'Naughty' toddler thrown off bus

[Limpopo]

here

Can't believe the bus driver What a bully. Bet if it was a gang of teenagers acting up he wouldn't have said anything. How embarrassing for the poor mum

Get a different job?

If there had been a group of unruly teenagers, you can bet your bottom dollar that he would have found the skills to just carry on driving.

Pregnant, embarrassed women are easy to bully though.

herbe but pregnancy is not a disability.

And tbh in this day and age where pregnant women expect and demand equal rights you can't have it both ways.

You can't expect to be treated as an equal when pregnant and then use the "but I'm pregnant" card when you want sympathy.

So he should have pulled the bus over and gone down the job centre

It doesn't say anywhere in the article that she was sick or disabled, or in any way unable to walk 30 minutes. It just says she pregnant.

I reserve judgement - but strongly disagree with the "why would you take a toddler on the bus" brigade - if she'd been on the bus in a suburban area for long enough for the bus driver to get angry enough to kick her off then it was clearly a journey of several miles (including the one she had to walk) - not really walkable for a busy mum in 2nd trimester unless she was unusually fit and keen.

Why shouldn't women with kids be able to take the bloody bus - from some people on here you'd think it was an act of unparallelled selfishness and laziness.

oh wannabe saying that women can't expect equality and expect people to recognise that being pregnant isn't the same as not being pregnant, is just mysogynist rubbish.

There's a lot of it about.

It doesn't say a lot in the article belgo.

I just get fed up with the barrage of shit that says that children on public transport is an outrage.

We have an obesity epidemic, global warming and chronic congestion. Public transport is part of the solution to all 3. Discouraging mothers and children from using it, is disgraceful. And spouting shit about how pregnant women should not expect any consideration at all, makes me sick actually (I know you haven't btw).

covers mouth with sellotape to avoid crackign a joke about her name
I too hate when peopel go on about pregnancy not being a disability. I had dreadful SPD which meant I had to get the bus everywhere, when I am used to bounding around for miles every day. Just because you can't see the disability doesn't mean it's there. And tbh, I very much doub the mother has any control over beign referred to as '4 months pregnant Sharon Tracey'. It makes good copy to be outraged that not only has a woman been thrown off the bus, but pregnant one at that.

What really pisses me off is the 'My kids are so fit they can walk five miles in 3 minutes' brigade that you always find on these threads.

All my dcs have had times where they've been loud/ screaming/ v naughty when I've been driving.
Never found it necessary to tell them to get out of the car though. Hope he doesn't have kids.

LOL I have been tempted to tell them to get out of the car though post.

What I do, is turn the radio up.

Have none of you experienced that high pitched-fingernails-down-a-blackboard tantrum scream that goes right through you, pierces you right through the head and actually hurts? Because my kids used to do it and I was used to it and I STILL couldn't tune it out, it was bloody painful, so I think it's a bit much to say that the bus driver should have tuned it out.

Really, it depends what sort of noise the child was making there's a certain scream that could shatter glass! The only way you can tune that out is by taking a pencil, ramming it into your ears and bursting your damned eardrums!

LOL but Hecate, I think it's only your own kids who make you feel like that.

Other people's kids simply don't penetrate quite as loudly...

Am I the only one who feels sorry for her, and not the bus driver? I can totally empathise, having many a time taken grumpy toddler on a bus - living in a village, very few buses into town so can't decide to wait for the next one, and can't walk 6 miles home... And not everyone has a car.

In fact, I just checked and the woman in the story was getting the bus from Plymouth city centre to her home in Crownhill, which a quick check on Google maps shows is about 4 miles away. So I can see why she wanted to get the bus.

And I can see why she didn't want to get off it once on - she probably just wanted to get home as quickly as possible. I can also easily imagine it taking half an hour to walk a mile and a bit - pushing pushchair, maybe uphill??

Really surprised to see such a lack of sympathy and such judgemental attitudes on here. I personally wish more people travelled on buses with toddlers so that everyone realises it's quite normal for them to get grumpy and noisy from time to time - and that it's not always the mother's fault.

Not at all. I feel sorry for her. It's bloody awful when your child has a full on screaming tantrum and you can't get them to shut it.

However, that's not the bus driver's fault any more than it's hers. And, depending on the noise, it may very well have been such a distraction that it stopped him from being fully focused on the road. It might not. I don't know. But it's a possibility. And if it was, then it was not unreasonable of him to have said that he cannot continue. He has a bus of people that he is responsible for the safety of, not to mention other road users.

Now it might just have been normal yelling at a level one would expect a person who transports large numbers of people daily to be able to tune out. In which case he was a grumpy old bugger. But it might have been the ear-drum shattering type I mentioned above. In which case there is no tuning that out and it is more than a little hard to concentrate on anything else.

We just don't know. So I think it is just as unfair to criticise the driver as it is to criticise the mother.

Maybe the bus driver had a headache?

I think the bus driver was a twat...and why the hell shouldn't she take the bus? should only angelic toddlers and adults be allowed on ?

I feel quite sorry for her having both Sharon and Tracey as her name. What were the chances of that?!

So glad I'm not the only person to notice her name... poor luv, that's a cross to bear.

There were twins at my school called Sharon and Tracey. Imagine the teasing they endured!

Well it takes me about 25 minutes to walk 1.4 miles. If it was up a large hill and I had a lot of shopping it could take longer. The walk to school is 0.64 miles and takes 20-25 minutes by dragging DS along. When on his bike it takes 45 minutes to an hour and walking at his own pace is somewhere between the 2. Approximately it takes him double the amount of time to walk anywhere than me. He will be 4 on Thursday.

Well this thread is hardly MN at its best is it? Supportive sisterhood seems to be a distant dream

No pregnancy is not a disability, and some lucky woman and fit and well throughout - but as for 'not having it both ways' sorry but for some women pregnancy is utterly disabling and they should have all the help they need - I felt fecking awful at 4 month - totally shattered, frequently sick, its no fun.

As for this 'why do people get on buses with small children'? WTF!! What planet are you on? No one takes screaming kids on buses unless they have to. If you don't have a car, you have to use the bus - quite simple - getting accessable buses that I can roll my pushchair onto on the bus route into my local town has been so exciting I can't tell you how much it has improved my life.

I would be LIVID if I was in the womans situation as discribed in the article, its not on.