Baby on Board
What I Saw.
I have never liked being told what to do (just ask my parents and ex boyfriends!) but I find being told what to do by strangers even more irritating. Things that should come naturally with good manners and common sense are shoved down our throats with ridiculous signs.
One thing I find particularly annoying are the Baby on Board badges and signs.
The car sticker gets my goat because it assumes that you usually drive around like an absolute nutter, crashing into cars, bashing into lamp posts until you suddenly see the Baby on Board sign in the car's back window and miraculously drive carefully and like an angel. Grrrrr!
The Baby on Board badge only began showing up on public transport a few years ago and irritated me immediately. When I see a pregnant woman on the tube or bus, I stand up without thinking about it. Ditto for old people, ill people, people with children, people on crutches, blind people, in fact anyone that looks like they really need a seat. It's something most of us do. Of course, there are those people... and we've all seen them, that spot the "in need of a seat" person, quickly drop their eyes and look everywhere but in front of them. "Oh God Oh God Oh God", they're thinking, "I've only just got this bloody seat and I've got ten stops to go, I don't want to get up. Someone else will get up. Oh look, someone's got up, phew!" These people are ill mannered and selfish and should be made an example of by the tube police (if only). They should be forced to stand under the armpit of a sweaty builder - who has just finished his 18 hour shift - for the duration of their journey! That would make them stand up next time!
But I always think when I see the badge on a pregnant woman that they are telling me what to do when I would have done it anyway. The selfish people that don't stand, are just as likely to see the badge and ignore that as well as the person wearing it.
I then emailed several friends of mine that are pregnant and asked them if they wore the badge when traveling around London. Two of them do, the other one doesn't. The two that wear them, told me the badge just makes people more aware, that they can offer them their seat without wondering if they actually are pregnant or not. She meant, to stop mistakenly assuming they were just fat, rather than pregnant! Ohhhh! I must admit, I have sometimes had a momentary panic before offering my seat... what if she's not pregnant, she's just fat, then I've totally humiliated her in public. So then I thought, wouldn't it be better to have a badge that said "I'm not fat, I'm pregnant" or for fat people that get offered a seat "I'm not pregnant, I'm just fat". Haha.
Then the other day I saw the ultimate badge wearer. They got on the tube with a "baby on board" badge, sat down and started to read their book, oblivious to the reaction of everyone around them. The whole tube stared, some laughed, some frowned whilst I, very quickly and secretly, took a photo... and yes, it was most definitely a man!
I have never liked being told what to do (just ask my parents and ex boyfriends!) but I find being told what to do by strangers even more irritating. Things that should come naturally with good manners and common sense are shoved down our throats with ridiculous signs.
One thing I find particularly annoying are the Baby on Board badges and signs.
The car sticker gets my goat because it assumes that you usually drive around like an absolute nutter, crashing into cars, bashing into lamp posts until you suddenly see the Baby on Board sign in the car's back window and miraculously drive carefully and like an angel. Grrrrr!
The Baby on Board badge only began showing up on public transport a few years ago and irritated me immediately. When I see a pregnant woman on the tube or bus, I stand up without thinking about it. Ditto for old people, ill people, people with children, people on crutches, blind people, in fact anyone that looks like they really need a seat. It's something most of us do. Of course, there are those people... and we've all seen them, that spot the "in need of a seat" person, quickly drop their eyes and look everywhere but in front of them. "Oh God Oh God Oh God", they're thinking, "I've only just got this bloody seat and I've got ten stops to go, I don't want to get up. Someone else will get up. Oh look, someone's got up, phew!" These people are ill mannered and selfish and should be made an example of by the tube police (if only). They should be forced to stand under the armpit of a sweaty builder - who has just finished his 18 hour shift - for the duration of their journey! That would make them stand up next time!
But I always think when I see the badge on a pregnant woman that they are telling me what to do when I would have done it anyway. The selfish people that don't stand, are just as likely to see the badge and ignore that as well as the person wearing it.
I then emailed several friends of mine that are pregnant and asked them if they wore the badge when traveling around London. Two of them do, the other one doesn't. The two that wear them, told me the badge just makes people more aware, that they can offer them their seat without wondering if they actually are pregnant or not. She meant, to stop mistakenly assuming they were just fat, rather than pregnant! Ohhhh! I must admit, I have sometimes had a momentary panic before offering my seat... what if she's not pregnant, she's just fat, then I've totally humiliated her in public. So then I thought, wouldn't it be better to have a badge that said "I'm not fat, I'm pregnant" or for fat people that get offered a seat "I'm not pregnant, I'm just fat". Haha.
Then the other day I saw the ultimate badge wearer. They got on the tube with a "baby on board" badge, sat down and started to read their book, oblivious to the reaction of everyone around them. The whole tube stared, some laughed, some frowned whilst I, very quickly and secretly, took a photo... and yes, it was most definitely a man!
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