To think about taking pram on the bus?

[Busterbuster]

So I’m most likely being over sensitive to this but I just can’t quite get over it. I’m not good with confrontation what do ever so feel like I just need a bit of a rant if anything.

Unfortunately I can’t drive and due to living in a semi rural area I have to use the bus that runs through our village quite often. I get quite anxious doing this and so have actually bought a pram that folds down tiny in one for periods where I may need to put the pram down for the bus if it’s busy. I had an appointment at the doctors this morning which isn’t in our village and is 25 minutes down an A road (just looked on maps and it says it would actually take 2 hours 45 minutes to walk there), so obviously this is something I had to get the bus for so headed to the bus stop with my son in his pram. It was pouring down with rain so went to wait under the shelter where another woman was sat who was quite a bit older and had a zimmer frame style of walker so it was clear she struggled with her mobility. She then started speaking under her breath but loud enough for me to hear her ‘all these prams getting on busses nowadays, mums aren’t like they used to be’. Normally I’d of stayed quiet but I was already have a crappy morning so I just replied ‘am I supposed to walk all the way to Weston (where the gp was) in this pouring down rain with a toddler?’ And she just said to me that ‘mums used to walk everywhere back in my day, and you’ll be using the priority seating yet it says nothing about prams on there so you shouldn’t be allowed’. Bare in mind that the busses that time of day are always so quiet with no one on there which is why I was going a little earlier to make sure I got the quieter bus. I told her that if anyone ever needed the space then I would always give it up and she just laughed at me and told me to stop lying. I then ended having to walk off and miss the bus because I could feel myself getting upset, I HATE confrontation and I just felt like all I did was turn up at the bus stop to use the bus? I’m always so respectful of everyone, I would always give my seat up on the bus and for her to just laugh at me saying I was lying when I said that really struck a nerve. I’ve seen her around the village before and if we’ve ever been on the same path I’ve always pulled in with my pram and waited for her to pass and not once would she ever acknowledge me nor say thank you. I’m friends with so many people in the village and regularly stop to chat to the older folk who I love speaking with. From her point of view I appreciate that if she’s experienced it in the past with people being unfair in terms of spacing on the busses with her mobility issues, then she understandably deserves the right of way as prams can fold down. I’d never argue that, but just the way she completely tarred me with the same brush when I am completely the opposite of that, really struck a nerve!!! And actually had me in tears on the way home, luckily one of my friends took me to my appointment in the end so I didn’t miss it but I just feel like she’s now shattered any confidence I had to get the bus.

Did you still make your appointment?

Yes, fortunately a friend offered to kindly take me after I brought it up saying what just happened in our group chat 😅

She’s right mums are not the same anymore, they have become lazy and selfish. This poor old individual deserves to ride in comfort bless her. Who do you think you are swanning around with your over sized push chair. You’re the worst kind on public transport. Lazy mums and there annoying offspring! Get some exercise and some fresh air at the same time better still learn to drive.

The buses where I am normally have 2 spaces on opposite sides, one designated for wheelchairs and the other can be used for prams as the seats fold up. I always use to get on the non wheelchair side so I wasn't using the spot unless I had too (if the other side was taken). Like, you I bought a pram that was easy to fold down but still quite difficult whilst holding a baby, others use to help though!

Aren’t you a ray of sunshine

I get comments like this all the time. It takes me 40 minutes by bus to get between my house and my parents It would take me at least 2 hours to walk it. Like you, I have switched from my beautiful but massive silver cross to a tiny Graco stroller that folds into nothing. Still get comments.

Public transport is there for everyone, if you need to use it, use it and don't let anyone make you feel bad about doing so!

Of course you can use the bus but yes you need to collapse for a wheelchair, I'm old enough to have had to carry mine up steps collapsed!

Pretty sure she was being sarcastic OP

Of course YANBU to take your pram on the bus.

No, they didn't have that facility when mine were little, but I just think it's great that life improves and young Mums can do that now.

However
I then ended having to walk off and miss the bus

YABVU to have done this.
Particularly if it made you miss your Drs appt.

She’s miserable and rude. I wouldn’t have engaged!

You’re fine to get on the bus with a pram/pushchair, long as you’re prepared to fold it if someone (wheelchair) needs the space more than you, which it sounds like you are. She was just being a crank.

I had shit like this from people like that at bus stops when my first baby was born 17 years ago. “Mums are so lazy these days. In my day we walked everywhere with our babies…” etc. I mostly ignored it but did snap at 2 elderly ladies that they had to walk everywhere with their babies because getting a pram and a baby on the back of a donkey wasn’t possible “back in their day”. Petty but I felt better for it. My gran told me she would get shit about “young mothers today” when she had her babies in the 50s. All generations have something to say about the ones that come after them I guess.

She was rude and mean and you should literally not be taking into consideration anything she said, you know it's not true.

And I mean this kindly, but you need to get a backbone. Yes, she was being snidey and mean, but I don't understand why it upset you? She was saying things to you that she's just made up in her head - just let it wash over you. Who cares what some boot from the village thinks?

Mothers with prams are no less entitled to use the bus than you.
Regularly getting the bus doesn’t give you any sort of special status, unless it’s a wheelchair then it’s first come first serve.

I had an experience like this recently. I sat down in a supermarket cafe with baby, had been up all night and was shattered and had just received some devastating health news from a relative and some old woman just barked at me “I need to sit there for my back!”
I was in such a daze I just moved my baby and all my stuff but I remember thinking I really should have just told her to go fuck herself. There’s a very particular sect of old people who turn miserable, think the world owes them something and think they can say whatever they want to people. It’s the sort of thing I’ve never experienced from a younger person.

The woman was bloody rude, but stop with the ageist crap, especially about old women. We are not all like this.
She wasn't horrible because she is old, she is just horrible

Well said. The OP was understandably upset but the posters who'll take any opportunity to lob in ageist stuff have really crawled out of the woodwork.

It's really not OK to ignore the presence of a walking frame or any other incredibly obvious and utterly essential mobility aid.

this happened to me, i take the bus to my kids school as my oldest is disabled and struggles to walk for long, i was on the bus one day and this woman spent the whole time ranting about lazy mums who won’t walk their kids to school and who get on the bus, she was ranting the whole journey about no one walks with their kids anymore and how lazy it was. i really had no idea why she felt the need to shame me, my child has a disability we aren’t being lazy but of course she doesn’t “look disabled” so we are judged, she wasn’t elderly she was in her 40s at a guess

however where we are mobility aids do take priority over prams but doesn’t excuse her rudeness

No I know I fully appreciate what you are saying, I definitely do need to get a back bone! I’m just such an anxious person and struggle with confrontation, really wish I would stand up for myself more. I just felt the tears coming on and couldn’t stop it and didn’t want her seeing me like that so removed myself from the situation, but looking back I wish I stood my ground!

No I do agree. Even if I had been waiting there before her and we got on the bus to find there was only one spare space for a pram/walking aid then I would have always let her have it. If there was two spaces then I would have kept the pram up but been mindful to anyone getting on later in the journey that potentially needed that space, even without a walking aid, and again would have folded the pram and moved so they could have it.

I encountered a male version of this last week. I was outside the local station, on the phone to my elderly mum. I saw a very elderly man walking with 2 sticks to the station. As he approached I walked into the station, solely so I could hold the door for him. After I had let him through he thanked me profusely. Opened the door again to leave to be confronted by another elderly man who said "fucking ignorant woman on her fucking phone" as he passed me.
I followed him back to the queue he was now in and pointed out that I had only actually opened the door. I didn't expect thanks but I didn't expect to be sworn at, not least by someone who I assumed expected some kind of manners.

Op some people are just miserable and need to be ignored

I really hope that no one here would actually refuse to fold their pram for someone with a walker or zimmer frame. Of course people with mobility aids are entitled to additional space and should take priority over a pram.

The above is not directed at you@Busterbusterbecause you stated very clearly that you would always fold your pram for someone who needed it, including anyone with a walker.

It's not ageist to say that I have only ever encountered this kind of bus rudeness from elderly people - it's just the truth. No, obviously not all elderly people - most on the bus are delightful and smile at my baby, or just you know, going about their business. But there is a particular nasty group, as someone said further up the thread, where ageing seems to have turned them bitter.

Most recently, an old woman muttering at me because she was blocking the aisle with her shopping trolley and I wanted to get my pram on. I caught the word 'stupid'. So I replied loudly 'I heard that you know, that was very rude'. She looked gobsmacked but didn't say anything else. Because that's how bullies often are - they dish it out but can't take it back.

I'm sorry you had such a horrible experience, OP. Next time, I suggest you just tell her she's being very rude. Please don't let her intimidate you off the bus.