To think that many train users are completely oblivious or maybe they just hate kids

[Breadwidow]

I live in central london with 2 DCs (3 & 7 months). We don't have a car so use public transport a lot. It's hard work with 2 obviously but increasingly I've found that there's an additional aspect that makes train journeys out of london even harder than they might be already: the behaviour of other passengers. This rarely happens on London transport but on trains I now often find that people are totally caught up in their own world that they do things which really hinders our journey with two kids - in fact sometes it's as if they hate the kids. Examples of such behaviour are:
Running to board trains / lifts cutting ahead of me / OH with the buggy and def not offering to help - especially bad in terms of lifts where the adults cutting ahead are usually carrying a small bag and could take the stairs!
Running along platform, nudging buggy out of the way, towards train tracks
Being pissed off (sometimes very vocal with it) when we ask people to move suitcases / bags to allow room for buggy or to allow DS to sit down (on a recent journey DH slightly moved a suitcase to allow room for buggy containing sleeping DS only to have the suitcase pushed back with force against the buggy - he pointed out to the passenger who pushed the case that they should be careful as DS was asleep in buggy and was told to 'not make a scene' by the middle aged woman who had pushed the suitcase into the buggy - hilariously it turns out she wasn't the owner of the suitcase!)
Making a lot of glances / tuts at DS (3) who is generally pretty well behaved on the train but is quite chatty
Maybe I'm just a bit paranoid but now every train journey seems to have 2+ examples of unhelpful or sometimes rude behaviour. The main perpetrators are middle aged women who you'd have thought would have once had small children themselves and maybe be more sympathetic!

even conversation on commuter trains is apparently not tolerated. Except it's not the law - it's the unwritten rule of the self-entitled commuter....

not in the quiet carriages, no. Which are clearly marked and in the minority. So if you want to have a loud conversation all the way to London, then sit in one of the non-quiet carriages (along with those who want to spend time on their mobile phones/play loud music) and everyone is happy. And people absolutely ask adults to stop using their mobile phones in the quiet carriage.

I hate travelling on trains with my kids so I sympathise with you greatly. This is why I am both learning to drive and saving for a car!

However I don't think it's over passengers responsibility to accommodate my kids. I'm always very grateful if people move or offer to help but I know I can't expect it. We try to make it as easy as we possibly can for ourselves, getting to the train station ages early so we don't have to rush, getting the megabus or coach instead when possible so buggy and bits are underneath folded up, taking things for my little man to do so he isn't chatting peoples ears off etc.

As usual there are some helpful, reasonable posters who are giving good advice and sensible opinions. And there are the others who make personal attacks on individuals, along with assumptions as to what that person must be like.

Essentially society works better if we try to limit our disturbance of others and tolerate it when others disturb us - within reason.

London transport is actually not bad for this.

I have had to travel with little ones, with huge luggage, with a crucial meeting to get to, an interview to prepare for , a blinding, sickening migraine, a plane to catch, on crutches.... and have seen others doing exactly that at different times.

I have been wonderfully helped, (with children I was regularly helped by young lads aged between about 16 and 21 who without fail carried my child and buggy up many flights of stairs), when I collapsed, when I left my handbag on the train.... And occasionally met a few people who were rude or tutting - but not many.

Having young kids didn't make me think I could disturb everyone else. Nor does having work to do mean everyone else should sit in utter silence.

A little respect goes a long way.

Of course, if the carriage was full of little kittens, I really would be happy!

As a commuter I find my tolerance levels plummet if the parents aren't attempting to stop their child from screeching, particularly if its the train home when I'm knackered. I fully realise that children find going on the train exciting but I can't bear the screeching.

However, one of my fondest memories was commuting during the Olympics when all of my trains were routing through Stratford and stuffed full of families going to the Olympic park. Nobody is at their best at 7.30am and I will never forget a very excited little girl asking her parents why everyone looked so grumpy. I have never seen so many people suddenly start to smile as her mum told her it was because we were all going to work and not having a fun day out

It is not 'customary' as it is not replicated on trains all over Britain- your mistake is thinking that this particular train is literally a 'commuter' train when in fact it is just a train and all members of the public are entitled to board it!

This thread really takes the 'ladder of inference' prize for the most half-baked assumptions. The number of things people are getting cross about the OP saying - when in fact she never said them - is quite astonishing.

Blimey

So if you need to take your kids somewhere, you should only get on public transport between the hours of about 10.30 and maybe 2 (otherwise you'll hit the school run and probably be in the way of someone else)

And you should somehow, magically, enforce silence on your young child duct tape?

Its public transport. There will be people on trains doing a 100 different things that other people won't appreciate or will find annoying. Headphones that play music louder than speakers do. Tapping noisily on laptop keyboards. Having loud phone conversations. Putting their fucking fold-up bikes in the aisle and by the doors so everyone trips over them. Leaving luggage in the middle of the aisle. Trying to hold a conversation with a person sitting the other side of the carriage from them because it's busy. Eating smelly or noisy food.

And sometimes, a chatty kid or a pushchair that's blocking the way.

I'm someone who'll happily agree (even as a parent) that young children in an expensive restaurant in the evening, for example, can be annoying because it's the sort of time and place that I'd hope it would be child free.

But a train?

How did this thread go from chatty children to screeching children?

Goldenbear - everything you have said, I agree with.

parent with screaming child/baby gets my sympathy because it's hard enough without other people judging.

I might start a thread that says "AIBU to expect a quiet and peaceful train journey if you are not in a quiet carriage?" With or without my DS, I have never had a "quiet" train journey except maybe in the era of pre-mobile phone days.

Thurlow

there have been several campaigns especially in London on buses/tubes/trains etc... see link below. one also mentions not eating smelly food. but basically be considerate to others.

It also said things like 'offer that person my seat' etc...

www.ravishlondon.com/items/(974).html

They didn't (as far as I remember) didn't say anything about buggies/children talking or not that I recall.

goldenbear I have to say you're one of the most entitled parents I've come across.

YABU .... Welcome to London we are all very mean lean rushing machines! Everyone needs to work together and not suggesting you are like this OP but everyone takes the piss....including mothers with children (yes i said it) - I've seen it all....from everyone.

I've been commuting in London for 40 years. I go from the outer suburbs to the centre every day, and back again. I'm raising children here without a car. So I've been irritated by almost everybody in my time.

But I still know what proper manners looks like. And that's all the OP was asking for. Not tolerance of 'screeching', not putting her children on other people's laps, not allowing her children to race up and down, not 'special treatment'. Just manners. Sounds reasonable to me.

Great argument you have there SuperFlyHigh, where in any of my posts have I demonstrated entitlement with my own DC?

There is a real problem in society as a whole with 'entitled', intolerant adults and so much of it is rooted in a seemingly accepted 'survival of the fittest' code of conduct. This allows for bad manners, an absence of an inner unselfishness and every single thought being about the individual and their comparitive comfort as a priority.

It's really depressing that people are justifying being outraged at children having the audacity to be children.

Candidkate, I grew up in Greenwich, my Dad was a commuter, London hasn't always been like this and actually doesn't have to be.

I think there is a general grumpy crossness in society - encouraged by politicians promising stuff they can't ever give and endlessly blaming 'others' for the problem (others being everyone who isn't you) add to that the nasty media and press, flagging up everyone else as over-privileged/ lazy/ over paid/ lying (in the case of everyone from nurses to mps) / feckless nuisances, without whom our lives would be better - sadly we have no control over the crap we have to contend with so take it out on everybody else - hence rude, entitled people on public transport and everywhere else too.

Add to that the thought that every other male you see is probably a porn addict (or when you see the figures that's how it seems to stack up), the fact that women's lot hasn't improved greatly over the last 10 years (may have gone backwards) and the news is a constant barrage of murder, killings, rape etc in war torn areas of the world.
Good job there aren't many cliffs or we'd all be jumping off them, instead we're just grumpy.

Goldenbear With an increasing population / tourism/ economy things will only get worse sadly. Furthermore - Womens attitudes are also changing, as OP has noticed, she mainly gets looks and comments from middle aged ladies who should know better!

I once spent an entire train journey home from London with the young woman in the seat opposite shouting the whole way home to her friend about all the shops she'd been to at St Pancr-E-as station.

I was thunderous by the time I got back to Brighton. Far more irritating than any small child I've ever sat near .

I used to travel weekly from Bham New St to Durham on a Friday, between 6-7pm (return on a Monday) with a baby, pushchair and 2 big bags. And I did not experience rudeness, busy yes, crowded yes, a slight bit of jostling yes but on every journey someone would always help me get on the train and off at the other end. Sometimes if DS was asleep a passenger would offer to get me a coffee or something from the buffet carriage if they were going. I always booked our seats and on occasion if DS was asleep I would give his up and put him on my lap to offer someone else his. Not everytime but frequently. As the train moved on they would get off and he would have his seat back - no big deal.

I will always be eternally grateful for the 2 young lads who on one occasion held back what felt like crowds (super busy one Friday cannot remember why), picked up the bags, pushchair got them on the train with a 'don't worry we will help, you just hold onto the baby'. Their mothers would have been so proud

Onionrings - Ive had similar help from young lads though a while back now

Sorry couldn't resist looking at this mental thread again and thanks for those who pointed out where I didn't say something but others assumed I did

Am dreading journey to Worcester on fri where at Paddington they never announce platform til 5mins before departure creating a mental rush for the train and means you cannot avoid this however early you turn up for the train.

Op I travel regularly by myself fur work and with my three children -usually a cramped overcrowded five hour train journey.

You will never win this argument. People will always formulate their argument in the most extreme way possible in order to be 'right.'

The fact is that we are all inconvenienced at some point by other people. It's just the way it is.

We were travelling the other day and the girls 5,8,10 were standing up and being thrown about by the speed of the DLR. They were also shrieking and giggling. They were probably behaving loudly but conversely no one got up to offer the little one a seat even though she could barely keep upright.

Goldenbear you come across as disliking the other commuters in this thread, you know the ones who don't have children…

And then make generalisations about people being drunk, smelly food etc… all your long list of bad train behaviour.

re the above I've honestly only seen that on a handful of commutes and long train journeys.

Oh yes, I have seen a really drunk man a few years ago on a bus from Liverpool Street to London Bridge, we all gave him a wide berth.

I don't dislike kids far from it. I like children and have a goddaughter. I've done my share of helping women struggle (whilst men surge up the stairs past her watching her struggle) up the station stairs with a bus, have given up a seats for pregnant women, have even helped entertain and chat to children.

And you know what? Most of the kids are well behaved, even the toddlers. I heard a mum the other day telling her child (I think 3 or so) to use a quieter voice (he didn't have to I didn't mind!) when on the train and not to screech. The child listened. It's actually amusing sometimes watching the kids on my commute do their homework. Most of the parents too are considerate towards other passengers - even on hellish crowded Devon trains in peak holiday season.

I think all the posters here aren't asking for no kids or silent kids or no buggies etc, just more consideration sometimes. and especially during a commute to and from work.

I'll give you another example - the other day there was a 5 carriage rather than an 8 carriage train on my commute (Southern are great for dealing this at rush hour unannounced these days). We all had to push to squeeze on and no room to move at all. The children got pushed (I actually felt sorry for them as there was really 'nowhere' else to stand. on another 'crowded' morning one man was on with his daughter and a metal scooter, in the area where you have the exit buttons, it was extremely crowded and the scooter was actually bashing me/sticking into me. It took a good few 'do you mind?' from me before he held it still or moved it so it wouldn't bash into me. I'm not saying that parent and child shouldn't be on the train but really in rush hour on an already overcrowded train and then to bash me? Thanks a lot!