I HAVE A BABY YOU KNOW!

[HarrietKettleWasHere]

Now, possibly we’ve all been there...

But AIBU to think that this woman yelling this at me on a station platform was just ridiculous and was IBU to laugh and say ‘that’s nice’.

Picture the scene, last week, crowded tube platform, rush hour, everyone trying to get home. Huge delays, a tube hasn’t been for about twelve minutes. Everyone is getting increasingly pissed off.

Woman with a small child in a buggy is getting pretty irate, sighing dramatically, muttering obscenities etc. She then pushes that ‘information’ button on the platform and when it gets picked up demands to know when the next train is coming (the board is already displaying 10 minutes)

Operator tells her ten minutes. She tells him that is disgusting, she’s got a child, they ought to be sending taxis operator clicks off.

She loses her shit, and screeches I ‘JUST WANT TO GET HOME!!’

I said, ‘yes, I’m pretty sure we all want that’ because she’s irritating me and the platform is chockablock so I cant move away.

She then yells ‘ I HAVE A BABY!!’

I sort of laughed incredulously and said ‘yes, that’s nice’

, I NEED TO GET HOME NOW! THIS IS NOT FAIR ON MY CHILD, I SHOULDNT HAVE TO PUT UP WITH THIS!!’

Child (looked about a year or so so not a baby baby) sat impassively in buggy for the duration.

She didn’t get her taxi, but (rightly so) everyone moved aside when the train finally came so she did get on with the buggy. Lots of people didn’t and had to just wait for the next one.

She kept up with the dramatic sighing the entire way back though.

Eliza9917 neither would I ideally travel at rush hour with a baby, but I dont think a bus is necessarily a better option. Only one exit door, lots of pushing, less space for a buggy, usually people with food shopping, more compared to those on the tube.

Loads of parents use childcare near work and need to get their kids in for office hours.

The idea is that they should travel off peak and arrange that with their work... how?
Or get the bus and have a superlong commute each way (and TBH all the same problems with buses in london overcrowding pushing lateness etc) rather than a quick commute on the tube?

Pointing very much towards women with children (and you don't see men with little kids on public transport get the same level of glares tutting anger etc) being essentially second class citizens with less rights to access public transport than the unencumbered.

It's all very unpleasant.

What always shocked me, whilst living in London and traveling on the tube, was the amount of parents who disembarked at non accessible stations and then stood at the bottom of the stairs looking sheepish until someone offered to help them.

• I always offered to help and that was very much the ‘done thing’. But it was just weird, the expectation from parents that others would help them!

OnlyFoolsnMothers Tue 20-Nov-18 16:53:57
Eliza9917 neither would I ideally travel at rush hour with a baby, but I dont think a bus is necessarily a better option. Only one exit door, lots of pushing, less space for a buggy, usually people with food shopping, more compared to those on the tube.

You have an 'on' and an 'off' door though, trying to get off a tube with a buggy would be ridiculous.

Lol @ justaposiiton with person who says that a woman who has a. decided to live in london (maybe she grew up there, all her family are there, her job is there) and b. decided to get the tube (in some parts of london it's the only reasonable option and moreover that's what it's there for and c. decided to travel at rush hour (irrespective of work commitments, hosp appts or whatever else might be going on in her life) has relinqushed her rights

And yes there was a bit after that but it still made me laugh

Men with little kids on public transport do not get this shit.
I leave that there as a point of interest.

I always found people very helpful when I was travelling with a pushchair on the tube (I used to try to avoid rush hour whenever possible, but if there are major delays or you are making a long journey sometimes there is no way around it).

If her child was a year old it’s pretty unlikely she’s still on maternity leave. And in the evening rush hour it is more likely that she is going home, just like everyone else is - if it isn’t important for her to get home, it’s even less important for anyone else who doesn’t have to worry about getting a baby fed on time. You can’t have it both ways.

I remember doing some journeys and knowing that I had about 30mins until DS got overtired/hungry and started screaming and throwing himself about, and getting very stressed when it looked like we were going to be delayed past this point because I knew he would be almost unmanageable by the time we got him home. I also didn’t want a huge long tantrum on a crowded train if I could possibly avoid it.

YABU to post about her in such a mean-spirited way. I'd have probably had a little internal smirk because most people (including me) have had those moments of madness and PFB-ism but I think she sounds like someone who has had a rough day or a series of rough days and the delayed train has been the final straw. Everyone has a breaking point, that was hers. It doesn't make her an arsehole or entitled however some of the comments made here about her do make the posters appear to be unkind bitches.

@Nothingon

🤔 I don’t think they’re second class or have any less rights. But if a parent is going to use public transport at peak times it’s unreasonable for them to expect special treatment, or complain about it.

"You have an 'on' and an 'off' door though, trying to get off a tube with a buggy would be ridiculous."

Tubes have like 6 million doors
And you wait for poeple to exit before you get on

Well, some of us do anyway...!

Eliza9917 yes but just one door- and only two spaces for a buggy or wheel chair.

@NothingOnTellyAgain Pointing very much towards women with children (and you don't see men with little kids on public transport get the same level of glares tutting anger etc) being essentially second class citizens with less rights to access public transport than the unencumbered.

That's probably because they think their free-ticket-holding children are entitled to seats each when people that have been working hard all day and pay thousands for their tickets have to stand.

Years ago when I was heavily pregnant and sat in a packed waiting room waiting for my turn to see the consultant, a couple arrived and on seeing there were no seats left the man went off on one at the midwife who was standing behind her desk (she’d already given up her seat) proper shouting at her for not having any seats available what a total shit show she was running etc. The midwife calmly reassured him she’d sent 2 staff members off to find more chairs and they’d be back soon. “But my wife is PREGNANT!” The whole waiting room erupted. His wife looked so embarrassed.

The chairs soon arrived. Arsey husband sat down on one. His wife had to waddle across the room to the other one. All that fuss and he didn’t even see to her first some people’s entitlement astounds me.

1. Woman, not parent. I have never seen men get a hammering on here for this and in real life they don't get the glares, the tutting and stuff when they have little kids
2. I help parents with little kids by offering seats, by giving them a hand with a pushchair if I am able (bit disabled). So do lots of other people. You can do what you like, but whether you agree with it or not, people with small kids are often more vulnerable than unencumbered able bodied adults, for a variety of reasons

@NothingOnTellyAgain
Tubes have like 6 million doors
And you wait for poeple to exit before you get on

lolz

"@NothingOnTellyAgain Pointing very much towards women with children (and you don't see men with little kids on public transport get the same level of glares tutting anger etc) being essentially second class citizens with less rights to access public transport than the unencumbered.

That's probably because they think their free-ticket-holding children are entitled to seats each when people that have been working hard all day and pay thousands for their tickets have to stand."

Your assertion is that female parents act way more entitled than male parents?

I'm out. I'm going home in my heated car with cd player and no other sticking people

Stinking

Oh you never answered my question

You said that you would have walked up to that women and told her "tough shit".

That seems unnecessarily nasty to me.

Other poeple in London stink?
You'd walk up to a freaking out woman and try to start an argument?
You never let people off the tube before you try to get on?

Wow OK yes there are people like you in London but IME in the minority.

Since when was 10 minutes an intolerable time to wait?

I shout at other cars when I'm trying to get home with chips from the chipper in the car (they don't hear me though ).

LilMy33 -

reminds me of a time when I was going to mat appt
the seats were all taken - lots of them by male partners (?)
pg women sittign on the floor
bonkers

In your situaiton as in mine it was the men who felt entiteld to sit, in a mat dept full of heavily pg women some of whom may well havehad issues with their pregnancies.

Weird.

I was surprised the people at recep didn't tell them to get up and let the women sit but there you go!

(waits for posters to come and say pregnancy isn't an illness why shiould they have more of a right to a seat over a man who may be tired etc etc )

trying to get off a tube with a buggy would be ridiculous

There are buggy spaces (in front of the flip up seats). Or you can stand by the door. I agree that far too few stations are step-free, but getting on and off the train itself is not remotely difficult outside of rush hour (when it is difficult enough as an able-bodied adult).

I used to take the buggy from Brixton to Green Park on a regular basis when I was on mat leave to do some shopping or go to a museum. And I used to get the train around south London 2-3 times a week.

Far more reliable than the bus, where you risk not even getting on if it is at all crowded or there is another buggy or wheelchair on there already.

Poor woman was probably having a very very bad day. You have no idea what her life is like.
Anyone who was at Bedford Railway Station in September may have seen a woman shouting at a child. You may have thought what an awful woman. Well I was that woman. We were en route to father in laws funeral, daughter had a meltdown and had broken her glasses and we had missed the train... So I lost it. You never know what is going on in someone elses life. Maybe once she got home she would be beaten by her husband because she was 'late'. No one knows.