Please or to access all these features

Add post

Watch this thread

Save thread

Start a new thread

Flip thread

Hide thread

My feed

Active Unanswered threads

Getting started FAQ's

Unanswered threads Acronyms Talk guidelines

Hide shortcut buttons

Talk

Pregnancy

Talk about every stage of pregnancy, from early symptoms to preparing for birth.

Flip

1 2 3

Original poster

Why are people on the Tube so ignorant.........

54 replies

cupcakeandtea · 11/03/2009 16:32

I don't expect I'm the only one who thinks this, but why are Tube users such fu**ers?!!

This morning, I had to stand up for 25 minutes on the central line despite the fact that I am clearly very pregnant. Usually I head straight for the priority seat and ask if I can sit down but I couldn't get to it this morning as it was so busy. When the carriage emptied out, not one person offered me a seat - male or female.

Surely I can't be the only pregnant woman to suffer this and even wearing a Baby on Board badge doesn't seem to make an iota of difference!

OP posts:

Are your children’s vaccines up to date?

Set a reminder

needsomesleepplease · 11/03/2009 21:52

Not just on the tube, i had the same this morning on the train I am 7 months pregnant so have a pretty large bump, there were no seats on the train but not too many standing so i could clearly be seen and it wasnt the fact that no one offered me a seat that bothered me it was the number of people that actually looked me up and down saw i was pregnant and then put their head back in their papers - how ignorant can people be? So by the time i got to Glasgow (30 min journey) my back was killing me!

hester · 11/03/2009 21:54

I nearly always got seats on the tube (though not the bus) but it was a summer pregnancy and it was all out there on show. It is harder to tell if someone is pg if they're wearing coats, so my advice is to get unbuttoned and stick it under their noses.

feedthegoat · 11/03/2009 21:57

I think there are unthinking rude people on all public transport. I remember in my least week at work before maternity leave a caught train home lateish (for me! was about 7.30 pm). Was a local train but the GNER train between stations hadn't turned up so hoards of suited chaps dashed on at last minute. Two of them boxed me in with wheeled cases. When train approached my station I said 'excuse me please' as you would and was told you'll have to climb over i'm not moving! He looked embarrassed when I stood up and he realised i was 8 months gone but still didn't move bloody case! Rightly or wrongly have to admit that i was not particularly careful clambering over his laptop bag but i was so annoyed.

Portofino · 11/03/2009 22:00

I have NO experience of commuting when PG but I have a lovely memory of taking dd, aged 4 months to Leeds on the train. Busy train, obv. no seat for her. Everyone looked so horrified when we got on. Like OMG I have to travel 200 miles with a screaming baby. But she was so good, they were fighting amongst themselves to offer to give her a cuddle hold her whilst I went to the toilet/get a cup of tea.

feedthegoat · 11/03/2009 22:04

Portofino - I was on a train to leeds with my suitcase man You were luckier than me!

Portofino · 11/03/2009 22:24

feedthegoat - it is amazing how horrible some people can be!

Kyte · 12/03/2009 05:14

This reply has been deleted

Message withdrawn at poster's request.

Longtalljosie · 12/03/2009 06:44

I've been nearly brought to tears by commuting in London too. I've always loved London, and Londoners, but in the last four months have started to hate them. Particularly the obviously fit and healthy 30-something men who you can actually see reading your baby on board badge, and then go straight back to their newspaper and refuse to look up again. Nowadays I usually ask the person in the priority seat as a matter of course. I'm over the embarrassment. Has anyone else found though that it's usually youngish women who jump up?

My worst experience was on the train, when I was about 10-11 weeks and feeling dreadful, but because I wasn't showing and hadn't gone public, I felt I couldn't say anything. I toughed it out for 25 minutes, and then as we were approaching St Pancras, a man stood up to get off, but still had his rucksack (not even that big) on the seat. At that point, I said, sorry - can I please have that seat, I'm pregnant and feeling faint. No only did he look at me like I was a criminal - so did the two girls standing slightly closer to the seat...

BlameItOnTheBogey · 12/03/2009 07:29

I saw a pregnant woman on the tube once who dealt with this very well (I didn't have a seat to offer her). She walked over to the person in the seat which is reserved for pregnant/ disabled people and said very politely and with a smile;'excuse me please, I think your in my seat'. The guy apologised and moved. More balls than me but hey ho.

On a positive note, I've had my faith restored recently, I've just started to commute into work with ds (9 months) because his nursery is near my work and I have been dreading it. People have been unfailingly polite and helpful. In fact some commuters have even spoken to me and engaged with my son.

BlameItOnTheBogey · 12/03/2009 07:38

Oh goodness early in the morning - sorry meant 'you're in my seat', not 'your in my seat'.

spicemonster · 12/03/2009 07:47

Thing is, if we don't ask, wankers people will think we're happy standing. It's not a privilege to sit down when you're pregnant, it's your right to turf the able-bodied person out of the priority seat.

ninedragons · 12/03/2009 07:51

Public transport and pregnancy drain my faith in human nature.

On a freezing and rainy night at almost full term, I actually yanked someone out of the back of a taxi that had stopped for me and deposited him in the gutter.

I have always stood up for pregnant women on trains but have had the old slip-in-behind-you-and-sit-down arsehole so many times that now I catch the woman's attention, wait for her to push through the crowd, and then we do a quick little flip so the seat is bumless for a maximum of a second.

brettgirl2 · 12/03/2009 07:54

I genuinely think that men have no idea at all unless you are about 9 months and wearing a crop top. I think a 'baby on board' badge, although witty is a bit too subtle for them. My DH refuses to sit down at all on the tube in case someone else needs the seat more!

I have to say - 2 out of the 3 times I've had to get on a packed tube train while pg I've been offered a seat. The first time I was only 19 weeks and it wasn't really very obvious.

spinspinsugar · 12/03/2009 09:30

This reply has been deleted

Message withdrawn at poster's request.

BikeRunSki · 12/03/2009 09:58

When I was 7 months pg an older (50s, not really that old) lady with a buggy (grandchild I guess) reprimanded me for not giving up my seat on a crowded train. I said that I was pg and she looked at me as if she didn't believe me (admittedly bump was compact, but still obvious). She made a big fuss about squeezing in between two of us where there really wasn't a lot of space. In the end I had to get up as it was too uncomfortable, and stuck out my bump as far as I could. No one else moved.

BlameItOnTheBogey · 12/03/2009 10:13

Spinspin - I once asked and got shouted at and told not to travel in rush hour if I wanted a seat because 'some of us have got to get to work'. Was so stunned that instead of pointing out that I too was going to work, I blubbed.

Simplysally · 12/03/2009 10:26

I was glared at on a bus once when I was about 10wks pg (sitting in the priority seats near the driver) - I'd been walking around all day and was exhausted. I'd literally fell onto the bus and couldn't walk another step to the ordinary seats.

Thankfully I didn't have to use the tube for the remainder of my pg but do ask. Sometimes people genuinely don't notice.

CheshireCally · 13/03/2009 14:09

When I used the tube I used to agonise over the "is she or isn't she?" question before offering my seat - once you've had your head bitten off for offering your seat to someone who it turns out isn't pregnant, you're very wary of making a mistake again!

Agree thought that there are a lot of people who are just plain ignorant...

dinkystinky · 13/03/2009 14:18

Public transport brings out the worst in people I think. At 14 weeks I almost fainted on the tube and no one offered me a seat. After that, I always asked for a seat (the priority seat) on the tube when commuting when pregnant with DS2 - in my experience, young men or young women were the best at giving their seats up; older women and men were the worst and just stared at me like I was a criminal. I would point out that it was a priority seat for people who are less able to stand, including heavily pregnant women, then point at my bump.

VerityClinch · 13/03/2009 16:43

I came to the conclusion that my "baby on board" badge was counterproductive one day on the jubilee line.

I was only going 2 stops, had wedged myself - standing - into a corner, and was perfectly fine, not actively looking for a seat at all, when a woman in her late thirties/early forties (sharo suit, killer heels, handbag worth more than my car) just started laying into me, verbally, telling me just because I was pregnant I didn't have any right to expect anything from anyone, that wearing that badge was an embarassment to the sisterhood and just because I had exercised my fertility didn't make it anyone else's problem and if I couldn't cope with the tube then I shouldn't be on the tube.

I was so shocked by the phrases "embarrasment to the sisterhood" and "exercised your fertility" that I didn't say anything at all, and just stared at the floor until I got off.

AND STILL NO-ONE OFFERED ME A SEAT.

Clearly she was a wizened up old hag who couldn't get a boyfriend, never mind a baby, but it didn't occur to me to point that out until I was sat at my desk at work, all shaky and tearful.

I am still shocked, even writing about it here six weeks later.

Kathyis6incheshigh · 13/03/2009 16:47

This kind of thing makes me so glad I don't live in London.
Round here what seems to happen on the buses is that old ladies instruct their husbands to offer you their seat

BlameItOnTheBogey · 13/03/2009 16:52

Blimey VerityClinch. I hate the Jubilee line - that's the one I got told off for asking for a seat on too. But your story wins hands down. I think I'd have cried...

VerityClinch · 13/03/2009 16:54

I had a little blub in the disabled loo when I got to work, but I was effing well not going to cry in front of her - and confirm ALL her prejudices about hopeless pregnant women all in one go!

But I haven't been on the Jubilee line since.

Original poster

cupcakeandtea · 13/03/2009 16:56

My god, that is a really awful story VerityClinch. So much for sisterhood!

To redress the balance, after my rant here the other day, I got offered a seat this morning and yesterday morning so there are some nice people on London transport (although admittedly few and far between).

OP posts:

Kathyis6incheshigh · 13/03/2009 16:58

That 'sisterhood' line is extraordinary. I wonder what branch of feminism she thought she represented

Flip

1 2 3