Active discussions

Meet the Other Phone. A phone that grows with your child.

Meet the Other Phone.
A phone that grows with your child.

Buy now

Please or to access all these features

Talk
AIBU?

Share your dilemmas and get honest opinions from other Mumsnetters.

See all MNHQ comments on this thread

Original poster

To 'confront' this man when he asked for the priority seat on the bus

622 replies

YoJesse · 02/04/2016 14:43

Me and Ds 3 were on a really packed bus, no seats left at all. I was standing and Ds was on one of the priority seats. The other 7 priority seats were taken up with what looked like young able bodied people and on Dad with a baby.

A man 50ish gets on, walks past all the other seats and says to me 'I'm disabled, can you move your son?' I got Ds up without questioning it but then I heard the Dad with the baby say to the man 'fucking hell, seriously mate?' This got me thinking that maybe it was a bit unfair so I tapped him on the shoulder and said 'as you can see I'm happy to give up the seat for you but as you can see there are lots of young, able looking people on the other priority seats, don't you think you should of asked them not my son?' He then goes off on one say ' I'm disabled, your son should be sitting in here in the first place etc' so I said that he is less able to stand on a moving bus than most other people so maybe he is entitled to the seat. The man got all sweaty and angry and I felt really uncomfortable so I got off.

Was I unreasonable to confront him?

OP posts:
BoatyMcBoat · 02/04/2016 16:07

When I was a child - 40+ years ago - children were the last in the queue to get a seat, and the first expected to get up. You would have sat and helped ds to hold on. I can see exactly why he asked ds to move if he was about my age. If there had been no seats available when you got on, you would have had to help him hold on while holding on yourself.

DD did find it quite fun learning how to move with the bus, when she was your son's age, and was proud of being able to go up and down the stairs, when the bus was still moving, without falling down. She's excellent on boats and ferries too.

NeedACleverNN · 02/04/2016 16:10

Yes but when you was a child boaty children were seen and not heard.

Times are different now and children are more cherished

Floggingmolly · 02/04/2016 16:11

Children are more cherished! Grin

Original poster
YoJesse · 02/04/2016 16:13

sirzy my first words to him were 'I'm happy to give up his seat for you but...'
I didn't think at the time this was UN and rude but as the majority on here are telling me it is I'm trying to learn from it.

My judgements of situations are a bit cloudy sometimes.
I really didn't think I was being rude because I phased it in a polite way and I feel very bad that it could have come accross as rude.

OP posts:
Sirzy · 02/04/2016 16:15

That still sounds rude to me, especially saying it to someone who has just been swore at by another passenger.

CloneMeNow · 02/04/2016 16:15

I asked him politely and quietly to maybe consider that the other passengers appeared a more suitable candidate for moving. He was the one shouting and swearing at me.

You were trying to humiliate him. That was an aggressive question. What should he say? 'Yes, I am so sorry for being disabled and asking you to move from a priority seat for disabled people. I now realise my error and will never do it again?'

And then sit there, waiting for a third person on the bus to be unpleasant to him? Poor man. Imagine if his whole day is like this. He was wrong to swear, but you were deliberately provocative. And you joined in because the dad had already verbally attacked him. You know you did. It made you feel righteous in doing it.

In your place, with my child, I would have gone out of my way to be nice to the man after another passenger had abused him. But then, I know how it feels to be verbally attacked. You might be surprised how often disabled people are 'confronted' (using your own words). It's a horrible experience. How would you like it if someone had tapped you on the shoulder and said 'I'd like you to think again before talking to a disabled man that way?' You'd have felt upset and humiliated, especially if someone else had just sworn at you for letting your child occupy a seat. Wouldn't you?

Original poster
YoJesse · 02/04/2016 16:16

boaty like mincrafty definatly have added a very important element of age to this. I didn't consider the different attitudes older people have to children (am quite young myself) and it would totally make sense why he approach Ds and not the adults.

OP posts:
veryproudvolleyballmum · 02/04/2016 16:16

This reply has been deleted

Message withdrawn at poster's request.

TaraCarter · 02/04/2016 16:18

It isn't just about being tired or uncomfortable. Manners does not trump all.

When I am on my own, I am absolutely rigorous about offering my seat to anyone visibly elderly or disabled, and I eschew the priority seating, because I am a fit, healthy adult who is well able to cling on when (note I said when, not if) the driver does an emergency stop.

It's about safety. How many people on this forum woulf think it acceptable for a three year old to be sitting in the back seat or a car without even a seat belt? What about the front seat? Again, no seat belt.

Oh, not keen on that idea, MNers?

And we're arguing over whether three year olds should stand in the gangway of a bus, holding on to a parent's hand and a bit of seat for safety?

Good grief.

Original poster
YoJesse · 02/04/2016 16:18

Yes I would clone.
I really wasn't trying to humiliate him. I'm not like that. I just thought (at the time) we seemed an odd choice of passenger to turf out of a seat.

OP posts:
BoatyMcBoat · 02/04/2016 16:20

Need, think you've added 100 years or more to my life Grin. Children were not 'seen and not heard' in my day! We were cherished but not cossetted.

NeedACleverNN · 02/04/2016 16:21

But didn't you say you was 235 years old?! Grin

Dawndonnaagain · 02/04/2016 16:22

thing is YoJesse, you are of that frame of mind, you're just unaware of it: The other 7 priority seats were taken up with what looked like young able bodied people. My 19 year old dd looks young and able bodied. Trust me, she isn't. My 21 year old son looks young and able bodied. He has full tourettes. No verbal tics at all, but full body tics. He can't actually use a bus without an escort, it's dangerous for him and for others. How would you have felt if you insisted moving this young man and his escort and he'd accidentally hit your child. More to the point, how do you think he would feel having accidentally hit your child?

FarrowandBallAche · 02/04/2016 16:24

Blimey OP.

I think I can see your pov of why he didn't ask another person if he could have their priority seat just about.

But to question him after you'd moved DS was really bad. The chap probably felt awkward asking in the first place.

NeedACleverNN · 02/04/2016 16:24

These threads always seem to go the same way though.

According the mumsnet everyone has an invisible disability and we should all be careful on public transport just in case.

Whilst it's a good idea to highlight that not all disabilities are visible and therefore you need to think again, some people are just arseholes and will refuse to move

GahBuggerit · 02/04/2016 16:27

if it was my ds who, at 3, was teeny weeny and would have lost balance very easily standing on a bus i prob would have said generally to others in the seats something like "is there a chance any of you could give your seat instead as ds will prob fall over like im doing !" in a typical brit self deprecating way but if no takers then id just smile at the dude and move ds. wouldnt tap him on the shoulder and defo wouldnt assume that the others were able bodied. bit shameful to confront the poor guy.

TaraCarter · 02/04/2016 16:28

Except small children, Need. A large sector assume they can't have invisible disabilities.

This may be a sore point for me. Grin

FarrowandBallAche · 02/04/2016 16:28

Agree Need.

PinotEgregio · 02/04/2016 16:29

I got Ds up without questioning it but then I heard the Dad with the baby say to the man 'fucking hell, seriously mate?' This got me thinking that maybe it was a bit unfair so I tapped him on the shoulder and...

YWBU to change your own behaviour because of that obnovious man with the baby.

I think he probably asked you to move your DS because he thought that you were the person least likely to be rude/refuse.

Schwabischeweihnachtskanne · 02/04/2016 16:30

People who are saying that a child should have stood instead of an adult are only able to justify it with the argument that that is what happened when they were young.

Children also didn't use child seats when I was young - there wasn't even a requirement to wear seat belts in the back of a car at all. That doesn't mean that was better, just because it is how it was 40 years ago.

Actual sense suggests that the least vulnerable people make the more vulnerable a bit safer.

Disabled people unquestionably have the first and greatest right to priority seats. However after that there is absolutely no proper reason for children too small to hold on to give up seats for healthy adults, nor for healthy adults to keep their priority seat while a child gives up their seat and stands, unable to reach anything to hold on to.

There is a reason that countries who use school buses very widely do not allow children to stand on school buses. There is crash protection built into the seating. How far you fly when you crash dictates the speed of deceleration which for the most part dictates the scale of injury. We all know children are more vulnerable in a car crash and, whilst buses are safer than cars, they do not possess magical qualities which make preschool children's bodies stronger and (healthy, youngish) adults bodies weaker. Additionally a small child is at greater danger if other adults fall onto them than a healthy adult is.

The OP has acknowledged that she should not have confronted the disabled man who asked for the seat. However the other healthy adults did not have more right to a seat than a 3 year old who could not reach a strap to hold on and was highly unlikely to have the strength of a non disabled adult or teen/ older child to do so, and it would therefore not necessarily have been unreasonable (if the OP were brave enough) to ask in general whether somebody fit and healthy might be able to give up their seat. Of course some of the apparently healthy people may have had hidden disabilities, but it is highly unlikely they all did.

SilverBirchWithout · 02/04/2016 16:32

Don't try and make this an argument about age.

I'm in my late 50s and not particularly fit and would it hard to sit and watch a 3 year old's mum stood with her DC struggling to keep him safe.

Original poster
YoJesse · 02/04/2016 16:33

pinot that does make me feel bad that he might of been asking because I looked the least threatening Sad

OP posts:
TaraCarter · 02/04/2016 16:36

Schwab One particular time, travelling with some young children, I'd just got them all sitting down, when the driver suddenly had to brake.

I was standing and I was thrown forward quite far. I am not kidding when I say my mind keeps replaying that moment and wondering what would have happened if any of the under-sixes on board had been standing.

Schwabischeweihnachtskanne · 02/04/2016 16:37

SilverBirchWithout I'm not sure if you meant me? I'm not trying to make it an argument about age, but to point out that "that's how it was when I was young so that's how it should be now" is no argument at all - things don't carry intrinsic merit (nor of course an intrinsic lack of merit) due to having been done that way in the past, whether the person saying it is 20 or 90 or anywhere in between.

Schwabischeweihnachtskanne · 02/04/2016 16:39

Exactly Tara - thankfully those 6 year olds were with you, a responsible and sensible adult, not one who thought one of the 6 year olds should show Manners (capitalisation intended) by standing up for you to sit!