Pram debacle on the bus

[bibetyboo]

Boarded the bus today with 9mo asleep in pram, underneath of pram half full. In the designated pram area there were a couple of shopping trolleys that had been left by two elderly passengers. The driver asked for them to be removed so that I could fit pram in, but both of them contested that I should not have been let on the bus and ought to have waited for the next one.

The driver looked at me and apologized and I replied that it was fine, I would just stand with her somewhere out of the way (the gangway really). It was pissing down with rain, and buses here come every hour.

Whilst standing with pram, both trolley owners began to mutter, enough so I could hear, about my being on the bus. That I ought to have waited for the next bus, that it's ridiculous as in their day they would have to take the pram down. I was entitled and privileged. Lots of sighing and eye rolling.

At this point I'm fuming. I've let it go, not challenged the trolley parking and am just trying to get home. Acquaintance of trolley owner begins to witter on about how on earth he will get off the bus with 'that woman and her baby'. Trolley owner explains nice and loud, 'she'll just have to get off in the rain'.

Patience. Reached. The bus is PACKED at this point. I ask 'acquaintance' to mind his business and asks both trolley owners why they are so hateful towards a young woman, getting on the bus with her baby, followed by, in the fog of rage, telling them to simply 'fuck off'.

All parties were silenced and the remainder of the bus journey was tense to say the least. It involved a few three point turns and reversing to allow other passengers OFF and ON.

Now I feel terribly guilty that I shouted at an elderly person.

EQUALLY, I've come to realise there is an old sun culture within the elderly or let's say 'older' community. This bizzare disdain for the 'youth of today' who have 'never had it so easy'. Lol, come see me when we remortgage next month (HELP).

Was I unreasonable to tell them where to go?

I'm with Mavis. They were horrid and entitled and good on you OP

Was I unreasonable to tell them where to go?
yes you were VERY unreasonable.

You are young and mobile. Wait until you’re old and people see you as always in the way.

Just as you regarded these people as in your way.

You are entitled. I can remember when you would not have been allowed on the bus with an unfolded pram.

You are very lucky there is now more accommodation on public transport for people who have trolleys, prams, use wheelchairs and so on.

Don’t grudge other people the use of these SHARED spaces. And hope you’ll be old one day, because the alternative is worse.

I think the word you’re reluctant to type is ARSEHOLE!

Yes I have had a lot of abuse from old people about my blue badge as apparently I don’t “look” disabled. But as he saying goes not all disabilities are visible” My husband usually sorts them out !

This. A very sensible observation.

But we can always rely on MN for ageism.

We use the bus regularly with double buggies and always have issues with older people with shopping trolleys

Extraordinary that you don’t see your own hypocrisy. You expect other passengers to make space for a double buggy, yet you “have issues” with shopping trolleys used by elderly people, who are often infirm and use the shopping trolley as a mobility aid which isn’t (to them) humiliating.

Unbelievable arrogance.

I board a bus.
Space where I would like to put my pram is occupied.
Driver advocates on my behalf once, and both people who own the trolleys refuse to move.
I am annoyed. Yet I want a quiet life. They are elderly. I say nothing.
They dig and dig and dig at me, having not opened my mouth.
I want to get my baby home. I want to be safe.
They are humiliating me.
I react, I tell them to f* off.

Yet I'm an entitled, ageist, hater of the elderly.

How on earth can you arrive at these conclusions?

Don't sweat it OP. You have to ignore the bitter nasty twats of Mumsnet. You can tell who they are. Last week someone was berated for buying a sandwich for a homeless person.

Oh and an astonishing number of people here HATE parents of young children. On Mumsnet. MUMSnet! You only have to look at discourses surrounding Parent & Child parking spaces to confirm that.

@MightyOaks
So anyone who has a different opinion to you is immediately a 'troll?!' I think you need to look up the definition of a troll

No obviously - its entitled, nasty fuckers who put their bloody shopping trollies where buggies and wheelchairs are supposed to go, and then denigrate a mum with a buggy, who are trolls. You must be similarly troll-like.

They sound like terribly ageist, miserable old women.

Hopefully in future situations they’ll keep their mouths tightly shut.

@bibetyboo I am extremely disappointed that you told them to fuck off. To my mind, FUCK OFF!!! would have been much better.

Young people can be arseholes, as can old people. The elderly arseholes were probably youthful arseholes as well. The “arsehole” bit is the common factor, not the age.

She only blocked the aisle because THEY went against the rules and did not move their trollies!

The space, as others have said, are for wheelchairs and prams

You can't complain about someone whose actions are due 100% to your behaviour!

They have a bloody cheek to call you entitled, OP!

We used to have a great driver on Dublin Bus.
He was a narky fucker but a stickler for rules🤣

If you got on with a buggy,and people didn't move out of the space Ie trolleys or people standing there.
He'd stop the bus and make them move.

They are right that in their day you would have had to collapse the pram, but that's all they were right about. Hibgs have changed. Even back then people would have had to move their trolleys to accommodate people with babies and small children. You did nothing wrong. They were very rude and wrong.

Fuck those women. I would have said the same. Cunts.

The bus driver should have kept on at them or refused to move until they moved their trollies. Unless they were the type in the metal frame it's easy enough to fit them in. I think they thought they were clever, goading you. Wow, how immature are they.

I have a TfL "please offer me a seat badge" as I have hypermobility in my leg joints and some lingering injuries/damage. Most people are lovely. There is little rhyme or reason to who helps me or who doesn't on public transport though and I am mindful that other people have hidden disabilities so I have no automatic right to seat. I can usually tell who is just "pretending" not to see me, however . The worst treatment I've had was from a pensioner though after a bad, bad fall. Got on a bus with the badge, a huge, swollen, strapped ankle and a walking stick and walked even a few steps really badly. The only lower deck seat left was next to an older man and he looked so disgusted as I sat down- after squeezing round him. He definitely stared at me. Maybe he was having a bad day, but it felt like he was thinking how DARE a young person- 29 at the time- require a seat or temporarily classify as "less able to stand".

Also had a bloke on a busy train demand I give up my seat for a pregnant lady who'd just got on, despite the badge. I said no and asked him why he'd automatically asked me first, despite the very visible badge but not the much bigger, stronger man sat next to me with no visible disability. Or just anyone else at all; he could have addressed the whole carriage. He apologised and the man next to me moved but I think it was an interesting example of what people expect of women. Especially younger ones tbh.

Some people who have had shit in their life just want to drag everyone else down. All the ‘I remember when you weren’t allowed a pram on a bus’ comments are hilarious and fucking ridiculous. You can’t easily fold a pram for a 9 month old, it’s not the same as a buggy for a toddler. Should OP be chained to the kitchen at home because other women were?

It doesn’t matter if they use their shopping trolley as a mobility aid, they aren’t using it when they are sat on the bus. Presumably they were fine to wheel it about the shops and up onto the bus so they can wheel it 2 extra meters to where the driver asked them to. They were just being nasty and entitled by thinking their bag of apples is more important for a baby. It’s not like the old people were kicked off the bus for the pram, everyone could easily fit if the old people had a bit of respect and consideration for the people around then.
No doubt they are they type of older person who believes in ‘respect your elders’ and it is not a two way street for them.

Who is saying the OP should be chained to the home?

The people on the bus were arseholes to the OP (I don’t think she actually said they were women). Even if the trolleys are being used as mobility aids their behaviour was still extremely rude, unhelpful and completely lacking in empathy. I don’t think that generalising that a sub group of older people generalise about a group of younger people doesn’t help here. The bus could also have enforced the rules and the wider issue is the transport situation that puts people will differing requirements in conflict with each other. Going off in a tangent about old people and the OP’s mortgage is completely irrelevant.

@luxxlisbon Agreed. I told myself when I was young that I would never be a bitter & twisted old bat, without a moment's joy. I've kept to that & just do NOT understand the old moaning minnies. Yes, when my kids were young, you couldn't take a buggy on a bus without folding it. Would I like today's mums to have to fold theirs? HELL no!

You quickly forget what it's like carting a small child an all their related paraphernalia around. I didn't have much occasion to use public transport when my DC8 was small, and I used a sling most of the time rather than a pram. But a PP upthread makes an important point about the pram-folding being impractical/impossible if you don't have a seat in which to keep the baby safe, and if no one is courteous enough to offer one.

The attitude to that seems to be: 'Why should you have a "sense of entitlement" just because you procreated?'

I had a lot of interest in my sling (one of the 9-feet ones that you tie around your body), especially when I was tying my baby into it. I'd regularly get interested onlookers stop to watch me, and had a few Interfering Random Stranger comment about that. But if I'd blocked a thoroughfare in a cafe or shop with a pram, you can bet your boots they'd have been complaining about that, too.

Oddly enough, I never got a single adverse comment or stare that I was aware of when BF in public, which I did without a cover of muslin cloth anywhere near DC's face.

It does seem to me that new mums are often, sometimes persistently, harassed when simply going about their business bothering no one. And the motivation is by no means people simply wanting to see the cute baby, either.

I once got on a local mini bus route with my son in a harness. No seats spare and I sat on the luggage rack bar. The bus driver stopped the bus. Got up and said 'im not going anywhere until someone gives this young lass a seat'. A lad on crutches got up and the driver said 'thanks , but not you mate!' a man possibly in his 50s then got up.
I thanked the man and the driver as I got off and he said it was down to safety having me standing with a baby.