A Reddit user shared a stressful and sad experience involving commuting with her small kid. A woman identified as 32 years old posted on the platform that she and her five-year-old daughter boarded a commuter bus “at a busy stop.”
The woman, who did not reveal her location, went on to say that as they got on the bus, she noticed that “there were no vacant seats available, save for one (seat) beside a man using a wheelchair,” a person she identified as a 40-year-old man.
The mother went on, “I asked the person if [he] could move [his] wheelchair to another spot so that my daughter and I could sit together, but the person declined.” She went on to say that the man in the wheelchair required the space for his “mobility device.”
The mother wrote, “I was taken aback and frustrated by this response.” She told the man that her daughter “was very young and needed to sit next to me for safety reasons” — yet still the person “refused to move.”
The woman shared that she “ended up having to stand for the entire ride with my daughter in tow, which was uncomfortable and tiring for both of us.” When the mother contacted a friend about the event, she was told she was “being insensitive and ableist.”
The woman’s friend, according to the original Reddit user, informed her that “the person in the wheelchair had a right to the space” he required and that “it was unfair of me” to ask the man in the wheelchair to move a little to accommodate her. The mother continued, “Now, I’m questioning whether or not I was in the wrong for asking the person to move.”
She asked the Reddit community what they thought of it, as well as if she was wrong to “ask a disabled person to move seats on the bus for my child.” The woman’s post has gotten 2,500 comments so far. It has also received approximately 4,000 votes.
Fox News Digital spoke with a New York City-based psychologist about the personal drama.
AITA for asking a disabled person to move seats on the bus for my child?
by u/salesmansellout in AmItheAsshole
Wrote one commenter in a post on Reddit that many others “upvoted,” “Imagine being so entitled that you genuinely think standing up on your perfectly good, working legs is so awful and tiring that you ask someone who is physically unable to stand to get out of your way.”
Wrote another person in the same vein, “The 5-year-old could have just stood.” This same commenter added, “Seriously, when did 5-year-olds become so fragile that they can’t stand for a bus trip.” The person added, “Parenting like this damages children. They are being taught that they are pathetic.”
In reply to that comment, another person wrote, “It’s about safety. Children can easily fall in buses because they can’t reach the places to hold onto, since those are made for adults.” Still another Reddit commenter wrote on Saturday morning, “I used to take the bus a lot. Mothers with kids are the most entitled bus users [that] exist.”
Wrote yet another commenter who apparently was fed up with the mother who posted the original story, “One can only hope [that the original poster] comes to realize how lucky she is she can even stand and walk without any trouble at all, and that the next time there are no seats on the bus, she would just suck it up for a few minutes of the ride.”
Said another person, “Your kid can sit on your lap or you can ask someone else to move.” Said still another person, “Just because you have a child doesn’t automatically give you priority over others. If the bus is too crowded, take a cab. Otherwise, you’re going to have to deal with the downside of public transportation.”
Added this person, “You were frustrated at the response because you’re so accustomed to getting your way. I, too, have a child the same age. Plan better,” this person added bluntly. A New York father of four and grandfather of two, on the other hand, had a quite different point of view.
He told Fox News Digital his opinion of the post related to travel etiquette: “The man in the wheelchair already had a seat. Why couldn’t he have moved a bit to help out a woman and her young child?”
He added, “This doesn’t make sense to me.”
