to think that some parents are indeed entitled and expect special treatment JUST because they have young dc?

[Mintyy]

I was on a bus (we all love these threads, yes?) the other day and a lovely family - Mum, Dad, two young boys (about 4 and 2 I would say) and a baby in a back carrier on Mum's back got on.

Dad parked the McClaren pushchair in the wheelchair space and I thought to myself "blimey, they've got a lot of children on their hands".

After a while we came to a stop where two women with pushchairs wanted to get on. The first one did, the second could see there was no space and looked a bit cheesed off, as you would.

THEN I noticed that the McClaren was actually empty and the family had all gone upstairs to the top deck if you please! So not only was this other pushchair user unable to get on because there was an empty one in the space, but what if a wheelchair user had wanted to get on? Did they expect someone to shout up the stairs for them to come and move the buggy?

But like others have said maybe the couple didn't often travel by bus and it didn't occur to them at all. I quite like people and I tend to think a good chunk of behaviour like this comes from thoughlessness rather than out and out selfish ness or entitlement.

I agree Nitty. maybe give them the opportunity to do the right thing than kvetching about it afterwards and thinking the world is going to hell in a handbasket

What super powers do you think they had to realise someone else wanted to get on and needed the space?

Nitty - we're in London, the bus was travelling from zone 2 into the West End. I doubt they were inexperienced bus travellers.

Justusemyname - what do you mean?

Yes they were selfish. The driver should have just put the buggy outside on the pavement as it was abandoned.

Oh dear Op

Oh dear.

You are being very harsh.

Maybe their cat had just got a bit ill and they were sick with worry so went upstairs to take their minds off it thinking that someone a bit disabled would understand.

Maybe they CAN'T READ. OR UNDERSTAND PICTURES so they didn't know about wheelchairs and perhaps thought the picture was a wheelbarrow and gardeners were unlikely.

Maybe they went upstairs and one was going to come down and fold the buggy but THEY WERE BODYSNATCHED.

Try to think a bit before you post

They may well be selfish or entitled. Or both. But they had THREE kids under 4 with them! I would put money on them being in that state of permanent oblivious exhaustation where every section of your brain is taken over by your kids so you forget about everybody else. If someone had shouted up the stairs to fold the pram you may well have had a flustered and extremely apologetic parent scrabbling down the stairs to fold it immediately.

I know I've been guilty of being wrapped up/absorbed at times and therefore not given other people as much thought as I should have.

hully

What super powers do you think they had to realise someone else wanted to get on and needed the space

Common sense? The fact that if they brought a pushchair on the bus, then someone else might want to?

It's not that difficult to think of others.

YANBU but what I really wanted to say was I was witness eavesdropper to an AMAZING conversation on the bus the other day between two elderly gentleman, one with one leg, about incidents they'd had with pushchairs vis a vis wheelchairs/other passengers generally.

While I can see how either or both of them might've had some sort of parent-bigotry, ie being bitter and generally sort of old-man 'youth of today' cranky about a couple of incidents, as opposed to seeing that by and large people with pushchairs are not evil, they were both FROTHING about pushchairs and more so about their attached pushers. So it did make me wonder whether in fact there is a touch of the old entitlement around, when it comes to pushchairs on buses. I am now spending my bush journeys watching closely, but am yet to spot anything I'd class as worrying.

Bus drivers round here have no truck with leaving empty buggies about.

TBH I might have intervened in that situation (yelled up or just folded it and put it in the luggage bit). Very selfish.

Couldn't you just have quietly folded it up for them?

They may have been completely happy to move it once someone else needed the space but didn't know as they couldn't see from upstairs.

Unfolded buggies should be banned on buses, SN buggies excepted, of course.

They sound a bit thoughtless excusable with 3 little dcs

You can flame me all you like don't care, ner ner

Yep I do expect special treatment when have the wild one with me aka ds 2.4.

Much easier to use p and t spaces, nearere ti shop. thank you m and s for one right outside doir

Disabled loo, yep way easier, never ever had anyone outside waiting to use.

Reserving table before food, check

Im sure theres loads more. Hmmpf

Oh and who goes upstairs on the bus with tinies?

What super powers do you think they had to realise someone else wanted to get on and needed the space?

Precisely what superpowers would they need? Surely all you need is an average brain to realise that there might well be other parents with buggies wanting to come onto the bus, let alone wheelchair users?

Ah, but is a McLaren easily foldable?

We need to know before we can judge.

If it isn't, then you shouldn't be taking it on a bus.

I witness some shocking levels of entitled, selfish and rude behaviour daily on London buses. It is perpetrated by selfish, rude people. I see single men going to work with huge coffees that they sometimes spill onto the seats or other passengers, teenagers pulling the emergency door mechanism so they don't have to wait for the next stop, groups of loud childless adults yelling at each other in the aisles or on mobile phones, women with no children eating messy, smelly food, and plenty listening to music at a dangerous and annoying volume. Adults putting their feet on the seats and refusing to move when elderly or disabled people need a place to sit. In short, I am wondering why you would find it surprising that some of this anti social behaviour comes from parents with small children. Was this your first trip on a London bus, or do you just feel like complaining about that particular demographic today?

By the way, most people seem to behave very well on buses. I have had faaaar more pleasant, uneventful journeys than bad ones.

But then there's the bus driver who left that young teenage girl standing alone at a request stop b/c the driver wanted to finish his shift and zipped by her as she was waving Him down...

base9

I agree.

But I also see most people being lovely

X-post !

Yarp. I had a good laugh all the way home the other day with a group of beautifully multicultural women, all of us united in shouting down the drunk, sexist arse at the back of the top deck. Twas a proper teach-the-world-to-sing moment! I love London.

Yes, public transport in London is indeed a marvellous thing and I appreciate it hugely. Only the traffic lets it down.

But all but the most super-priviliged elite few must surely know how it works: must know that pushchair spaces are few and far between, must know that wheelchair users often use public transport, especially on a route that goes directly to Westminster and Oxford Street?

I will be charitable and say that the parents weren't really thinking straight. It is a wee bit annoying though? for the people who were inconvenienced?