to expect others on the bus to offer their seat / show common courtsey to a heavily pregnant woman?

[babyball]

This refers to two occasions. Once, where an elderly lady came onto the bus and no-one would stand up for her apart from myself (at 32 weeks pg and with very noticable bump). No-one offered to stand for me however, and as the bus was rammed, a couple of ignorant arses rammed their massive rucksacks into my bump on the way past causing considerable pain. I was so angry hot and bothered, I burst into tears as soon as I was home. The second occasion, was sitting next to an elderly gent (not that elderly and certainly mobile). When I asked him to move so that I could get off the bus, he moved his knees to one side. Asked if he would mind getting up momentarily, he said, "Nah, you'll be alright luv", meaning I had to squeeze past him shoving my bump against the bus rail hurting my already extremely sore belly-button. Sorry for the rant, but has no-one any bloody consideration any more?

Trouble is I never really look at people around me. Always in my own world or with my nose in a book, so not likely to notice even if you should give birth in front of me. Think a lot of London commuters are like me. Just ask!

fourkids - Take your point, but whether or not women choose to be pregnant is not the issue. After all, many of us will do it and to expect common courtesy for a couple of months is not too much to ask. It's common decency. I would not expect someone to give up a seat whilst I was 5 months pregnant, but in the later stages where you get unbearable pressure when you stand up for example, I feel that people could show a little compassion.

PS: think that the elderly and disabled should definitely take priority btw.

OK, I don't feel particularly strongly about this

But am genuinely interested in other people's pov on other people who might feel the need of a seat...for example what about an extremely overweight thirty year old bloke?

I would have farted in the old guys face on the way past!

Just asked DP if he would give up his seat for elderly, disabled and pregnant women and he said he would and has done. He's helped people upstairs with pushchairs as well. He hates people who dump their bags on seats, put feet up on seats, have music blaring out and are just generally annoying/ignorant. He gets the train to Glasgow everyday.

yes, pregnant women should get a seat
i have previously had someone move out their seat to give it to me, and some perfectly healthy looking middle aged man jumped in it soo quick before i could even sit down. how rude can you get! but luckily someone gave me another one
i find people on london buses are not always so bad, have been offered a fair amount of times which is nice.
if you ask someone and they so no, i think they really deserve to be challenged on that and made to feel ashamed of themself! (if they are a perfectly healthy and not needy person obviously, and especially if in the priority seat)
was a bit annoyed earlier today on the bus, it was quite busy but no point waiting for the next bus as it only gets busier and busier from that time. so i + pushchair + bump squeezed onto the bus, didnt expect to sit down anyway as was busy, but some stupid cow had to start making comments about there is no room. well she was stood their drinking a bottle of some alcohol anyway, which was clearly signposted directly above her head as forbidden on the bus, so i felt she should have been chucked off and i would use her extra standing space for myself. rolleyes

Ah, now I always stop and help people with pushchairs. As it happens I have given up my seat for pregnant women too - I just don't think there is any reason to expect people to.

Yes, I would give a seat to a seriously obese young man. I'd give my seat to anybody who needs it more than me.

Well hester, you are much nicer than me... I'm Mrs Mean I'm afraid...Ok so accepting that the young man might have an unfortunate condition or something, but for the purposes of this I'm assuming he hasn't. And I wouldn't give up my seat for him when he's tired from sitting in front of the telly eating doughnuts all afternoon and I'm tired from looking after my DH and DCs and doing housework and working hard all day at my job and with several hours of the same still to come before bedtime.

Not that it has anything to do with pregnant women! I just wondered.

But the thing about expectation...if a pregnant lady tapped me because I hadn't noticed her, and asked me 'excuse me, do you think I might be able to sit down because I don't think i can stand any longer/might wet myself/think I might fall down' etc i'd gladly give her my seat.

if she tapped me, all expectant-looking (in the face as well as the tummy) and said something along the lines of 'please could I sit down - I'm pregnant' I would be far less likely to do so. Because, maybe I'm being dim but I do have a fair amount of experience at being pregnant, I don't see why pregnant women should - under normal circumstances - expect to be treated any differently to anyone else.

Have to say when you look at the staff taking school children out on buses it is no wonder they grow up incosiderate.

Yesterday I got on the bus just after 9am there were a group of local primary school children on there. It took 4 of us and me eventually ramming pushing ds2's buggy towards a group of lads before they would move. I then asked a girl of about 9 or 10 to move to let an elderly gent sit down, I had the male member of staff get in my face telling me not to speak to the children so i said well you deal with them properly then. he disappeared back upstairs. Then a girl started running her mouth saying "oh that lady with the red pram is a slag and so rude asking us to move for that old git" I turned round and spoke to a woman who was with this bunch of brats children, i explained that when i was growing up it was ride to insult adults in such a manner. This bloke then came back down stairs tapped me on the shoulder and said "i told you not to talk to these children" I explained i was talking to a woman and he said well thats ok then or you would have to deal with me. To which I replied, "Its no wonder these are acting like hooligans you certainly don't seem to be able to look after them" he then walks over to the rude girl and says"if you are asked about this at school deny it" Oddly enough i did call the school and gave them a piece on my mind.

Just remembered some other things that annoy me on buses

• People sitting in the priority seats when they don't need to.

• Perfectly helthy people not offering their seats to disabled / elderly people because there are "other seats" - ie, upstairs.

• People taking up two seats - dumping their stuff on the window side and sitting on the aisle. Even (especially) when the bus is packed.

• People complaining about buggies / wheelchairs being allowed onto buses.

• Blaring music.

Oh my goodness Evenstar that is amazingly out of line... She called you a slag?!?! So rude...!!!

Oh, and of people in general - people thinking they have the right to ask you why you're disabled. Infuriating.

Okay, am finished hating human kind now!!!

Shout at them. Whack the guy with your bump, his face is softer

ErikaMaye - I'm 20 with a 'hidden disability', I HATE it when people have a go at me for using the hand railings on stairs or sitting down on the bus in the seats at the front.

Unrelated to my knees, but I had an old lady have a huge go at me on the bus once because I wouldn't move for her because she demanded that I did instead of ask. There was a seat right in front of me free but she wanted mine so that she could natter to her friend sat behind me somewhere. Bitch. If she'd been polite and said please I would have happily gotten up, I got a "Move out of the way, I want to sit there!" instead.

But yes, hidden disabilities suck when old grannies push you out of the way when you're walking up stairs and start telling you off

Poor you Pixi I once had a woman flip out at me because I was sat in the priority seat. I was sat against the window, so she couldn't see my stick, and when her and her friend got on, my friend got up and gave one of them her seat. Instead of thanking my friend, she spent the next ten minutes telling me (and the rest of the bus, as she wasn't very quiet) how disrespectful, rude and a waste of space my generation are. I sat there are just ignored her, getting steadily more annoyed and more upset - I'd had a very tiring and stressful day, as it had been the longest day I'd managed at college since falling ill. When I needed to get off the bus, I polietly asked her to move, then made sure I made a LOT of fuss clipping my stick back together, and standing up. Then I smiled sweetly at her, and asked her to please remind me who the presumtious and rude generation were.

I just think its rediculous, and I'm sorry if this offends anyone, but it tends to be the older group! The people around where I live are lovely, always chat away to me, and offer to help me on the bus (bless them!). But the ones in the middle of town are really quite foul to younger people with disabilities.

I wish I had a stick sometimes, I know it's a horrid thing to say but it would be so much easier to explain my knee problems if I could have some form of physical evidence of them!

Good of you though! I wish I had a chance to chat back more often, it would be much better than silently fuming as the granny makes her way up the railings 5 times faster than me

The older generations can be the foulest of them all, because they think we are. It's pathetic! People my own age throughout school and college were fine with me and my knees. They'dtease me for using the banister, I say "I don't really have a choice..." explain and they're fine, the older people in the college (teachers for example) thought that I was making it up as I had (and still have) good and bad days where the affected side switches or they may be perectly fine for a month and then I'll have a bad day again (for a week lolol).

Fourkids: As it happens I have given up my seat for pregnant women too - I just don't think there is any reason to expect people to.

There is every reason to expect people to stand if they are sitting in a priority seat and clearly don't need it.

It's common courtesy to offer your seat to someone who clearly needs it and it's a sad reflection of our times that there is even a NEED for priority seats at all.
So many people don't show consideration towards others, and as demonstrated by a few posters on here, there is actual DIScourtesy shown towards pregnant ladies, the elderly, the infirm, which is just sad sad SAD .

When I was heavily pregnant with my 2nd dc, I had to squeeze past several people to get to a free priority seat, after standing for several stops. As I stood up to get off the train, I accidentally bumped into the suited middle-aged bloke that was tutting and throwing filthy looks at me the whole time as I was also trying to perch my 2-year old toddler on my knee and he actually stood up and PUNCHED me in the stomach. No-one offered to help. And my DD remembers the "mean man that punched mummy" to this day, 2 years on. .

I am an outspoken lady, some politely call that feisty! but alas I never leave a situation without saying everything that I may have wanted and often some things I wish I hadn't.
I visited Thailand last year, once when pregnant and once when not, both times I was a mother of at least three. That alone earnt me the immediate fight for people of all sizes, ages and gender to give me a seat. They also gave up seats for my children..... what a lovely place. This is unlike China where people would push and jump over children and buggies just to get off a bloody boat first.
I always complain loudly as nobody can understand or really cares, just look embarrassed because over here people rarely confront others.
England I seem to recall (when I'm not there) is this lovely place from my childhood where people smile in shops, have impeccable manners and respect. Of course they would give up their seats????
After being treated like a near goddess in Thailand I was expecting the same at home. So the first time I wasn't given a seat on a bus (probably the only time I went on a bus) coupled with the newly arrived eastern european bus driver who was obviously in a race to pull out and nearly knocked me flying I was extremely upset. I approached the driver and said this:
Now I can see that you are trying to kill someone today but I really don't want it to be me, as all the ignorant people on the bus are not going to give a heavily pregnant woman a seat I would rather walk. To be honest if I were you I would return to whatever country you have come from because it probably has more respect and consideration for fellow man this country is a horrid horrid place. Now stop this bus this minute.
And he did....

OMG penny, I would have been hysterical and actually bloody tempted to pull the emergency chain actually. Have the guy charged with assault. Tosser. I probably would have been tempted to fight back, but would have come off worse then him most likely. Yes, pull the chain and sod the fine. How dare he!

"if she tapped me, all expectant-looking (in the face as well as the tummy) and said something along the lines of 'please could I sit down - I'm pregnant' I would be far less likely to do so. Because, maybe I'm being dim but I do have a fair amount of experience at being pregnant, "

Sounds like you have easy pregnancies Fourkids

You see I would always give up my seat to a pregnant women without asking for an explanation because I have a different experience of pregnancy to you, and frankly I think expecting women to humiliate themselves by having to give a stranger full details of their medical problems, when we all know that there are many, many problems that can cause a pregnant woman to need a seat, is pretty unkind. Far nicer to give the benefit of the doubt. I mean, would you really expect a complete stranger to tell you and the rest of the bus she might wet herself?!

It seems have got worse in London. I was often offered seats in 1st pregnancy but haven't been offered a seat at all 1nd time round. I'm now 26 weeks so there is no denying that there is a bump there although looser clothes could sometimes give the illusion of being fat.

In fact one rather smartly dressed manjumped in front of me when about to sit down on tube on Sat so he and wife could sit down together. I have to admit I gave up...

kathyis6incheshigh,

Not easy pregnancies, just no expectation that i should get priority treatment because I'm expecting a baby. That's not to say no gratitude, pleasure, and sometimes downright relief when I have been offered a seat/a hand with pushchairs/ doors etc.

I don't have any issue at all with pregnant ladies being offered help/seats - i think courtesy and thoughtfulness is what makes the world go round. What i think might be a little unreasonable to is to think there is some automatic right to special treatment. partly because it's people thinking they have the right to this that and the other that does not make the world go round.

Of the original post, i agree wholehertedly with the second part: 'show common courtsey to a heavily pregnant woman?' In fact I'd like everyone to show common courtesy to everyone else. What imo is unreasonable is the first part: 'to expect others on the bus to offer their seat' - the expectation of special treatment.

But to be fair I didn't express myself very well

YANBU - when I was 8 months pregnant and had a 2-year old with me, no-one gave up their seat for us and we were both thrown around the bus for the whole 35 min journey. I was struggling to keep my own bakance, plus hold onto DD cos she couldn't reach the handrail. Grrr! Lots of sheepish glances, but clearly no-one felt concerned enough to get off their lazy a*se....

Fourkids I still want to know whether you seriously think pregnant women should have to tell complete strangers on buses the exact details of their pregnancy-related problems, rather than just explain they're pregnant and expect people to fill in the gaps. Because that is the part of your post that I find a bit worrying.

It's not really to do with being pregnant - it's about people helping others who are struggling in any way. And I do think you should expect courtesy, because if we all stop expecting it, that's when it becomes acceptable to ignore others in need, and that's not the kind of society that I want to live in.