An older woman stands on a packed bus while a row of teenagers stare at their phones. Some say it's a small thing and times change. Others say it's the clearest sign that basic respect is dying. Is giving up your seat an outdated rule — or the canary in the coal mine?
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Add your commentI'm 71 with a hip that screams on a good day. Last week a 16 year old boy stood up, helped me to his seat, and called me 'love.' I nearly wept. So no, it isn't dead. It's just rare enough now that it shocks you.
Tomorrow, whatever age you are, look up on the bus. Just look up. You might give a seat, you might get a smile, you might catch someone struggling. Half of decency is just lifting your eyes off the phone.
My dad drilled into me: you stand for the elderly, you carry the heavy bag, you walk on the road side of the pavement. Old fashioned? Maybe. But people light up around a man with manners and that's never going out of style.
Nobody gives up a seat anymore because nobody was ever made to. Their parents didn't insist, and you can't pour out of an empty cup. This started at the kitchen table 25 years ago, not on the bus.
I've started just asking. 'Excuse me love, my legs aren't what they were, would you mind?' Every single time, they jump up red-faced and apologise. Turns out a lot of them genuinely just didn't notice. We expect mind-reading.
That's fair, son. We can be prickly about it because the seat reminds us we're not who we were. Offer anyway. The good ones of us will remember your face all day.
68 and I'll say the unpopular thing: we are not owed a seat by virtue of being old. Offered one, I'm grateful. Demanding one, I'm just another entitled passenger. Respect runs both directions or it isn't respect.
I'm 19 and I always offer. Half the older people snap 'I'm not THAT old' and make me feel two inches tall. You can't win. We offer and get our heads bitten off, then read posts saying we never offer.
Bus driver here, 28 years. The kindest passengers I see all day are teenage girls and 80 year old men. The rudest are middle-aged commuters on the phone. The villain of this story isn't who you think.
It's not the seat. It's that you can stand in front of a pregnant woman, a man on crutches and an 80 year old, and choose a screen over all three. The seat is small. What it reveals is not.
I taught for 34 years. The kids are not worse. They're more anxious, more watched, and more tired than we ever were. Offer them a little grace and you'll be amazed what they offer back.
Hot take from the back of the bus: half of those 'rude teenagers' are autistic, exhausted from a 10 hour shift, or have an invisible illness you can't see. You're judging a whole generation off the worst three seconds of their day.
My grandson gives up his seat AND helps with bags AND walks elderly neighbours' bins out. He's 14. So spare me 'this generation.' You raise them right, you get it back. Look in the mirror, parents.
Standing on a bus at 78 with shopping bags while a healthy lad sprawls across two seats is not 'anxiety,' it's being raised with no thought for anyone but yourself. I'm sorry but some things are just rude.
phones are the real answer here. you can't see anyone if you never look up. it's not that they decided not to help, it's that the old woman never entered their world at all
That right there is the answer. Half this thread is older folks too proud to ask and younger folks too checked-out to see. Close that gap with five words and the problem mostly vanishes.
Let's be honest, plenty of MY generation are rude too. I've watched 65 year olds barge past a pregnant girl to grab the last seat. Respect was never a generation. It was always just a minority, in every era.
The thing is we gave up our seats for OUR elders expecting nothing. The deal was you do it for the generation ahead and the one behind does it for you. Somewhere that chain got cut and now nobody owes anybody.
Thank you for saying that. We romanticise 'the good old days' but I grew up in them and there were plenty of selfish so-and-sos on the bus in 1968 too. Memory is a flatterer.
i offered my seat to a man with a cane last month and he said 'do i look like i need charity?' so now i don't offer and you all complain we don't. pick a lane honestly
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