To think children should give up their seats for adults

[BeeInYourBonnet]

And their parents should encourage them to.

Especially when they are young enough to sit on their parents laps.

'Why did you deliberately target a woman with a toddler?'

Because the toddler did not need a seat all to himself. He could have sat on mum's lap. Unless of course mum had a medical condition preventing child on lap, but I think that's very unlikely. She was busy texting so I guess it was just inconvenient for her.

Up until age of about 5, I always sat on my mum's lap when train or bus got busy. After that age I was told to stand up to let adults sit down. It's a shame these manners have been lost in modern society. No wonder teenagers don't give up seats to elderly people if they never had to as kids.

I don't think that expecting it means that we go back to the days of sending them up chimneys.

No but it does go back to the days that said adults are more important, adults get priority, adults are better, adults are right, and theres nothing you can do about it, all for no good reason other than the fact they are adults.

I prefer to teach my child to do things based on the reasons behind them. Tidy your room because if you don't things will get lost and it'll smell, not "because I said so". Don't leave your bike in the middle of the pavement because people won't get by not "because I said so". Give your seat up for that lady because she has crutches and finds it hard to balance not "because I said so".

Please tell me a valid reason why she should get up for an adult?

This thread makes me despair. I feel like I live in a parallel universe.

Where are all these traumatised children of the 69s/70s/80s who suffer to this day because they were made to sit on the floor or stand for adults occasionally?

I suppose you all object to your DCs sitting on the floor for their assemblies etc. Disgraceful! I am going into the school to demand my DVs have seats in assembly. Or at least let's have parity and insist that for parents evening, nativity plays etc, patents have to sit cross legged on the floor too. Wouldn't want the DCs to be treated differently after all!

Unless of course mum had a medical condition preventing child on lap, but I think that's very unlikely.

This pisses me off to no end. She has as much a chance as you of having a medical conditon!! I had a DVT after giving birth in my groin, thigh and calf, you would never know it looking at me, I'm 23 and look perfectly capable. Ask me to put my child on my lap and that would be impossible.

And I thats just one condition which I personally know would make it hard, 1 in 1000 people in the UK every year. Think of how many other conditions there are.

Please don't judge a book by its cover.

^ So outraged that I forget to spell check!

It was the norm in my childhood and indicated good manners, but things have changed now.
Sigh.

Oh and CaspianSea if someone had asked me to put my child on my lap without explaining why I'd have rudely snapped that too.

Why should I justify my need if they're not going to? I'd just say no.

Nobody said the children had been traumatised.

Funny how you, OP, also make me despair. :)

Why not for all parents to sit on the floor at assemblies? In many cultures people do sit on the floor. So what?

Why would you have rudely snapped?
Why not just say you weren't able to.

Unless of course mum had a medical condition preventing child on lap, but I think that's very unlikely. She was busy texting so I guess it was just inconvenient for her.

People with difficulty standing also text.
For all you know she could be texting about a very important and urgent matter.

Why would you have rudely snapped?

Because she had been rudely approached?

Because as I said why should I disclose my medical need when they didn't?

Obviously if they did I would explain too!

I travelled home on a busy train yesterday from London with DH and 2 DC. We all had seats. I suggested to DH that we sit DC2 on our lap (DC1 is too big and would squash us). He was adamant that we shouldn't so we compromised and would do so if anyone asked for a seat or if anyone else obviously needed the seat.

I then spent the journey feeling tense and anxious that someone might be judging us but I couldn't work out why I felt like that. We'd paid for the seats, the children were well behaved, nobody asked for a seat etc etc.

I realised that as a child I would have been made to stand so an adult could sit down. I don't ever remember my parents giving up their seat though! It all seems to be about the child almost being seen as inferior and even as a bit of a nuisance and I refuse to let my own kids be treated like that.

I was on a train in London last week and it was crowded. However 3 individuals stood at the same time and offered my 3dc seats. After reading countless threads where adults get seats over dc I was presently surprised. It's hard for dc to stand on trains and we'd been travelling from Paris so a fairly long journey so no I didn't put my 2 toddlers on my lap. I did have one but when the woman next to me got off I put dd3 there. Nobody moved to take the seat so I used it. Tbh if I get too hot I have an embarrassing habit of fainting.
At swimming I sit my dc down with their snacks and either I stand or get a seat from elsewhere - dtds are 3 and by dd1's lesson they're tired at 4.30Pm. I'm a fairly healthy woman and perfectly fine on the floor. Shock horror I even managed to walk around the Eden project at 32 weeks pg with twins (no I didn't have a great pg and spent most of it running to the loo to be sick)
I think you read the situation as it comes along but really not worth getting stressed over.

Do we really have to turn every discussion into a hidden disability debate.
Yes, there will be some people with hidden issues, but the majority of people won't have a hidden disability. There are many more rude thoughtless entitled people in the world, than there are those with hidden disabilities.

The vast majority of people who don't fold pushchairs, don't offer seats to others, park where they shouldn't, use facilities they don't need, are just entitled. Their failure to think of others is what causes angst in relation to those with hidden disabilities.

I should add that I would give up my seat rather than make my DC do so. DH commutes on a train daily and rarely gets a seat. He accepts it as part and parcel of living in a highly populated area serviced by a public transport system with too few seats.

But wasn't your own 'hidden disability' ie. dodgy knees, the reason you wanted a seat OP? You wanted a seat but weren't willing to ask, you just expected someone to telepathically know you can only stand for 15 minutes .

But it's relevant - you are making judgements about people based on the fact she was texting - so clearly not disabled then. she was sitting somewhere with her dc. Presumably she arrived first so from her point of view age sat with her dc in the empty seats. If someone asked for a seat or was obviously in need she may have given up her or her dc's seat but no you just assume she's "entitled". Perhaps she's just a busy mum who didn't notice you wanted the seat - how dare she not read your mind. As I said, every parent, dc and scenario is different so of course you cannot make a sweeping statement. Do I want my dc sitting on a mucky floor? Sometimes this would be fine, other times no they may need to attempt to keep their clothes clean Etc.
Plus, on public transport you get some right loons (see thread re weirdest things you've seen on public transport) putting a dc in the seat can be protection -thinking about it, time before last dd was on my lap on a train and the man who sat next to dh stole his wallet. Should have behaved entitled and avoided that.

Do we really have to turn every discussion into a hidden disability debate.

Yup, you made it about your hidden disability.

And, OP, you are the one behaving as entitled in relation to the children.
And for people to be mind readers.

No, my dodgy knees are nothing to do with the fact I was brought up to believe children (or their parents on their behalf) should offer seats to adults. I expect my own DCs, in a situation such as the one I've described up thread, to offer up their seats. I am not influenced in my thinking by my own decrepit bones! It literally would never have occurred to me, for example, for my own parents/grandparents/aunties to sit cross legged on the floor at family gatherings whilst I sat in an armchair! Perish the thought!

Told my mum about this thread and she remembers her dad (no longer alive) saying in the 1980s that he's never giving up his seat for anyone unless they ask as he was fed up of being accused of being anti feminist. He worked in the city and always offered women his seat - it was the manners he'd been taught. He was really shaken up one night from the abuse. He was such a quiet and polite man.

My DH offers to help people (often women) with luggage on holiday, always helps carry pushchairs up stairs/escalators. I think I may need to advise him to stop.

Well said Lweji OP you started this thread off as a general 'children should give up their seats for adults' and then bring in your knee problems later on! It's a completely different issue as to whether people (not just children) should give up seats for those with disabilities to whether children should give up seats to adults because they are just their 'elders and betters'.

Why would you have rudely snapped?
Because she had been rudely approached?

She wasn't rudely approached, was she? The poster says she asked her as she needed to sit down. Presumably she asked politely?