to think something is wrong with the story about mum being made to stand and breastfeed on the train?

[PAlm5]

Longest title ever? Sorry!

Breastfeeding mum forced to stand on rush hour train www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-england-essex-45421266

Anyone think this is a little... fishy? I'm 8 months pregnant and am ALWAYS offered a seat. I've also never not been offered a seat when I've had a tiny baby in a sling with me (though that hasn't been for a little while now).

I really, REALLY don't think that on a full carriage that nobody bothered to offer a breast feeding mum a seat?

Maybe I'm naive or people in the Midlands, on extremely jam packed trains are just nicer than elsewhere, but I just can't get my head round this.

Has anyone ever experienced this before?

Maybe when the other passengers saw mummyblogger was able to simultaneously breastfeed and take species, the thought her need for a seat couldn't be that great.

Anyone remember the great breastfeeding in Primarks #webelieveyou outcry?

if you're confident enough to breastfeed in public, and photograph it, and post it on your public Instagram feed, and you're confident to go to the press about the incident, then you're confident to ask for a seat

This!!!

Selfies, fucking auto correct

I used the tube multiple times a day in London and most definitely wasn’t always offered a seat. I’d say it was 50/50 I was offered, and the rest of the time I asked. A couple of times I asked and was told “no”.

Saw several able bodied young men quickly bury their heads in their Metros when a v pregnant woman got on the other day.

The fact that she's a 'blogger' tells us all we need to know I think.

It sounds like another one of those stories to me which do nothing to actually support breastfeeding mothers.
But I can easily believe that she wasn't offered a seat. I've sat on the floor in between carriages on a crowded train at 9 months pregnant before. Can't say I've ever fed a baby on public transport though. I don't know.

I'm inclined to say so? Even if it is real. I never expected special treatment when I was breastfeeding my three children. I travelled with them, alone most of the time, from a very early age.
But I chose to have them, to take that journey and I also don't know the stories of anyone around me. Why should they give up their seat, for me who is there of my own volition. It's nice if they do but not expected.

Disclaimer: not a mum, have never been pregnant or breastfed... but I too read this and immediately thought ‘hmmm’ And that was before I even found out (thanks to this thread) that’s she’s a mummy blogger. Hmmmmmmm

Sometimes I feel like I live in a different London to everyone else because I know it’s supposed to be this horribly unfriendly place but literally every morning I see someone offer a seat to a pregnant woman or an elderly person. Heck, I’ve been offered a seat myself plenty of times when I’ve been a bit bloated! I’ve also been that person who shouts down the carriage ‘this lady needs a seat, can someone give her one?’ when a pregnant lady was too nervous to ask for herself.

I find it bizarre that someone would rather stand the whole time, take a selfie and then blog about it instead of just asking ‘could I sit down please?’ I know people can be shit, but they’re not that shit: I am positive that about six people would have immediately leapt out of their seats if she’d asked.

Maybe I’m just naive?

If I saw a woman with a baby and no pram i would absolutely give them my seat. I've given random people a seat before if I've been sat at a table and there have been four of them, or I only have a stop or two left. That's my choice and people may have perfectly good reasons for not offering a seat. I'm here to judge nobody... other than this woman who I think is so, so entitled!

Sadly sometimes yes people are that shit. Still, if she didn’t ask then she wouldn’t know.

Sadly sometimes yes people are that shit. Still, if she didn’t ask then she wouldn’t know.

Exactly. If her story had been ‘I asked for a seat and an entire carriage refused to give me one’ then I’d be the first to get outraged but honestly, this just sounds like a bunch of tired commuters getting through their journey and not paying much attention.

I know it’s best to look up from time to time to check if anyone needs your seat, but when you do the same journey every day you do tend to zone out sometimes!

I've had people happily offer me seats on public transport in London....but the train out of Euston is a very different matter. It's very much each to his own and people will fight you to the death for a seat. I have been elbowed in the stomach while pregnant, when I had a 3yo with me. I say in the floor and cried. Meanwhile a family with a child and newborn walked through carriages looking for somewhere to sit with nobody offering a seat.

It is about being kinder. To everybody.

and people will fight you to the death for a seat.

I honestly think I've been going to a different London to some people!!

And it's much easier to post about something on the internet, than ask for help from a stranger in real life. But, yes, ideally she should have asked for help.

I don’t believe it to be honest. When I went to London with my dcs everyone one really kind and helpful offering seats, etc.

I understand (from another story on this I read previously) she said that a teenage lad offered her a seat when she got on, but she declined. So someone did offer her a seat, but she turned it down because the baby wasn’t feeding at that point. I imagine everyone else saw that and decided she was happy to stand.

So she said no when someone offered her a seat then wondered why nobody else offered?

Where did she say the part about being offered a seat but declining it? The BBC story only says that someone got up to offer her a seat, but another passenger nipped in first and put headphones in.

@53rdWay I can't find that part anywhere either...

I lived in London throughout four pregnancies, commuting every day and rarely got offered a seat.

On one particularly joyous occasion travelling along oxford st on the bus, it lurched and my 8mth bump ended in someone's face. She tutted and told me to be more careful.

She's a prick then. Going to the news and lying about someone offering her a seat. She needs to get the fuck over herself.

I still think this is fabricated, but I'm not sure the bit about someone offering her a seat and declining actually happened.

She got on the train at Stratford. It would already have been packedno standing room only. It's full as soon as it leaves Liverpool Street, which she would know. If you want a seat you travel back in to London. She's attention seeking

Going to the news and lying about someone offering her a seat.

Well, or that didn’t happen and someone misheard somewhere? She says in the BBC article that nobody offered. Perhaps they did and she’s lying about it, but I don’t see any particular reason to think that (even if she is a dastardly mummy blogger)

I must look suitably harassed,. Broken arm... Offered seat,pregnant offered seat, babe in arm ditto, even with toddler the same. Can't remember even having to ask. Perhaps cultivate the dishevelled look more😂