to think people should offer some help to a person travelling alone with three children?

[emkana]

I finally lost it when I tried to get off the bus at the longstay car park, trying to stop ds from running off, trying to unfold the pushchair, poor dd (6), bless her, trying to lift out the suitcase for me - and a bus full of people was just sat there, watching us. So I said to dd, but really to people in general "would you believe it that people will just sit and watch a six year old trying to lift a suitcase" to which some w*er replied "well it's not my responsibility is it"

ffs

I just think people should offer help to someone struggling full stop.

I don't care whether they have kids, are old, young, in tears, grinning from ear to ear, or grovelling before me. If someone looks like they are having a hard time I think it is the decent thing to offer assistance.

I'm not really angry about it, just a bit dissapointed about some of the responses on this thread.

Of course there are loads of people who offer help, and they make the world a better place to be - jeez, I think I might have watched too much Disney!

Really? I think it gets worse when you get older again, old people are often really funny about asking for help.

Which is why people should offer.

Thing is the person in trouble is effectively powerless, the people who can help have the power to do so. Type of thing. It is in the hands of the people watching whether to make that person's life easier or not. They don't know if the person lacks confidence, is about to cry, suffers from anxiety, is panicking, whatever. They do know how they are feeling and whether they are able to help or not. There are many more of them (usually) than the person struggling. So why not offer? On the basis that it is the right thing to do, and that for whatever reason the person having trouble might not be up to approaching strangers and asking them for help right at that specific moment.

I suppose I feel strongly as I get very anxious when pregnant, and feel that I am getting in people's way. So I never asked for a seat on the tube, and as a result ended up standing/sitting on the floor most days both ways for part of my journey. I just didn't have the mental strength to ask, as if refused I would have just started crying. It would have been nice if people had offered (especially the ones sitting in the seats which are supposed to be given up). But they didn't offer, and I didn't ask, and it was awful. It was a very specific type of person who didn;t offer as well - people on my nice bit of line were fine.

Isn't the point of it though that at the moment when dd and I needed help the most I was the least in a position to ask for help, nicely or otherwise?

Loads of people offered to help me with the buggy on the tube today though, and someone gave up their seat for my mum, so all is not lost

sure, emkana. like i say, i'm astonished that people didn't help a child in need, absolutely gobsmacked. but i'm not surprised that when you met that inaction with a sarcastic comment you got one right back.

It seems on this thread that people who are confident and assertive have no comprehension that some (many) people just aren;t like that

I did as I am confident and just thought that op was as she was off doing and getting on and travelling with three small dc which is really a confident thing to do - or so I automaticly took it that she was confident.

I will retract that

I still go by the back pack theroy for ignorant unhelping bods though then wlak away and dont help them up

I think when anyone is visibly struggling, you can look at that person and think, "god they look desparate" and you pile in and help.

OR they can look very frustrated and it makes me think twice about asking if they want help in case I get a mouth of abuse (not sugesting this was you though).

Unfortunately it's the world we live in. I HAVE tried to help in situations like yours and been told quite forcefully to butt out.

I feel for your situation though

It could be that someone doesn't ask for help because they are shy/lack confidence and it could equally be that bystanders don't ask if someone wants help because the bystanders are shy/lack confidence, particularly if the person struggling seems a bit turbulent.

Sorry, didn't she make the sarcastic comment after the help had not been forth-coming?

ImSoNotTelling you're exactly right. By the time my child's safety was in danger I was hardly going to stop and ask for help. I was too busy running to catch him before he slipped right onto the tube lines.

I can't relate to this "wait until asked" way of thinking. If I can help you, I'll help you. Whether you ask me or not, whether you thank me or not. Unless you specifically tell me you don't want it. I try and tell my DCs the same. Hopefully they'll do the same.

completely, milly. these shybods always want things all their own way. or someone confident enough to ask is going to be confident enough to get a good response, etc etc.

jeez, have you people never heard of reins?

Yes milly I get that but normally there are quite a few bystanders, and only one struggler. They can't all be shy. Ditto they can't all have reasons that they can't help.

Plus i think it is easier to offer than ask. I always offer to help (as then I'm relaxed and find it easy to smile and chat etc) but I never ask for help (as by the time I need it I'm in a bit of a state). It's just the way I am.

I suppose it is possible that many people are the reverse ie they always ask but never offer? Would make sense.

But that would mean that the whole bus was full of shy/unconfident people, maybe they were on some sort of 'shy people' package tour

Being shy can be crippling and beyond being a bit nervous. Getting hacked off with very shy people is a bit like saying that agrophobics should get out a bit more!

MillyR, in a full bus do you really think they were all too shy to help?

I am confident enough to walk up to people, but at the time I was physically incapable of doing it, which was plain to see.

Yes Ihatewinter, I didn't make the comment until the very end.

OP YANBU

I have read the thread and am gobsmacked at some of the replies on here.

Those of you who are saying that she didn't deserve any help or commenting that she shouldn't go out at all- have you ever needed any help??!!

I hope for your sakes that you never do.

And no why should people with young children stay in. We have as much right to go places as everyone else does!

OP Take no notice of them I sometimes had no help and I even had some stupid old bag lady have a go at me when I got on the bus with my DS in a pushchair.

group dynamics very interesting when it comes to this sort of thing, actually. it's perfectly reasonable to suggest that in fact everyone on the bus was rendered temporarily cripplingly shy, because the onus would have been on them and them alone to break out of the herd behaviour to assist.

It's not necessarily shyness though, it's about how you react to difficult situations. I am normally very confident and friendly, chatting to people on the tube etc. But in certain situations (when I'm pregnant is the worst) I get very anxious and don't feel up to asking.

On this basis I should not be offered assistance when I obviously need it?

It seems such a callous approach.

I agree with aitch.

Any observant, decent person on that bus should have offered to help you. Absolutely.

But you were in London, no? At an airport. Not known for being friendly places.

Next time, just ask someone well before your stop, if they could help you get your luggage off the bus. And drop the comments.

especially in the south of england where they're all repressed FRAEKS.

Of course it is unlikely that everyone in any situation will be shy. But if you make an unpleasant comment meant to shame a whole bus, the people who are infirm/disabled/shy/lacking in confidence people are not going to think 'oh, that cross person isn't cross at me, she is cross at all these other people but wasn't intending that remark to be aimed at me.'

People with any kind of social confidence issue are going to be really freaked out by any kind of confrontation situation.

Personally I don't think the comment was that bad, I think in your situation I might have said worse!

Have other people not been in a situation where you feel like you are in the spotlight, hot and flustered, crying children, and people are just staring at you? Personally I find it hard in moments like this to retain my usual swan-like calm, and have been known to mutter and possibly (gasp) swear

I don't think the people on my tube were suffering from herd shyness. I think they were suffering from being a bunch of selfish cunts-itis.

Yes, I have been in that situation, jane. And I have noticed that people are very unlikely to approach me with an offer of assitance when I am in that state. It's just an unfortunate fact.

So. To summarise.

If you don't ask you don't get.

You can't expect people to help you under any circs unless you smile at them and ask them very nicely.

If something bad happens while loads of people stand and watch and don't intervene, and you make a comment, then you are being totally out of order and rude.

If your personality is such that in certain situations you find it hard to ask people for help then you should probably just stay at home.

Have I got it?

no, you haven't