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AIBU?

Share your dilemmas and get honest opinions from other Mumsnetters.

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Original poster

to not let the pregnant woman push in?

113 replies

DaisyBD · 31/12/2019 15:26

I was at an airport the other day queuing up to go through security. Time was tight and I was in danger of missing my connection (so I hadn't just left it late getting to the airport). There was a woman in the next line which was moving slower than mine, and she asked the guy in front of me if she could go ahead of him, which he said yes to. I tapped on her shoulder and said actually I did mind and could she go back, which she did. She then complained to the people behind her that I was a bitch and she was pregnant - quite loudly but in french so I guess she assumed I couldn't understand her but I speak french. I said nothing but wondered afterwards if I should have let it go - it probably made fuck all difference to whether I made my flight.

I was very grumpy and stressed at the time but now I feel a little bad that I made someone else's day a little bit less nice, and small acts of kindness don't hurt. On the other hand, being pregnant isn't an illness and why should she take precedence? I don't know, obviously I can't go back in time to change what I did, and I don't feel terrible about it, just wondering what other people would have done.

OP posts:

stuffedpeppers · 31/12/2019 18:50

usually bald, no eyebrows and eyelashes is a fairly good sign of chemo being undertaken!

Good Luck OP with the treatment

crispysausagerolls · 31/12/2019 18:54

I agree re entitled pregnant women, but I think what you did was quite humiliating for her after the man had agreed. It’s pretty normal etiquette to ask the person at the front of the queue re pushing in.

Original poster

DaisyBD · 31/12/2019 18:54

@NinjaBiscuit @stuffedpeppers thanks both! unfortunately my treatment won’t make me visibly cancery as my particular cancer doesn’t respond to chemo, so surgery and radiotherapy for me (and no pushing in)

OP posts:

Original poster

DaisyBD · 31/12/2019 18:56

It’s pretty normal etiquette to ask the person at the front of the queue re pushing in.

yes but we weren’t at the front - probably about half way up a massive queue and there were two lines, she wanted to join ours which was moving faster.

OP posts:

Forcryingoutloudwtf · 31/12/2019 18:59

I wouldn't have said anything but I would have wanted to. I am just non confrontational. She may have felt ill or her back or hips could have been sore or she may have needed the toilet. Anybody in the queue could have had those issues. You either queue or ask airport staff for assistance if for some reason you can't queue. You don't just push your way through. The OP and no doubt other people in the queue were in danger of missing their flight. That is also a pressing reason to progress up the queue. Everybody in the queue wanted to it to move quicker. But it is a queue. You don't just jump it.

rwalker · 31/12/2019 18:59

If she was struggling in the que she should of spoken to airport staff .Not random people in the queue to jump a few places sounds like she was taking the piss.

makingmammaries · 31/12/2019 18:59

n France, most supermarkets gave either special priority queues for pregnant women, disabled people and the elderly

Wow, which is the supermarket that has special queues for elderly people?

Liverbird77 · 31/12/2019 19:00

I am pregnant and wouldn't expect to cut in.
If she was in that much pain, she would y have had the strength to be bitching about you.

christma5isover · 31/12/2019 19:08

For me queues have the potential to make me pass out but I'd never ask to jump a queue, just happily accept if someone offered. I can understand why you weren't happy about her joining in front of you.

paranoidmum2 · 31/12/2019 19:10

YANBU. I used to get the London tube alot and still do sometimes. If people didn't get up for a woman with a Baby on Board badge, I would always say loudly 'Please could someone up a priority seat fo this lady, she has a badge'.

But in this stuation, this woman should have spoken to the airport staff, who would have either let her go to the front or put her in the fast track queue (or maybe told her to stay put).

Yes this woman asked the person in front of OP, but his decision impacted OP and possibly could have made her miss her connection.

I had this in the Chinese embassy in London, waiting to apply for a visa for my boss. A man kept asking people if he could go ahead of them as he was flying today and that he needed to be seen before 11am. It was 10.45am and the queue was looooong. There was no way he was being seen by 11am, so I said no, that I needed to get back to work asap. He moaned about me to the other people in the queue but I didn't care, his reason for going ahead made no sense.

yellowallpaper · 31/12/2019 19:46

Well she wasn't so pregnant that she showed a significant amount, and she didn't say she felt unwell or dizzy, so her need didn't trump your fear of missing your connection. She may not even have been pregnant, just and trying to queue jump!

CarrieBlue · 31/12/2019 19:53

@makingmammaries E.Leclerc have at least one checkout for pregnant/elderly with signs saying you have to let them go first. I’m not so familiar with other supermarkets but I’m sure they’ll have similar.

Hearhoovesthinkzebras · 31/12/2019 20:08

Thing is, she wasn't just cutting in in front of the man that she asked was she? She was cutting in in front of everyone else behind him. Maybe one of them was pregnant, disabled or I'll and was in pain, desperate for the loo or feeling sick. They've now been pushed back in the queue. Yanbu

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