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?

And just in case you want to find another detail to complain about, I only asked for a seat for my mum but his friend kindly got up as well so I could sit with her.

I think an able-bodied adult can stand and should not feel so entitled

@MrsFezziwig

Not peculiar at all ad a few other people asked you the same question. The fact you made sire yo mention the person you asked was a teenage boy was peculiar.

@FlipnTwist the bus I use for uni also goes past a school and we get a lot of tiny kids on. I've seen more than one nasty accident where a child has been knocked over by an adult, has slipped, has just lost their balance. It's not as simple as you're making it out.

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?

Presumably the carriage was full of people of all ages, why didn't anyone else stand up? Guess none of them had been probably drilled.

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

It must be exhausting to go through life under the paradigm of perceived fairness and tit-for-tat and forever whinging about how hard done by one is because 'he got this and I didn't! Waaa!'

All this misty-eyed nostalgia for the 70s is truly astonishing. I was there, too. I thought it was mostly utterly shit. I can't understand why any sane person would want to adhere to those ideals.

Under five, I would expect it. Over five, they've paid for the seat. We once took dd on Eurostar and its free under a certain age based on this principle. We just kept our fingers crossed we wouldn't need to have her on our lap the whole way!

The pettiness of some posters on here is really depressing. Not putting your child on your lap because he's 'entitled' to a seat. Can some people not see beyond that to being a bit generous and helpful? Y'know just making the world a nicer friendlier place.

The pettiness of some posters on here is really depressing

What you mean in expecting a parent and child who happened to get on the bus first to both be inconvenienced so that a perfectly capable adult can sit when they could equally well stand? Would you feel the same if it were a mother and child being expected to budge up so that the well oiled football supporter could sit down? The "ladies" decanting to the bingo bus at the wrong time of day are not much better behaved either.

And expecting someone else to give up their seat just because you're an able-bodied adult isn't petty? How kind and friendly is that?

@Lydiaatthebarre - I think we are flogging a dead horse and we need to accept that some people have no idea how to behave. I've felt so sad to read some of these posts from women who I have to assume have been brought up that way and are now bringing their offspring up in the same bad mannered way.

Manners maketh a man and no manners tell us an awful lot too.

Interesting comment lexer. Is it only women and mothers expected to put DC on their laps and bring up the next generation properly? Manners do indeed maketh the man and in the 70s my Dad wouldn't be expecting a seat on a bus full of women and children.

God, yes, expecting something that's not yours just because you're you, so mannerly, such a great way to behave, a real paradigm to aspire to. And if someone disagrees with you, dole out nothing but scorn and sneer at them because of course, only your way is right since, by Jove! that's how it was back in the day .

I was brought up in the 70s. Think most of it is outdated bollocks. Glad times have moved on.

Manners are a pretty culturally subjective to be honest lexer It is no more intrinsically well mannered to expect DC to stand and healthy adults to stand or vice versa. There is no reason to logically assume that DC have to stand to allow infirm people to sit while healthy adults sit. I don't accept that refusing to believe that DC are less worthy of seats than healthy adults is bad mannered, it is just a different value base. Many value basis have changed since the 70's, issues around race, sex, the role of woman once married, I see the changes as progress.

We've heard a lot of people on this thread say that they were not offered a seat by children, parents or anybody and made to stand whiskey heavily pregnant. This seems to me like there is an issue with nobody being well mannered enough to offer a seat, not just children/parents with children.

So answer me this then.... a parent and child have two seats on a bus, an able bodied adults gets on and the parent then puts the child on their lap or makes the child stand. The next stop, a heavily pregnant lady gets on. As the parent has already given up the seat, they cannot do it again and nobody else offers (which I have seen and experienced MANY times).

Which is worse?

At that point someone else should offer a seat. Why are people so averse to the idea if a parent putting a child on their lap? It means someone standing can sit down and an extra person can fit in the bus at crowded times.

However I agree with lexer. This discussion is going nowhere. I will continue to think parents who doggedly insist their healthy older child or teenager should hang onto their seat, or that someone should stand up for their 10 year old or that small children should not sit on laps are precious and entitled.

Such parents will continue to think people like me are unreasonable. Bowing out now.

@Lydiaatthebarre I don't have an issue with putting a child on a lap. I would do this with a small child. My issue is making children stand for able bodied adults which is what some people on this thread have been advocating. Using 'safety guidance' from the 70s to justify this viewpoint.

I think a wider issue is the fact that people in general aren't well mannered enough to offer seats. For able bodied adults though, I don't see an issue. For elderly, disabled and pregnant people though, it is, and I think that needs addressing before the issue of standing children!

ETA: I wouldn't expect someone to stand for my child if they were already seated, however. I just wouldn't expect my child to give up their seat for an able bodied adult unless they were small enough to go on my lap.

I still remember the humiliation of sitting on my mum's lap on the bus (school age so probably 4 or 5). It was the done thing back then, not so much now.

Humiliation

Er, no GreenMeerkat

A falling child supported by their parent might hurt him or herself a bit, but an adult falling on a child could really hurt them.

Conductors were trained to keep passengers as safe as possible (my uncle was one), but it's just common sense. Just as women in heels carrying shopping bags will have less balance and chance to use handrails than a man in flats just carrying a briefcase would.

Oh, bother! Conductors and 1970s safety guidance. FFS. And bollocks anyone who thinks able-bodied adults are more entitled to seats than children give a toss about potential for a crash, they see children as lesser beings.

@itsalldyingout I can't see how I child stood in the aisle is safer than sat by the window next to a parent. If a standing adult is going to fall, they're going to fall onto the parent not the child. But that's beside the point. Just like 'safety', social concepts have evolved since the 70s in line with modern society. As I said previously, I think there is a wider issue of able bodied people in general not offering less able bodied people seats. I don't think an able bodied person of any age is more entitled to a seat than anyone else who alighted before them.

@LeftRightCentre Yes, maybe we should revert to the excellent safety advice doled out in the 70s?

Might not bother putting my kids in car seats tomorrow, also 33 weeks pregnant and quite fancy a few glasses of wine and a packet of fags. It was fine in the 70s so why not now?

@LeftRightCentre my comment about when will it be my turn to have a seat was tongue in cheek, but I appreciate that an understanding of irony is always in short supply on Mumsnet.

I described the person in question as a teenage boy because that's what he was - obviously by not describing him simply as a person I seem to have committed a terrible faux pas .

And yes, of course you can ask someone to give up their seat - as I did on behalf of my mum - but it just seems so much more pleasant (as in many situations) when someone just anticipates a fairly obvious need.

When we were younger we were taught to give up our seats where appropriate - I don't think it scarred me for life or made me think that I was inferior to anyone else (although I have to admit that I have no idea what a paradigm of perceived unfairness is).

Safety has thankfully evolved since the 70s but basic physics hasn't.

On a packed bus when I travelled on them (which hasn't been since the 70s - I've only been on a half-empty bus a handful of times since, and since I'm disabled, I used the priority seat), the conductor would ask parents to sit in an aisle seat in order to hold their child closer in case the bus had to brake sharply and people were thrown forward. Nothing to do with sitting at a window seat in case the bus crashed and the glass shattered.

It was a regular route with mostly the same passengers so we were all used to using virtually the same seats. I asked my uncle who wasn't on that route why the conductor would point certain seats out to people and ask them to hold children close. He told me that standing adults were kept as far away and if possible, in front of standing children in case of harsh braking throwing passengers forward. Made sense to me.