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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:
happinessischocolate · 19/01/2020 11:40

As you're presumably going along to spend time with him, not just because you enjoy car journeys I would expect you to sit in the front, otherwise what's the point in going?

Next time you're driving and taking your DD somewhere get DP to sit in the back and see how he feels then 😁

LolaDarkdestroyer · 19/01/2020 11:40

Omg she has limited time with her dad she wants to sit with him...he is taking HER home you are just a tag along you are being ridiculous, it's a bit pathetic.

TheMemoryLingers · 19/01/2020 11:44

Omg she has limited time with her dad she wants to sit with him...

Right, but unless her dad's car is a hackney cab with a glass screen between back and front, his DD can still talk to him and will be sitting only inches further away in the back.

ColdCottage · 19/01/2020 11:50

I'd expect the child to move to the back too.

PGtipsplease · 19/01/2020 11:53

Right, but unless her dad's car is a hackney cab with a glass screen between back and front, his DD can still talk to him and will be sitting only inches further away in the back

Yeah and so can the OP

PGtipsplease · 19/01/2020 11:55

I don’t understand why she wants to go tbh...

TheMemoryLingers · 19/01/2020 11:55

Yeah and so can the OP

But the OP is an adult with (presumably) considerably longer legs and larger frame than a 9 year old.

NoIDontWatchLoveIsland · 19/01/2020 11:57

YABU.

  1. Children often are more comfortable in the front as less likely to feel car seat.
  1. Why do adults rights trump childrens?
  1. However if the car was some tiny hatchback where it's hard for an adult to climb in and there's not really enough room for a grown up in the back, YANBU.
GreenTulips · 19/01/2020 11:58

Omg she has limited time with her dad she wants to sit with him

Then DP shouldn’t have asked OP to give up two hours for his benefit

TheMemoryLingers · 19/01/2020 12:07

Children often are more comfortable in the front as less likely to feel car seat.

Presuming that's a typo for 'car sick' why do you think children have the monopoly on car sickness? Adults can get car sick too. I agree if you have someone who is severely car sick and this is alleviated by sitting in the front, it makes sense to sit them there regardless of age. But there's no reason to have a default position that the child will always be the one to feel car sick.

NoIDontWatchLoveIsland · 19/01/2020 12:08

Also it's just a mode of transport, does it really matter where you sit? Sometimes I sit in back with the kids. Some times my mother does.

My main reason for keeping the little ones I back is safety, the front passenger seat is the least safe

SaphfireRose · 19/01/2020 12:09

But the OP is an adult with (presumably) considerably longer legs and larger frame than a 9 year old.

Unless the OP's legs are 2 metres long, it shouldn't matter. I always found (before I started driving, so I'm relegated to the driving seat) that the back seats were easier to stretch out and spread out. The front seat is more restrictive.

Regardless, the OP is barely his partner, they don't even live together, she is just his girlfriend. Blood is thicker than water, certainly more important than some girlfriend, and I would expect any decent moral father (or mother, if situation reversed) to put his own flesh and blood above a girlfriend.

Cheeses, all the OP had to do is sit in the back on the way there, and then get out and move to the front when they drop the DC off. So she'd only be in the back for half of the trip. If one really can't sit in the back for 50%, while father and daughter are together, something is seriously wrong with one. There is certainly a pecking order, especially if you aren't living together or married, and a parent will always put their children first (or should, at any rate). She's only a girlfriend, not even a live in one, let alone partner let alone married to their father. In this case, his own flesh and blood come first! I am stunned that people think a dad should put some girlfriend above his own little girl. The OP is conflating herself to a status and level of importance she simply does not have.

TheMemoryLingers · 19/01/2020 12:11

I am stunned that people think a dad should put some girlfriend above his own little girl

Her status as his girlfriend isn't the reason she should have the front seat - it's her status as an adult.

SaphfireRose · 19/01/2020 12:13

So what? Her being an adult does not make her more important or more worthier of the front seat. The relationship between father and child does.

cauliflowersqueeze · 19/01/2020 12:13

YADNBU. Adults sit in the front where there is more legroom.

Scarlettpixie · 19/01/2020 12:13

Those saying OP was doing her boyfriend a favour by going.. I wonder if that is the case or if he just thought she would like to go along as they hadn’t seen each other over the weekend.

My STBXHs girlfriend would do anything to go on a long journey with him (he sometimes delivers stuff). Even when he tells her he hadn’t got time to pick her up (he was huffing to me about it) she drives somewhere to meet him. Sometimes I think he just wants to get on with it and listen to the radio! I just used to let him crack on and he felt neglected but she is the other extreme 😂

Everyone saying when we pick up so and so, the kids go in the back - this isn’t the same. This is the DDs last hour with her Dad until whenever. OP is trying to say her wants are more important than his DDs. I don’t agree. He asked OP to keep him company primarily on the way back!

Purpletigers · 19/01/2020 12:16

The child should have moved to the backseat and your boyfriend should have had the common sense to ask her to move .

CherryPavlova · 19/01/2020 12:17

I can’t be the only person thinking this gives a shocking message about the place of adult women. Why did he not suggest he sits in the back and you drive?

Children need to learn that some things are earned and you have to wait for some of the privileges of adulthood. Of course adults preference in where they sit trumps a child’s. He should be showing his daughters how he expects his partner to be treated. That shouldn’t include dismissal.

TheMemoryLingers · 19/01/2020 12:17

Her being an adult does not make her more important or more worthier of the front seat.

Her importance or worthiness has nothing to do with it either. It's a basic courtesy that you give the most comfortable/spacious seat to the one who needs it most, which 9 times out of 10 will be an adult over a child, and an elderly adult over a younger adult.

WarrenNicole · 19/01/2020 12:17

OP, you weren’t being childish, immature or having a strop. Look, in these situations, if you don’t stick up for yourself then no one will, so good for you for declining to go on the journey.

And you are correct, this is setting a precedent. If you sat in the back “just this once”, you’d always be sitting in the back.

This happened to a friend of mine. Her partner’s DS had turned sitting in the front seat into a power play too. She had brought it up with her DP, but he didn’t seem to understand the issue. So DP and his DS picked my friend up and DP says “DS has fallen asleep, you’ll need to get in the back”. So my friend hops in the back only for the DS to start smirking in his “sleep”. DP also sees his son do this. The DS rode in the back from then on.

Spied · 19/01/2020 12:19

Just sit in the back.
You sound like a petulant teenager.
I can't see this relationship progressing.

Grobagsforever · 19/01/2020 12:19

Kids are safer in that back, so she should have sat there.

NoIDontWatchLoveIsland · 19/01/2020 12:22

It cracks me up people talking about the front seat as having "more legroom". The distribution of leg room is variable and dependent on the seating position. You don't want to go passenger seat in my car - it has DS rear facing car seat behind it. The passenger seat is cramped as a result, you are likely better off behind the driver.

NoIDontWatchLoveIsland · 19/01/2020 12:24

All these people who feel like riding in the back seat makes you a second class citizen - I assume you sit in front in a taxi too. Nope?

Ask yourself why not.

TheMemoryLingers · 19/01/2020 12:28

I assume you sit in front in a taxi too.

Unless it's a black cab, obviously I will take the front seat, if I am the only passenger in the taxi. Doesn't everyone do that?

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