Re putting children on your lap on public transport

[user1485342611]

Someone in work this morning was saying that she had to stand the whole way in on the bus while at least three adults with toddlers allowed those toddler to take up a whole seat. We were all agreeing that they should have put the toddlers on their laps to free up 3 seats during rush hour. Apart from one colleague who has a 4 year old and didn't see why he should be denied a seat or she should have to put up with feeling 'a bit squashed' just so someone else could have the seat.

When I was a child it was just the norm for kids under a certain age to be pulled onto their mother's lap when the bus started filling up. No one thought twice about it.

AIBU to think it's a shame that parents don't do this anymore and that my colleague is being a bit selfish?

We were brought up to respect adults and you didn't sit unless there was a seat that an adult didn't want
Because you were raised to believe that children had lesser status to adults.

Parents don't care now though, their kids are as entitled as anyone else.
Why should a child be less entitled to a seat though? Should a 15 Yr old give up their seat to a 16 Yr old? 17 to 18? 20 to 21? At what age ARE you entitled to a seat??
We wonder why people are growing up so selfish and entitled.
I think you mean the adults who expect a 5 yo to hang on whilst the bus swerves round corners and people barge past and into them with heavy bags because at 25 and fit and a led bodied that shouldn't have to stand.

Where I am from children are free on buses until 5. That's when I think they're entitled to a seat of there own
I do hope you don't put any underage children on that seat when the bus is empty too. They haven't paid for it, they shouldn't use it.

Come to think of it the little brats don't pay for buggy spaces either so collapse them and put the babies on the floor where they being. Bloody kids, coming on our buses, stealing our seats

Bloody kids, coming on our buses, stealing our seats

Honestly some of the posts on this thread. It beggars belief.

Children should be taught by their parents to give up their seats for adults
Can someone give me a sensible answer as to why I should teach my 5 yo that they're a second class citizen and not as important as the able bodied lady off into town for drinks, the door young man on his way to the gym and should stand and be at greater risk of physical harm than them simple because they're a lowly CHILD

I was left standing whilst heavily pregnant on a tube and a small child had a seat to themselves
No one on here thinks that's OK. Even us shitty parents raising entitled little shits think you need a seat and that we'd move the kid or ourself to give you one. How er what about all the other able bodied adults in that vehicle who didn't offer either. Oh sorry, their ADULTS, their need to a seat is equal to yours isn't it.

We all had to give up our seats as it was the normal thing to do in the 70s.
So was beating a kid with a belt and institutionalised sexual abuse. Guess what...

I'm 39 weeks pregnant. When I get on a crowded bus (I take public transport at least once a week) nobody offers me a seat. Obviously I would never expect an elderly person to but a 30 year old with no health problems (I respect invisible illness but obviously not every single person on every single packed bus has one) probably should. They frequently don't. So my first point is: if they don't have the courtesy why should someone else put themselves out to be courteous to them? And my second point is: children are not bags, they are small people and deserve as much respect as the next person. If someone WANTS to put their child on their lap, they are welcome. But if they don't, tough luck. If someone has paid for a child then that child has as much right to a seat as a healthy adult, and buses are first come first serve. Your colleague who told the story is an entitled arse- we may not like it but we share our society with the young and the old, and nobody gets any priority over anyone else in any situation unless their health demands it.

Sorry I've just reread my post, there is one woman who consistently offers me her seat if she's on my bus, she's about 80 and walks with a cane. I never accept because she obviously needs the seat more than me.

Cronesquerness

AGREED

@howabout just the kind of entitled parenting I expected on a thread like this. So, your child won't be sick if it gets a seat on it's own?

So many utterly bad mannered, ignorant people on this thread.

So many utterly bad mannered, ignorant people on this thread.
Yeah they all want a seat whilst a 5 yo gets flung across a bus! &

People are being ridiculous. No, if you're 39 weeks pregnant with a toddler and 10 shopping bags I wouldn't expect you to put them all on your lap so someone could sit down. No, if you have a hidden disability then I wouldn't expect you to give up your seat (because narcolepsy, as someone has given as an example, is really common)

But when I am in a Tube carriage with my 75 year old mother who has a plaster cast on her ankle, it would be nice if one of the twenty or so adults (whom I'm presuming didn't all suffer from narcolepsy) would offer up a seat. Finally when I got fed up of waiting and suggested that a teenage boy give up his seat for her, he got up but I don't understand why he didn't think to do that himself? Presumably his parents had not taught him that it would be polite to give up a seat to someone who needed it more than he did? We had that drilled into us when we were young, so that even in my mid sixties (as I'm still reasonably able-bodied) I continue to offer my seat to people (whether adults or children) who look as though they need it more than me.

As a PP said, when will it be my turn to have a seat?

Why ask the teenage boy to give up his seat?

Why not just ask can someone please let my mother sit down. Why is it the14 yo who should have not anyone else? People should have been falling over themselves to help

Am I the only one ever to get child who is too big to sit on lap to stand at the window-side of my seat basically hemmed in by my knees and can hold on to me or I him. Don't pay a fare yet so yes, I feel any fare laying passenger is entitled as are elderly, disabled or pregnant. Would certainly offer and if they prefer to stand at least I have been polite and recognised they may have a need to sit.

Where I live everyone over 60 is free on the bus, more of them than under fives I suspect.
I would lift a child but would not make them stand, they are less likely to be good at holding on than an adult. I would rather give up my own seat and keep my child sitting.
Having a child on your knee can be very uncomfortable, not because you're squashed but if you're short and have to do that pushing up with your toes thing to get an angle the child doesn't just slide off.

I’d put my kid on my lap or if I had them both I’d put them both on one seat and I’d stand next to them. I wouldn’t allow either of them to stand on the public transport around here. Roads are extremely windy and bumpy and bus drivers slam on the brakes often sending people flying. When I was feeling very ill/faint during early pregnancy I didn’t get offered a seat as I didn’t look pregnant and tbh by the time I was ready to pop I wasn’t feeling too bad (blood pressure more stable, no morning sickness) so didn’t feel I needed a seat. Often when it’s “that time of the month” I am forced to sit on the floor if I’m desperate. I would never expect someone to offer me a seat but I wouldn’t let a child stand so that I could sit. I often find young people 12/13 year olds, stand up when I get on a bus(fair play) but I’d decline unless I was feeling ill as Id rather the child was safely seated and I’d stand in case the driver brakes suddenly or we had an accident.

No way, why should I have my 4 or 5 year old on my knee so an able bodied adult can sit down? I have 3 children so this wouldn't happen anyway and I don't use public transport, but my son is 2.5 and he's as tall as a 4 year old now so I definitely would expect him to sit on a seat at 4. Obviously if someone was disabled that's different.

@sleepingstandingup totally agree.

I refuse to teach my children that they need to give up a seat for an able bodied adult. An adult is not more important than a child, I know people of a certain age think they are, but they're not. And for the poster who said they asked a teenage boy to get up, why? Why not the adults? So weird...

How topical. I've just come across Patricia Hodge's interview in the Guardian.

What is the trait you most deplore in others?
"Lack of courtesy: I am really concerned about it in society. Children are just not taught manners. I spent the first 55 years of my life standing up for somebody else."

www.theguardian.com/lifeandstyle/2018/sep/08/patricia-hodge-actor-q-and-a-interview

I think that toddlers should definitely be sat on a parent's lap on a packed bus. I wouldn't be able to sit there letting a 2 year old have their own seat when people are standing and they would fit on my lap.

I think this is a difficult one really. Women have been campaigning for years for equality and when they are met with it, they don't like. I am not suggesting for one minute that I wouldn't give up my seat for a parent or be ashamed to have the door held open for me, I am from the slightly older generation and like the chivilary it brings. People can't choose when they want equality and then push it away when it suits.

I'm so conditioned that I'd always stand up for someone older than me, sadly they're getting rarer and rarer. I have been known to be the only person to offer a seat to a pregnant woman, ironically inadvertently shaming a young guy to offer me his.

Spot on Santina it can be very selective

Surely each and every situation will be different.

I’d gladly have put my toddler on my laptop on a bus because they would fit fine. I wouldn’t put my 7 or 9 year old on it as there would be no room. I would however put them on my lap on the tube because there’s generally a bit more room in front.

I also can’t get over how many people are saying because they don’t pay full price they should sit on my knee - surely that then devalues my ticket price. Am I suddenly no longer as good as the 30 year old worker because I have children with me?

I would however expect me or my children to stand if someone less abled needed a seat. To me we need to be teaching children to recognise when it’s appropriate to give up a seat and when it’s ok not to.

lexer much less likely to be sick if she has her own seat than bundled on my knee squashed in a corner as far away as she can manage from the weirdo unknown adult who insists on asserting their rights. More pertinently chances of said unknown adult avoiding her being sick on them would be practically nil despite my best endeavours to juggle her and the sick bag on my lap.

Actually we hardly ever get on busy buses these days as I can't cope with her being sick on me either.

@Timeisslippingaway what a peculiar issue to focus on! Your username is very apt - perhaps I should change mine to Losingthewilltolive.

As the answer must presumably make all the difference to your opinion, I asked him and his friend as they were sitting right next to where we are standing. Presumably in your world I should have put a shout out to the whole carriage and then let my mum hobble down the whole length of the carriage on a moving train if no-one sitting any closer offered.

And just in case you have totally missed the point, I wasn't particularly intending to have a go at the boy - he got up quite readily and we thanked him and everyone moved on with their day. I just thought how much nicer it would have been if he, or someone else without a hidden disability or 6 children and 5 bags of shopping had offered to give up their seat without being asked.