To have expected this woman to acknowledge me and my travelling circus on the bus?

[curlyredhead]

Background: buses in our city it's either not possible to take unfolded buggies onto them, or on the ones with a disabled space there's room for one unfolded buggy in the disabled space, and if a wheelchair comes on you have to fold up the buggy. (And strictly speaking, you aren't supposed to take buggies on which can't fold up.)

So, this woman is sitting with her pram in the disabled access space, her baby is about 8 months old and wide awake. I got on with a double buggy with 1 year old twins and a walking four year old. She completely ignored me while I unpacked dts from the buggy, unpacked the bottom of it, and folded it up. I did this all on the bus, so she can't have not noticed me.

She then got off the bus about 3 stops later - so, about 3/4 mile and all downhill.

What I was really surprised at was that she didn't acknowledge me at all - if it had been me, I would at the very least have said, 'oh sorry my pram doesn't fold' - and probably have got off the bus and walked the last few stops. Or, if I was in a crazy hurry and couldn't manage to take the extra time, I'd have said that - 'really sorry, I can't afford to get off, but can I give you a hand with all your stuff / kids'

So: AIBU to have expected her to acknowledge what I was doing, and that by sitting there she was making quite a lot of work for me, or is it just normal / expected that she ignored what was happening?

I've given up the space before - in the days when I had my double mountain buggy with twins. However, if another single buggy got on I'd get off. Not because I felt they deserved the space more than me but because the bus was a bit of a luxury and my giant pram just took up too much space. I think I felt bad for the fact that my giant twin buggy was causing so much convenience, which probably says a lot more about my state of mind than anything else - apologising for taking up too much space with my babies. Equally, I never got on a bus if there was already a buggy on there and yet heaps of times single buggies got on when I had my double (unmissable, visible from the moon) pram on there. Upshot was I walked a lot, which didn't do my a*se any harm in the long run.

I actually don't think you're being unreasonable. The fact that you've got twins and a toddler and you're out of the house doing your thing makes me think you're pretty amazing and so I like to think that people would help out. But I mean people in the sense of everyone on that bus, rather than the other lady with the pram. The odds are she was probably in a daze, or embarrassed, or difficult, or tired, or a million things you can only guess at. In an ideal world it would have been nice if she'd jumped off the bus three stops early or just smiled at you in a 'fellow mother in bus adversity' moment, but life isn't always like that.

In the spirit of morris's post I would like to mention the nice lady at the airport who held one of my twin babies when they were four months old and our aforementioned mountain buggy was being ripped apart by security. Both twins had been asleep but security wanted to check the pram and so we had to strip the babies and all the items out of the pram (pram fleeces, blankets, bags, etc.). My husband grappled with this - he literally had to take the wheels off - whilst I held one screaming baby and the other lay on the floor shrieking on a pram fleece. A young woman in the queue looked at me, quite embarrassed, and asked if I wanted some help so I handed her Outraged Twin 1 whilst I scooped up Outraged Twin 2 off the floor. She and her boyfriend stood there and jiggled my baby about for five minutes whilst security did their thing with our pram whilst I ripped open milk cartons and sampled them for the watching crowd. Sh!t day (our first flight with our babies and we got hammered by security at every turn, which just seemed really difficult at the time and a bit unfair) but I'll always remember that lovely lady. A gold star by her name in heaven, even though it probably seemed like such a tiny thing to everyone else.

Personally I don't think we think of others enough. And I don't think we help mothers enough. It can be a lonely existence at times, hauling a pram and baby and tiredness around, and so it's the small, random acts of humanity that can make a big difference.

Have only skimmed the thread, but YABU to expect someone else to get off the bus and walk!!

IME of travelling with a twin pushchair plus walking little one, most people fall over themselves to be helpful and chatty ('You've got your hands full', 'How do you cope' etc) and quite frankly, it was a welcome break when people just ignored me and my brood!

Actually I probably wouldn't offer to help. When DS was younger I couldn't move from his sight. He would have screamed the place down if I had got up from my seat and left him on his own. Now he is older he is insanely jealous if I hold other children especially babies.

What was it you wanted her to do? Hold your child, help lift your buggy, help put your shopping in the luggage rack?

I don't expect people to move their buggy out of the way in the luggage rack as long as they don't mind me plonking mine on top.

I waited for the next bus the other day because the bus was rammed and there was no way DS (2.11) could stand safely for a 30 minute bus journey. If I don't have DS with me I always offer my seat to anyone with an under 4 because it's just not safe for them to be standing.

An unpopular view, apparently, but YANBU. I do think a bit of maternal solidarity goes a long way. And yes, I have often got off a bus a couple of stops early so that another buggy can use the space.

yabu.why should she move/help?she had just as much right to park her buggy there as you.

little lamb
your post:

'I had to travel twice on the bus today and both times I had to stand up with 11 mo ds in one arm, holding on for dear life with the other hand, and 4 yo dd doing the same. There is no way that the bus full of people didn't see us as ds is so loud It was mainly old dears but not one of them stood up to let us sit down. I don't automatically expect to be offered a seat but when I have a baby in my arms and a preschooler also standing I do think it's different. I think it's just rudeness, and ime old dears are the worst for it '

I'm sorry but I think a mother and a 4 year old are more capable of standing up than an old dear , even if you are holding a baby
I have 2 dcs, often get the bus and would never expect an elderly person to other me a seat

cheesesarnie - you're right she shouldn't be expected to get off the bus. But she could of offered to help rather than just stare and do nothing. Some people may not like the interfence of need help but you won't know that until you've asked them.

not the same thing, but yesterday my mum boarded the bus with ds in his wheelchair and ended up standing as the disabled space (in the middle of 2 single seats that face each other) was occupied by two women, obviously deaf who were signing to each other and she would have needed one of them to move to have enough room to get in with ds in the wheelchair.
not sure whether they should have moved as they were "disabled" but were only really using the seats to chat to each other and seemed perfectly able in any other way.
aman up the back of the bus started shouting about how it was disgraceful that they werent going to move to let my mum in which was a bit ironic as they couldnt hear him!

Thank you all for your thoughts. You have, collectively helped me realise that I probably was being a bit unreasonable to be feeling put out - thank you to those who got where I was coming from, though. I have worked out quite why I was so irked by the interaction, which I will lay out further down (in case anyone is at all interested in the workings of my mind!).

To answer lots of you: I really wasn't expecting her to help me with my kids, or get off the bus, or any of the things I mentioned. I said what I would have done in the circumstances of someone else getting on with double the number of babies I had plus another child (and those who said I have all mobile children - yes, my one year olds are walking / cruising, but not confidently enough to do so on a bus!). So, as I said originally and in the title - my irritation came from her not acknowledging that she wasn't helping me, rather than from her actually not helping me.

I have realised that part of my irritation comes from the fact that she was breaking the rules of the buses - she shouldn't have been allowed to take on a non-foldable buggy (the idea is that if you are on the bus with a buggy, you have to have a foldable one so that you can get out of the way if a wheelchair user needs the space). Now, personally I think this is a stupid rule (as long as anyone who has that kind of buggy makes sure they do get off as soon as the space is needed for a wheelchair), and I have broken it in the past with a different double buggy, but I am very much a keep-by-the-rules person normally, so when I have done this I've been well aware that I need to get off if a wheelchair user comes on, and that I am getting away with it so to speak. And I kind of expected her to realise the same and be ready to get off if need be - so not that she should have got off for me, but that if she had been ready to get off she might have noticed me a bit more.... (it's complicated, in this little sleep-deprived head of mine)

The other thing, and the main thing I think, is that I'm actually irritated with myself - I am more and more aware how much of a 'people pleaser' I am - always looking out for how what I do might affect other people and feeling bad if I'm putting people out and so on. And I'm tiring myself out with doing this, and also getting irritable that other people don't look to do the same for me, in a 'it's not faiiiir' whiny sort of way... So thinking all this through, with all your thoughts to help, I am making resolutions to either help people out and have no expectations from others, or to be a bit more selfish myself and not assume that people are noticing and thinking the worst of me.

On some other random points that people have made: yes, I do think that two in a buggy plus a walking child 'trumps' one baby, in the sense that it is a lot easier to sit on a bus with one baby on your knee, than to do so with two and also keeping track of a walking child. But nonetheless, I didn't have an expectation of her getting off or anything else, I just wanted her to smile in my direction or something.

The post about my eyes BORING into the lady's back had me roffling a bit! I promise they weren't - I really didn't have much time to think about her while on the bus, it was only afterwards that I felt my irritation. So I don't think she knew - I even smiled at her as she walked past the bus on her way off, honest!

The post about calling us a circus - well, that's a bit how we feel, to me. My eldest tends to get cross very easily, I am not one of those calm, smooth sort of people, I have hair and sunglasses flying, and babies leaning out of the pram... And yes, if someone had come on with four children, especially if three of those had been non-walkers in a buggy I would have definitely got out of the way.

To those who think I should have expected the rest of the bus to help - a very kind lady did take one of my babies on her knee, so I didn't have to manage them both, and the bus driver was exceedingly patient and said not to hurry (I'm in Edinburgh, too, curly gal so know how unusual that is )but the rest of the passengers did sit and watch me with my unpacking and folding and juggling three children.... Which is fine - I honestly don't expect the world and his wife to take on my children for me. I guess I do have a crazy idealistic 'we're all mums together and we'll help each other out' sort of hope or idea, though....

This has been a bit of AIBU-as-therapy, so well done if you have got to the end of this!

lol....