Tldr: should toddlers stand while healthy adults sit on trains?
On the tube today, I boarded holding our 2yo DD by the hand, DH had pushchair and baby in the sling. It’s busy (South Kensington museums on a Sunday afternoon) so we didn’t get a seat. No drama, I manoeuvred DD down the carriage towards a pole and tell her to hold on to that and my hand and we travel one stop reasonably well wedged in. DH is half way down the carriage with a lot of people between us.
At the next stop, the seat in front of us opened up so I helped DD to climb up. NB: it was one of the fold up seats designated for a wheelchair user if someone needs it. However, no wheelchair present and the other two fold up seats had healthy young adults sitting in them.
DD had just got settled when a man says, very loudly, “would you like that seat?” looking behind him but pointing at my 2yo. I say hang on, she’s sitting there, he says something like “she can stand up, it’s for disabled people” I said “well she can stand but she might fall over” and he got huffy and said his leg hurt. Totally coincidentally, I’ve currently got a mildly sprained knee so just blurted out “well I’ve got a sore leg too!” and he said “well why don’t you sit down then?” so I did and put DD on my lap and he stormed down the carriage saying he was just trying to offer a seat to a lady.
I would absolutely have moved DD if a wheelchair user had boarded, requiring the full length of the fold up seated area. But AIBU to think that a healthy adult should be asked to move from a seat before a young child?
Just to preempt the question “why not keep DD in the push chair?” we had taken her out to help us get down the steps and walked straight onto the train. I have no real problem with her standing, it was more that it felt very much as though he was deliberately picking on the toddler sitting down, especially given he did not ask either of the other adults on fold up seats to move. But he was so self-righteous I’ve been left wondering whether this is some etiquette I’ve never absorbed, despite living in London for 10 years before having DD!