Active discussions

Meet the Other Phone. A phone that grows with your child.

Meet the Other Phone.
A phone that grows with your child.

Buy now

Please or to access all these features

Talk
AIBU?

Share your dilemmas and get honest opinions from other Mumsnetters.

Original poster

to have refused to go because DP expected me to sit in back?

967 replies

Fauxfurrealwhiskey · 18/01/2020 16:30

Wee bit of context before I start: DP has two DDs aged 11 and 9. He has a lot of residual guilt over leaving them/their mum back when they were little (years before we met) and consequently he lets his youngest daughter in particular get away with an awful lot that he shouldn't imo.

We've been dating for two years and don't live together.

He's on his way to drop them back to their mums, when I don't have my DC and am free I usually go along to keep him company (hour drive each way) so agreed to again this time.

He turned up to pick me up with his DD2 in the front seat. As I approached the car he told me I was in the back. I asked if I could sit in the front. He said she wanted to sit in the front. I told him in that case to go ahead without me then as I'm an adult and not a child so he could pick me up on the way back if he wanted instead and went back in the house. No big row or a scene of anything. I just wasn't willing, as a grown adult, to sit in the back while a 9 year old sits in the front. I would never dream of doing the same to him with my DC.

AIBU to think that adults get priority over children in terms of sitting in the front of the car? It's just basic manners imo.

Or is that horrendously old-fashioned of me and I've been a rampant cow?

OP posts:
ChicCroissant · 18/01/2020 18:54

Oh dear, that wasn't a good look for you OP! You wanted your partner to make a stand for you and he didn't - hope the discussions go well. How far away from him do you live?

PrayingandHoping · 18/01/2020 18:56

It is respectful as the front seat is more comfortable than a rear seat for the passenger. Therefore you are allowing that person more comfort than yourself.

GreenTulips · 18/01/2020 18:57

Perhaps his other daughter will want to be in the front next time to make it fair!

In which case DP won’t ask OP to kee him company and he can drive back alone.

IwantToDatePicard · 18/01/2020 18:57

I would have been annoyed as well. YANBU.

diddl · 18/01/2020 18:58

"In which case DP won’t ask OP to kee him company and he can drive back alone."

Yup!

Sounds better to me than 2hrs in a car-in any seat!

chamenanged · 18/01/2020 18:59

I think who gets priority for the front seat is context dependent but I think it's absurd and rude to specifically pick up an adult for a journey there's no actual need for them to go on so they can keep you company, and then tell them they're in the back for the first hour of said journey in favour of a 9 year old. If I was going on a two hour journey that was essentially pointless for me I'd be sitting in the front, or like you, OP, I wouldn't be going.

thelongdarkteatimeofthesoul · 18/01/2020 19:00

GiveHerHellFromUs moving the front seat forward would move the 9 year old even closer to the airbag.

I do think that the whole set up with going along to keep the dad/ boyfriend company is properly strange in this context anyway, but doubly so when it means an hour in the back seat. I'm surprised anyone would get into the back seat for a totally unnecessary (for them) journey. I wonder a lot about the dynamic between the four people, and a bit about whether he wants his ex to see him with a girlfriend when he drops the children off for some reason.

Furrydogmum · 18/01/2020 19:01

I have said YANBU because I don't think you should have to sit in the back, however it might have been better to do it under these circumstances then had the conversation with dp that you wouldn't expect to be put in that position again..

minionsrule · 18/01/2020 19:02

Maybe its just me but if i got to a car and someone was in the front seat i would just jump in the back.... wouldn't bother me if the person in front was younger or older than me.
I imagine he didn't want to let his dd think you were more important to him than her..... quite right too.

turnthebiglightoff · 18/01/2020 19:02

YABVVU. And acting like a spoiled little brat.

GiveHerHellFromUs · 18/01/2020 19:03

@thelongdarkteatimeofthesoul true. I can turn the airbag off in my car but I guess some people can't.

OP do you have any kind of relationship with the girls other than these journeys?

Jeschara · 18/01/2020 19:04

You look silly OP, and thank goodness your partner did not give in to you. You sound like you want respect but not prepared to give it to others.

toomanyleggings · 18/01/2020 19:04

I understand where you're coming from completely. My dh's dd has tried this a few times. I just say 'can you get in the back, my legs are too long for the back'.

JeffreysWorkTrousers · 18/01/2020 19:10

YANBU both my children have sat in the back even when the passenger seat is empty. It is safer in the back.

They are both teens, never "fight" or bicker when together in the back of the car even on 3 hour journeys.

I often pick up Ds2 from his secondary school, he sits in the back then I collect his brother from sixth form. They happily sit in the back together.

This whole she was in the seat first is ridiculous. She is 9 and should have been in the back all along. The adults get to choose where they sit. If you choose to sit in the back which usually has less room than the front, then all is fine, except the OP didn't choose to sit in the back.

GreenTulips · 18/01/2020 19:13

Maybe its just me but if i got to a car and someone was in the front seat i would just jump in the back...

You’d honestly spend an hour in the back even though DP has asked to you come for company?

I’d understand it if it was a 5 min journey, but two hours going nowhere?

I’d go home and do something more productive.

lyralalala · 18/01/2020 19:16

You’d honestly spend an hour in the back even though DP has asked to you come for company?

I’d understand it if it was a 5 min journey, but two hours going nowhere?

I’d go home and do something more productive.

If your DP normally asked his child to get in the back for you when you do that journey and then on one occasion said “Can you go in the back?” would you not think there was a reason for it, especially when he reiterated the point when you objected?

Lilymossflower · 18/01/2020 19:18

Yanbu if you have travel sickness or something like sitting in the back being to cramped and uncomfortable for you

Yabu if its just because you are an adult vs they are a child.

Though aside from that I do get your point that sometimes when parents feel guilty they let the child get away with far more than they should, which isn't good for the kids in the long term

UniversalAunt · 18/01/2020 19:19

She sits in front on the way there, you sit in the front on the way back.
The drive to her home takes up the last hour of her time with her dad & being alongside him when he is driving her home means that they can chat with ease.

With other DD in the back, you can keep her company all the same.

Upsiedasie · 18/01/2020 19:22

You behaved like a spoilt child! Presumably he isn’t going to see his child for another week and you thought you should take priority? Especially as he was asking you to go in the back as a one-off, you should have done it. If I were him I certainly wouldn’t be driving back via yours to talk it out tonight.

Fivetillmidnight · 18/01/2020 19:30

I am absolutely with you OP.. front seats are for adults . If there is no space then of course an adult sits in the back... but not in deference to a 9 yr old. !

Incredibly disrespectful for your boyfriend not to tell his child to hop in the back..
it's no different to the situation when a pile of adults come round and there aren't enough seats on sofa or armchairs, kids get told to get up and sit on the floor to make room.. it's called 'respect for your elders' deeply unfashionable I know - but something that needs to be promoted a bit more. Unless the elder in question has behaved in a way that doesn't warrant that right - which as the non- live in girlfriend of their father, does not sound the case.

I would be deeply worried about the Disney dad tendencies and the child's general sense of entitlement (or perhaps never being taught that kids in the back when adults are in the mix , is the way things work.

My own children would never need to be asked . If an adult was being picked up and one of them sat in the front, they would be up and out that front seat and into the back before I had the chance to tell them.

Because they have manners.

However this is MN and fathers partners are not to expect that 'step' children be required to have these as you are tantamount to the anti christ !

Grinandbionic · 18/01/2020 19:34

YANBU

Adults get the front seats, children the back. It's safer for the children anyway.

Northernsoullover · 18/01/2020 19:34

No I wouldn't have got in the back. When my children were younger I always made them go in the back anyway. Its safer.

lyralalala · 18/01/2020 19:35

I would be deeply worried about the Disney dad tendencies and the child's general sense of entitlement (or perhaps never being taught that kids in the back when adults are in the mix , is the way things work.

Except the OP states that the Dad doesn’t normally tell his child to get in the back...

The OP hasn’t even asked why he asked her to go in the back this time before she went in a strop...

Neverender · 18/01/2020 19:36

I don't get this at all - it's no hierarchical, she was just in the car first and he loves her.

AnyFucker · 18/01/2020 19:37

This will likely to be seen as "vile" too but if I am invited to a get together and there is limited seating I expect the children, not the adults, to sit on the floor.

I once went to some shindig in someones house. I had no seat so politely requested the resident approx 12 yo kid to vacate his seat for me since his parents were too ignorant to do it. He wasn't forthcoming until I stood my ground and he eventually slinked off. Ever since then I have a reputation as a bossy bitch in those particular family circles but I don't give a fuck.