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Folding a pram is not that easy when you’re pregnant
• I READ the letter (Supersized pushchairs disrupt our bus service, February 26) with shock.
I was on a No 88 bus on a Sunday with my son in a pushchair and, yes, I am seven months pregnant.
I only travel to and from Oxford Street from Mornington Crescent on a Sunday. I realise that travelling during busy hours for us mums with prams can be very stressful so I do my best to avoid it.
It was raining heavily and there were four people on the bottom deck of the bus which has a pole which protrudes and makes it difficult for my pram to pass. I asked very politely if I could board, as wheelchairs do, from the main central doors. The driver closed the doors and yelled: “Get on the bus.”
I boarded and then had to explain apologetically that my pram would not go past the pole, making it impossible to move into the pram space. The driver then shouted: “Fold the pram.” I pointed to my protruding stomach and explained that I was seven months pregnant and could not fold the pram in the confined space. By this time I was feeling very confused.
I had been polite and reasonable and I asked the driver why he was being so rude to me and a gentleman who was sitting nearby offered me his phone number and said he would be a witness to how rudely I was being treated. There was also an elderly lady seated near the back past the double doors. She shouted to me that she agreed with the driver but she was too far away to hear what he said to me.
I have now made a formal complaint. I noticed on my departure that the elderly lady came running to the front and the driver pulled over the bus and they both started to argue with the gentleman who had offered to help me.
My child is no “Little Lord Fauntleroy”; he is just a baby who hasn’t yet mastered walking. As for the nasty comments made by Maggie Milner in her letter, she did not hear what was being said by the driver and only came forward when I had left the bus. (Could she not have come forward earlier and offered to help me fold my pram?)
Pregnancy is not an illness, I agree, which is why I still work in a full-time job.
Ms Milner’s comments concerning children are nasty and I will not lower myself to make assumptions about her.
Whatever generation you hail from, there is no excuse for rudeness. I do not drive as I am concerned about pollution, yet we are treated very badly by the public transport system.
I would like to thank Jim and the two ladies sitting close to me who could hear what was happening and were very kind to me.
MAXINE MCCARTHY
Address supplied
Don’t bash the mums
• READING the letter from Maggie Milner (Supersized pushchairs disrupt our bus service, February 26) I detected the unpleasant, but unmistakeable whiff of mum-bashing.
Ms Milner might have a point about the size of many pushchairs on the market; I think she could be more usefully directing her anger at the manufacturers, not the mums who use them.
Would she have felt compelled to write if it had it been a man pushing the buggy that day on the 88 bus?
Just because their mother has a large pushchair, it doesn’t mean the baby inside it is, as Ms Milner puts it, a Little Lord Fauntleroy or Princess Prissy.
Quite aside from the fact that I find her calling small children names a bit infantile, the fact is that the cost of baby equipment now means many mums have to combine their pushchair with their baby car-seat. The baby car-seat is therefore often incorporated into the pushchair.
Secondly, us mums are reluctant to put infants on our laps on the bus simply because it isn’t safe to do so. When children travel in cars they are obliged, by law, to sit in a well-padded car seat or booster seat. On a bus they’re not secure and, as buses are vehicles which can lurch around and stop suddenly, it can be hazardous to do so.
Thirdly, a woman who is seven months pregnant may well not have the strength or energy to fold up a complicated buggy on a moving bus, especially if she has no assistance from fellow passengers.
While I agree that pregnancy isn’t an illness – although some women can become very ill when expecting – it doesn’t mean you are as fit and strong as when you’re not pregnant..
Ms Milner identifies herself as one of the “Mick Jagger generation”.
It’s strange she sees this particular Rolling Stone, who has fathered seven children by four different women, as someone to admire, while a mother with an overly large buggy is to be vilified.
Perhaps she should spend her time on the bus trying to understand a little more, and condemn a little less.
ELLIE SIMONS
Millfield Lane, N6
So narrow
• I FIND it infuriating that Maggie Milner (Letters, February 26) can be so narrow-minded in her views of mothers with babies/ young children and of pregnant women on buses.
How does Ms Milner propose this mother fulfil the driver’s request? She has her child, child’s paraphernalia, probably bags of shopping etc. Where should she put her child? On a stranger’s lap perhaps? Then she has the task of folding her large buggy, and all this while the bus is moving.
I am a mother to an eight-month-old baby boy and I know I would certainly refuse this request. Am I being unreasonable?
Ms Milner states that “pregnancy is not an illness” – quite right it is not, but it does render some normal activities almost impossible. Is Ms Milner oblivious to the public transport signs requesting that passengers offer selected seats to pregnant women?
I decided to buy a larger than average pushchair, as this is what was advised as best for our baby and would last from birth to about four years. Maybe my baby boy would have been fine in a smaller pushchair. We are first-time parents – how are we supposed to know any better? The fact is I deal with my baby in his pushchair on the bus as best I can. I am polite and thoughtful of fellow passengers. I try to see beforehand if there is space for us in the recommended area. if there is no space I wait for the next bus.
I do not have a “Little Lord Fauntleroy” but I have the right to ride on a bus with my baby in whichever travelling device I see fit. When a bus is busy this can sometimes be difficult, but it would be far easier if a fellow passenger, like you Ms Milner, were to offer some assistance.
SABRINA SARMIENTO
Camden Road, NW1
Our future
• I WAS upset about the report about a seven-months pregnant woman with a buggy was treated by a bus driver.
Camden Council does a lot for children and the new LT buses are big enough to go on board with a modern buggy (a wheelchair is not smaller).
As an old disabled commuter I see this all the time. Our future are children, not people who grew up during or after the Second World War like me.
HELGA BAUMGARTNER
Address supplied
Try walking
• SUPERSIZED buggies – these so-called buggies of today are more like prams.
They are too big to be on buses, if you need to travel on a bus a lightweight buggy is more appropriate. I always had to fold my buggy when I went on a bus and I had two children to contend with, though most of the time I would walk. Society is always going on about exercise and being healthy so start your journey earlier and enjoy the fresh air and exercise.
The bus service should only allow buggies on when folded.
D HUDSON
Address supplied
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