on my knee - I can't get her to stand on a moving bus as she has hypermobility and poor balance - walking to get off the bus when it's moving is a challenge on its own. But there were loads of free seats just with small handbags (not big hold alls or suitcases) on, surely a child has more entitlement to a seat than a bag? Was I in the wrong here?

Absolutely not. Old people can be arseholes

Actually that's childish. All people can be arseholes. These women were!

YANBU, at all.

No of course not. You shouldn't have moved your dd though. You should have told them to take it up with driver. Unless all those people have paid for the seats their bags are now occupying they were all BU. If I've paid a small fortune (costs me almost £15 return for me and 2 dds to get the bus into the city centre and back) for my kids to get on the bus I wouldn't be moving them unless there were no seats available, and only then for people who actually needed the seats!

Noi wouldnt have given them the seat.Ignorant wagons.And ywnbu.

Nope. You were not in the wrong. The woman was a bitch

Children traditionally gave seats up for adults, not their bags. YANBU.

I wouldn't have moved. And further comments would probably have got them an earbashing from me.

Yanbu. The woman was a miserable old bat.

YANBU

What a horrible woman.

If a small bag can fit on to a seat, it can fit on its owner's lap. YANBU.

No yanbu rude horrible woman its horrible trying to balance standing up with young children let alone a child with a disability.

I would happily put my dd on my lap to let someone who is elderly, less mobile or pregnant etc, but not if half the bus was taken up by handbags.

I would have flatly refused in your case op.

Yanbu

I would have refused to move

They were so rude. My blood is boiling.

so they were taught good manners? jeez.....

Once, when DD1 was young, we got on a bus with just one seat left, well with a box on it.

I asked the lady who was sat next to the box to move it, and she refused saying the contents were precious. I told her that if she thought whatever was in the box was more precious than my DD, she was very much mistaken. She had a choice, either she could move it, or I would. She moved it!

Id have told her where to go, your dd is a human just the same as her and she was there first

Yanbu, horrible old cow.

I started a thread about how rude it is to keep your bag on a chair when people were standing. Amazingly a few people thought this was ok and you don't need to move your bag unless someone specifically asks. I have no hesitation in making the bag hoggers move their bags.

The ones that annoy me are those that think that because my son is a young man their handbag has more right to a seat than him. Unfortunately he actually is too polite to ask.

Yanbu. They prob saw you as an easy, vulnerable target, unlikely to jump up and start walloping them. People like that will pick a battle they are likely to win.

I always ask people to
Move bag politely, then less polite then I sit on it, I'm hefty too so their stuff will get a right good squishin x

YANBU at all, just because one is older, does not mean they are entitled to leave their manners at home and be rude.

I would have to ask them where the fantastic manners they had learned as a child had gone to, or explain to them that old people are still expected to have manners. Snooty middle age women wind me up and I can't not answer them back.

Bags on the seat wind me up too and I've been known to move them for people or sit on them if they haven't moved their stuff when asked.

My DC will move without me asking them to if somebody actually needs their seat but no way would i move them for some rude woman when there were other seats.

I would not move my child off her seat that had been paid for while there were still some seats free, that were being used for bags.