to expect people to get their children to vacate seats.

[noonar]

ok, am really not sure what the consensus will be here, so here goes...

dd goes to swimming lessons. there are about 35 children doing classes of different levels. the spectators' are is very hot and cramped. there is v little room for an adult to sit on the floor, and only about 25 seats.

last week, for some reason, there was a large number of siblings watching the lessons with their parents. many of these were occupying a seat. one mum had 2 sons with her. they took up 3 seat. also, a dad let his 2yo have a seat to herself.

meanwhile, i was struggling to keep tabs on my 3yo, while standing, as she edged close to the safety rail between us and poolside.

now, i know children are people too and should be treated with respect but do you think it was fair to allow children to occupy so many seats , in the circs?

Giving up seats is reciprocal, in the greater community, and in the longer term.

When they are middle aged and knackered, with an aching back, some nivce child may get up for them.

Family=immediate community

Rest of the world= bigger comminuty

One of the great things about Mumsnet is that it does make you think about other people's povs. But I've really tried, and I'm honestly stumped by this one.

I simply do not understand what is so contentious about asking a child to give up a seat for an adult. I don't get it. We're not sending them up the chimneys for heaven's sake.

And imo, not always, but often, children, owing to their youth, impetuosity, inexperience of situations, can tend to think of themselves before others, unless they are taught not to do so.

Not being facetious here either, I just genuinely don't UNDERSTAND what the objection is. I'm not talking about putting children in a humiliating position. They should be treated with courtesy and respect too. As MP says, I'm just asking them to put others comfort before their own where it is appropriate to do so. That's good for their self-esteem surely not the reverse.

I'm finding this all a bit depressing frankly.

sorry - that should have been

as MB says ....

Like Nooka I think that asking kids to lay the table is part of running the household - fine. But not the same thing as the blanket attitude towards kids being expressed by some, which states that they should (and if not forced) to move for adults.

To refer to Suebaroo's post again, I would not make ds move for another random adult on the train, just as I wouldn't move for them (I'm talking ordinary person here, with no more or less right than me to sit down). If someone asked him to move I would say no, and I wouldn't care if they responded negatively/thought badly of my parenting style because, in that case, I'd think they were being unreasonable tossers. Ditto someone who, for example, deliberately crashed into my 5yo on the pavement because they'd expected them to move out of the way for them.

What a lovely post MB

I think that says it all.

Wow, this is still going on.
I am beginning to realise that I am an 'old-fashioned' type of parent.
I would expect my child to move out of the way for someone older walking along the pavement, again because I think it is good manners shows consideration and I guess because it was what was expected from me by my parents....
When all our family get together the adults would always have the sofa / armchair and the children would be on the floor or perched on the foot stool. Our Dad's in particular have a 'seat' in the sitting room and no-one would sit there apart from the Dad or a guest from outside the family. IMO it is easier for a child to stand or sit on the floor than it is for an adult. Even when my dd1 says she is too tired to walk she suddenly has the energy to run about like a mad thing when we get to the park. When I say I am too tired, I genuinely am.
Oh and I did try to make the link to the deterioration of our society in my post of Thu 24-Jan-08 10:24:22. And I am afraid I do believe this sort of thing is the start of it, genuinely . I am slightly regretting my use of the emoticon, but as others have said it is odd this has bothered me so much.....
I am off to follow PolicyWonk's lead and escape to the kitchen to make lunch (sadly not a pot roast).

Oh crap. I have just re-read that I and I am beginning to sound like my raving Tory father . Kitchen here I come.

Thread too long for me to read all of it but I'm going to put in my tuppence anyway

Two different kinds of experiences.
One was on a crowded train going into London. dd aged 5 or 6. An oldish lady got onto the train and announced 'well I'm sure all these children will stand up' with a smile in a very Professor Umbridge sort of way. I'd already given up my seat. There was no way in a million years that I'd willingly want dd at that age to stand in an overcrowded train - not safe when you can't reach a handle and theres lots of swaying adults. There was no room for her to sit on my lap without her putting her feet on the strangers lap opposite. So she sat there while the lady made the occasional public announcement about how children should stand.

Second one I encounter regularly is when I go for my cataract follow ups. As you can imagine, in general the age profile of the rest of the patients is 30-40 years older than me. There are never enough chairs and the wait can be a couple of hours sometimes. For the first couple of appointments dh and I found ourselves boinging up and down like yo-yos - offering our seats to all comers and taking advantage of a seat when a few become free. We've given up on that now. If its remotely busy we've decided our waiting place is on the floor

i was berated by a woman for standing back at a bus stop (up against the seat!) once with my dd (aged about 4.5) to let her pass on the pavement with her dcs. she told her dcs very loudly that 'that lady should have stood between you and the road' .

i was amazed by this on two fronts - firstly if she felt so strongly about it, she ought to have said something to me, not used her child as a mouthpiece, and secondly why was it imcumbent on me to put my dd in possible danger by protecting her child(ren) if that was what she was concerned about? I'd stood back to clear the pavement for pedestrians since I was waiting for a bus. I thought I was being considerate by doing that. i hadn't realised I was expected to act as some sort of untrained bodyguard cum human barrier by standing on the edge of the pavement to let them pass by the bus stop. supposing there'd been a row of grannies going shopping?? she'd never have got past then. t wasn't raining so there was little danger of being splashed by water from the road by passing traffic in fact there was hardly anything on the roads as it was mid-afternoon) so I'm still a little baffed as to why she had this idea. i wouldn't expect someone else to do this had the positions been reversed.

any ideas?

Just saw this

That's horrible, and shows that children too can be vulnerable, a point missed by some who think their aching backs are so very important. However unless I really had to (no other trains possible that evening) I would not have got on such a crowded train with a child. I always try to miss rush hour trains in London for this reason - they can be very frightening when you are smaller. dd has very vivid memories of a tube journey when she had to stand up a few years back. She got so scared I ended up part carrying her, whilst she clung on to the hanging straps (she's heavy!). You know what I didn't even think to blame anyone else for not immediately giving me a seat . Everyone wanted/needed to sit down that day.

I wouldn't have got on there either - I hate being crowded myself. I'd have sent my son to get the car and come back to get us....

So here, I have a question.....

...to all those who think that children should NOT offer to give up their seats for an adult....

If you and your children were somewhere and there was a very pregnant lady or an old lady or someone who was clearly not looking very well etc - if I have got this right, you would indeed ask your child to get up and offer that person their seat.

What makes you ask your child to get up rather than you offering yours while your children stay seated in this situation?

The answer to that question will help to explain what the rest of us are talking about.

PTIYPASI, excellent question

I'd offer my seat, not my child's - on the basis that I think I am better able to stand for long periods than a four-year-old.

A question for those of you who think children should offer seats to able-bodied adults;

if it is basic courtesy to offer one's seat, why do you adults not do it?

But you do, you offer the comfort of your own seat by adding a heffalump child to your lap.

Has anyone said that adults don't/shouldn't, Policywonk? Hunkermunker is right. So it frees up at least one more seat, maybe two, to share around between everyone. And I would expect all 3 of us to give up the seat to an elderly or pregnant person. How else can we instill good manners in our children unless we model it to them? My kids have often seen me sit on the floor/stand if there's someone around who appears to need the seat more than I do, or if they're a guest in our home. And I reckon we're probably at the stage now, that if I beat them to it at offering my seat, they would then in turn offer theirs to me.(hopeful emoticon). And in case I'm sounding smug, ought to add that DCs have plenty of other faults to compensate.

I said earlier in the thread I felt children should sit rather than stand on public transport.
However in the situation described by the OP I still think it is discourteous for the child not to give up their seat. (I heard that word on the TV last night and immediately thought that describes how I feel) It is not about respect it is about courtesy. I am now parping myself!

hunker/clam - I don't have any argument with what you are proposing - as martianbishop said several hundred posts ago, it's only fair to share out a finite number of seats as equally as possible.

What I object to is the following scenario: mum and child are occupying two seats. Able-bodied adult approaches. Mum demands that child give up his/her seat and stand/sit on the floor so that able-bodied adult can sit. Mum remains sitting in comfort.

And to clarify - what I object to is the assumption that this course of action is somehow inherently courteous/respectful. I can see how it's respectful to the random seatless adult, but I don't think it's respectful to the child, and I don't think that children are due less respect than adults.

OK. 3 seats. 4 people (3 adults and 1 child) wishing to sit down. Equal rights for all. Who stands/shares? Surely it makes sense for the child to perch on the parent's lap, if of an appropriate size. I accept that children are valued as much as adults etc... but I would feel uncomfortable seeing an adult sitting on the floor while my child lounged in a chair - or worse, while my child's coat lounged in the chair whilst said child ran around the room. Now I really must let this one go!

clam - nothing wrong with what you propose. I would probably stand and let my child sit just cos I find most public seating uncomfortable enough without adding a three-stone wriggly weight into the equation.

As I said below, my beef is different in a small but crucial respect.

Message withdrawn

What I'm finding odd is this idea of "strap-hanging" standing children. When I was a child my mum would sit with her feet apart and stand me between them. That way she could hold onto me. When I was big enough for my bottom to perch on the seat I stood between her feet with my back to her, sitting on the front edge of the seat. I did the same with my children. No strap-hanging. No falling children. 2 people on one seat.

I can't envision the sort of bus/ train layout where you couldn't do this.