Please or to access all these features

Add post

Watch this thread

Save thread

Start a new thread

Flip thread

Hide thread

My feed

Active Unanswered threads

Getting started FAQ's

Unanswered threads Acronyms Talk guidelines

Hide shortcut buttons

Talk

AIBU?

Share your dilemmas and get honest opinions from other Mumsnetters.

Flip

1 2 3 4 5

Original poster

AIBU? .....who is supposed to sit in the passenger seat!?

107 replies

jubilee69 · 12/04/2015 00:11

OK....my first MN post so please bear with....night out at family friends house with DH, teenage DS and DD in tow. DD was working so DH was driving and not drinking. Me=couple of wines he picks up DD, couple of hours socialising then home time. DD climbs in passenger seat. I asked to sit in, she not happy and not happy to move into back. Says she called 'shotgun'!!! AIBU?! Am 5 weeks off anti depressants and feeling super sensitive as it is. Had an hour of DH and SIL questioning/ discussing merits of me working pt whilst she 'manages to do everything so can't see why you can't ' type of conversation so wasn't feeling great as it was thank you MN xxxx

OP posts:

Original poster

jubilee69 · 12/04/2015 13:56

am enjoying reading all your replies! I'm feeling a tad empowered by all of you!! thanks guys!! no more bloody 'shotgun' being called on this mother....couple of glasses of wine or not!! my car, I shall sit wherever I chose. next time I may chose the roof even

OP posts:

sabrina00 · 12/04/2015 13:58

Good god. Does it really matter?!

Original poster

jubilee69 · 12/04/2015 13:59

ThumbWitchesAbroad yes on all of your analysis questions.....daddy's princess ( at nearly 18) and can never do any wrong in his eyes

OP posts:

exmrs · 12/04/2015 14:02

Am I the only one who thinks does it matter who sits where?

Littlemonstersrule · 12/04/2015 14:12

Life must be very complicated for some. I don't care where I sit in a car and don't feel more important than a child just because I'm over 18.

People seem to get wound up over the slightest thing, anything from the name on a letter to which seat in the car.

2rebecca · 12/04/2015 14:23

Have never heard the term shotgun. Adults get to sit in the front unless the adults don't want to sit in the front. Usually the adults whose car it is have priority, they can choose to let older or fatter adults sit in the passenger seat if they wish. Teenagers and children only get to sit in the front if no adult wishes to do so.

BikketBikketBikket · 12/04/2015 14:23

Adults in front (as they, presumably, are paying for the car) children - even 18 year-old ones - in the back. No argument. I am deeply appreciative of my DIL who often tells me to sit in the front of DS's car as she is tiny and can fit into the back without folding her legs into 3 pieces but I would never presume to do so - or even to ask...

tictactoad · 12/04/2015 14:56

DC have called shotgun here for years. They're welcome to scrap among themselves for the honour but know if there's more than one aged parent to lever into the car they're relegated to the back seat. Doesn't stop them trying to pull a fast one though

Debinaround · 12/04/2015 15:01

I know there is a lot of other things in life to get worked up about but to me it's about manners.

When my sister and I were growing up we always had to sit on the back of my mams car when another adult was in it.

I always sit in the back of the car when I am with my in laws so that one of them (usually FIL) can sit in the front.

The front passenger seat usually has more leg room, electric windows, access to the radio/music and air con/heating. People who say it doesn't matter which seat you sit in, would you sit in the back of the car if the front seat was free?

So when I'm getting picked up from work after a 10 hour shift in the car that I work hard to buy, tax, insure, mot, service and put petrol in and find one of the DC in the front then yes I shift them. Not because I'm being petty but because to me that's the good manners I expect from my kids, not just to me but to every adult who gets in the car.

It doesn't really matter in the grand scheme of life but then lots of things don't. Some people make their children wait to start eating until everyone is sat at the table. Some people don't let their children leave the table until everyone has finished their meal. I don't tell those people that it doesn't matter and they are being petty. It's just different things for different people.

It pissed the op off and I can see why. So can a lot of other posters.

badRoly · 12/04/2015 15:04

Eldest passenger in the car can sit in the front - stops the squabbles between the 4dc and covers it nicely when grandparents etc are with us.

It matters because dh and I are both still a good few inches taller than all the DC so appreciate the extra legroom you can get in the front.

StepCatsmother · 12/04/2015 15:33

I think it can also matter where there are problems with younger children failing to respect/defer to an adult more generally.

We had this for a little while with my partner's son - he would run to the front of the car and be quite insistent that he wanted the front seat when his dad was driving, but we noticed he would never do this when I was driving (i.e. he wouldn't take the front seat where it meant taking it from his dad).

I have no problem with a child asking to sit in the front, but I think (and it's only my opinion!) that it should be with an awareness that adults get first dibs :)

BertieBotts · 12/04/2015 15:39

Safety wise the heaviest passengers should sit in front anyway, and it's not recommended for an under 12 year old to sit in the front because of airbags.

Plus I think it's better to offer the legroom to a taller person. And automatically the front seat should really go to the spouse of the driver if applicable anyway, unless somebody else has particular need of it (height/broken leg/pregnant/elderly/etc)

lastlines · 12/04/2015 15:46

Front seat is your seat. You are the adults who own the car. DC will become as entitled as we let them.

Justusemyname · 12/04/2015 15:52

I've started sitting in the back when we go in DHs car as DD has issues which means she ends up in pain in the back of DHs car but if any of my other kids were as rude as your Dd when asking they'd be told to sit in the back and to show some respect.

Your SIl needs to stop being a twat but will need telling.

FromSeaToShining · 12/04/2015 16:06

Adults in front, kids in the back.

If there are several kids and only one adult, then by all means call shotgun. A much better solution than the one that prevailed in my childhood which was that the eldest child always got the front seat. It infuriated me at the time (bitter youngest child, I never had the chance to sit in the front!).

clam · 12/04/2015 16:08

How can you "call" shotgun? I've never heard of the term either (and am vair old with teenagers) but if it means the seat next to the driver, what does "calling it" do? Is it the first person to say it?

Either way, tough luck. I won't sit in the back unless there are good reasons. Annoys me the number of times I see "the women" in the back, while "then men" get to go up front. I bet it can't just be to do with leg length.

TwoOddSocks · 12/04/2015 16:10

The partner of the driver always gets the front seat, and an adult always gets precedence over a child (unless the child is already in the front when they pick up the adult in which case it sees very petty to make them shift).

I probably wouldn't bother getting stressed over it though, I'd be way more annoyed with SiL in your position. She sounds aggravating.

BackforGood · 12/04/2015 16:18

badRoly - that's hardly fair on subsequent dc. A 2nd, 3rd, or 4th dc is always going to be younger than their sibling...when do they get turns at things ? (widening this out beyond front seats here, but joining FromSeatoShining in standing up for all of us that aren't pfbs!)

BertieBotts - well, you are contradicting yourself in your own post there. Both ds and dd1 are heavier than me so would get the front with that argument. All 3 of my dc have longer legs than me, so once again would get the front seat before me, but then I am dh's wife, so on that argument, I would get the front seat, and - according to your research - make us all less safe.

Clam - I first heard them use it on Big Bang Theory, but my teens say it's a "thing" before they heard it there. It just means 'laying a claim'. It's the same as calling "Bagsie" if you are from my era

morethanpotatoprints · 12/04/2015 16:29

My dd usually sits in the front as extremely car sick and it helps her to look to vanishing point x through windscreen.

I wouldn't let any of our other dc when young sit in the front. I do now as older ones are adults, rarely all of us in the car, and the ds's are 6ft plus.

So really, only when practical tbh, not just because one of them thinks they deserve front seat, and never when they were younger, its my seat

Your sil sounds a smug cow, tell her to do one for you, hope you are feeling much stronger soon.

thenightsky · 12/04/2015 17:50

Never heard of this 'calling' of 'shotgun' before

Everyday's a school day on MN

drudgetrudy · 12/04/2015 18:18

Am I the only one who is a nervous passenger and wants to sit in the back?
Seriously though you are the adult and get to say who sits where.

bananayellow · 12/04/2015 18:29

So it's generally agreed that adults should get first dibs on the front seats. I agree with that.

It just surprises me that this is a completely different viewpoint to the asking children to give up their seats for adults, thread. It seems that children are only completely equal to adults when it doesn't involve giving up your own seats. It's ok for them to be equal to anonymous adults, but not when it inconveniences or upsets you. By the logic on that thread, they should have equal access to the front seat.

Just saying...

BeeRayKay · 12/04/2015 18:48

Well I had the unusual predicament a few weeks back of being driven by my boss with two other people. All three were female. One was older (by a good 20 years) the other two were Early-Mid 20's. All got collected from same point.

Who sits in the front then?

(In this instance I did, as the mid 20, because a/. I'm the tallest and b/. I get car sick if the driver isn't a super smooth driver and we didn't want to risk that!)

In our car? I always sit in front, apart from one occasion when there was a 6'6" bloke in the car, and it wouldn't have been fair to sit him in the back.

As a kid we always sat in the back if there were two adults in the car. When only one adult we called shotgun. In fact we still do now if for any reason we're all together in that situation :blush:

Lweji · 12/04/2015 19:21

Banana, in the car everyone sits. :)

And on the bus, my child sits where I tell him to, unless I give him the choice of seat.

The logic is not the same.

Original poster

jubilee69 · 12/04/2015 20:08

Debinaround and morethanjustpotatoprints...... thank you. yes did piss me off immensely and thought it lack of manners/disrespectful. Dd trying to flex her muscles methinks

not a major issue by any measure but nevertheless, it did annoy me last night. We all got to the car at the same time and yet she felt she had 'priority' over me. That's all really.

can't remember who commented about sil but yes, not best of friends with her shall we say. Always very competitive and generally not particularly nice person but hey-ho!!

OP posts:

Flip

1 2 3 4 5