MONEY MORAL DILEMMA. Would you give up a £50 train seat for a pregnant woman?

Forsure_2

I have even gave up a seat on a packed bus before to a fellow pregnant woman who was even more pregnant than I am at the minute - she refused and I insisted as she needed it more than me, Guess I have just been brought uo correctly

skintchick

I think the problem with many people posting here is that they think being pregnant means you just get a bump.

In fact, being pregnant takes a huge toll on your body - your heart has to pump more blood, you are at the end a good two stone heavier than normal, your feet and legs swell and hurt, your hips and pelvis loosen and hurt, your back hurts, you can feel very hot and sick easily, and overall is it very hard work.

Oh yes, plus all your internal organs are being squished up inside you, especially your lungs, causing breathlessness.

THAT is why you should give a pregnant lady your seat - because her body is doing way more work than yours is, creating and nurturing a new life, and she really does need it more than you do.

If being pregnant were simply getting a nice, light-as-air bump then it would be a different matter, but the physical realities of pregnancy are far removed from that scenario, and that's assuming there are no other issues such as high blood pressure, etc.

Forsure_2

skintchick wrote: »

I think the problem with many people posting here is that they think being pregnant means you just get a bump.

In fact, being pregnant takes a huge toll on your body - your heart has to pump more blood, you are at the end a good two stone heavier than normal, your feet and legs swell and hurt, your hips and pelvis loosen and hurt, your back hurts, you can feel very hot and sick easily, and overall is it very hard work.

Oh yes, plus all your internal organs are being squished up inside you, especially your lungs, causing breathlessness.

THAT is why you should give a pregnant lady your seat - because her body is doing way more work than yours is, creating and nurturing a new life, and she really does need it more than you do.

If being pregnant were simply getting a nice, light-as-air bump then it would be a different matter, but the physical realities of pregnancy are far removed from that scenario, and that's assuming there are no other issues such as high blood pressure, etc.

Here Here !!:T

Tiger_greeneyes

smk77 wrote: »

All we know about this woman is that she is on a train and hasn't got a seat. She may have actually booked a ticket in advance but the seats were fully booked. It may have been a journey that she needed to make (as mentioned by a number of people perhaps to see a sick relative?) and decided to take her chances.

To be honest, the scenario is rather poorly thought out, extreme and and unlikely. How many seats on a train are fully booked for a long journey like that! The chances are that the woman could seat hop, or, if you gave up your seat you could find an empty seat at the next station. Someone is likely to get up and, if they've seen what you've done, offer you there seat.

I think that the point here though is how many people would actively go out of their way to help someone else who perhaps isn't able to manage as well for whatever reason. It could be helping an old person off the bus, opening the door for someone or letting someone go ahead of you. There have been a number of times I've queued up at the supermarket with 2 or 3 items behind someone else with a trolley full (when the express checkouts haven't been available) and they've let me go in front of them. That's very decent of them and the type of person I want to share this society with.

OMG. Do you realise that we actually agree on something There's a lot of highly emotional knee-jerk reactions going on, and also people needlessly slinging all sorts of insults around. Incidentally, the people who are viewing this as an emotional matter and doing the insulting are also the people who would give up their seats.

mohthom

Tiger_greeneyes wrote: »

Easy to do, you just book your ticket in advance instead of paying on the day which means you get allocated a seat rather than taking your chances. I always book my journeys on the trainline website.

My point was that the wording many people have chosen to use is incorrect - you can BOOK a ticket, but not PRE-BOOK a ticket. The latter is an incorrect use of language. It's like saying pre-warned (it's impossible to post-warn, because to warn is necessarily in advance of an event - in the same way as booking - so there's no need to use the pre- prefix) - it's simply wrong.

aliasojo

mohthom wrote: »

What is this pre-booking you speak of? How would I go about post-booking? Is there any other kind of booking? How about during-booking? What's the purpose of putting pre- before a word that implies doing something before the fact anyway?

If you do a quick search you will see many train, plane and even parking companies talk of 'pre-booking'...so perhaps it might be worth you contacting one of them to clarify this if it is bothering you?

:rotfl:I am a little surprised at how such a simple thing merited attention though. :rolleyes:

Tiger_greeneyes

skintchick wrote: »

I think the problem with many people posting here is that they think being pregnant means you just get a bump.

In fact, being pregnant takes a huge toll on your body - your heart has to pump more blood, you are at the end a good two stone heavier than normal, your feet and legs swell and hurt, your hips and pelvis loosen and hurt, your back hurts, you can feel very hot and sick easily, and overall is it very hard work.

Oh yes, plus all your internal organs are being squished up inside you, especially your lungs, causing breathlessness.

THAT is why you should give a pregnant lady your seat - because her body is doing way more work than yours is, creating and nurturing a new life, and she really does need it more than you do.

If being pregnant were simply getting a nice, light-as-air bump then it would be a different matter, but the physical realities of pregnancy are far removed from that scenario, and that's assuming there are no other issues such as high blood pressure, etc.

Hi Skintchick - ltns, I hope you're doing well?

I don't think anyone is necessarily demoting the horrors that go on in pregnancy rather than questioning the lady's choices. She chose to have a child, chose to not pay the extra to either book her seat in advance or upgrade to a seat in first class knowing full well she was travelling on a bank holiday and there were no seats available as everyone else had had the sense to pre-book.

All of these things she could have done for herself to ensure her own comfort. If the journey is that important to her that it means she's going to be standing for 5 hours (unless someone who has made the effort to arrange their own journey gives up their seat) then it's her own responsibility to make that decision.

Why anyone would consider standing for 5 hours on a train journey would be that much more important than their unborn child I'll never know

I'm all for helping other people when I can (and I have, many times - as the original question states) but frankly if is silly enough to not make any effort whatsoever to help themselves, in principle I fail to see why her decisions as a grown woman should be automatically expected to be everyone elses responsibility.

smk77

Tiger_greeneyes wrote: »

OMG. Do you realise that we actually agree on something There's a lot of highly emotional knee-jerk reactions going on, and also people needlessly slinging all sorts of insults around. Incidentally, the people who are viewing this as an emotional matter and doing the insulting are also the people who would give up their seats.

We didn't actually disagree. You made a good post but in response to a comment that I made that looked as though I had been making bad assumptions about people with disabilities.

Forsure_2

Would you give up a £50 train seat for a pregnant woman?

You book an advance seat on a five-hour train journey. It’s a Bank Holiday weekend, and there’s standing room only for non-reserved passengers, including a heavily pregnant woman. Normally you'd be up in a flash, but are loathe to give up your seat, as you paid £50 for it and booked early, knowing it would be crowded.

I keep coming back to the same point - the person who pre booked their seat did just that, but the pregnant woman may not have had the time too....why are ppl still insisting on ' letting her suffer ' as it was her fault for not pre booking ........ come on ppl, use a bit of common decency, sense and decorum !!

Tiger_greeneyes

mohthom wrote: »

My point was that the wording many people have chosen to use is incorrect - you can BOOK a ticket, but not PRE-BOOK a ticket. The latter is an incorrect use of language. It's like saying pre-warned (it's impossible to post-warn, because to warn is necessarily in advance of an event - in the same way as booking - so there's no need to use the pre- prefix) - it's simply wrong.

According to the advice given on this website https://www.departures-arrivals.com/airport-by-train.htm it's actually you that's wrong.

Two inches down from the top of the page, on the left hand side, it clearly states:

Pre book the train tickets with us and Trainline and save significantly.
Train tickets are send same day.