The bus of judgement

Often, getting on a bus is just getting on a bus. You get on, you make the machine go beep, sit down (if you’re lucky), wait a while, then get off again.

That’s how it works if you’re not accompanied by two howling children, anyway.

If, like me you are, then ‘getting on a bus’ can have a whole different way of happening. It takes longer, its much harder. And often, its accompanied by a great big dose of judgement.

This is why:

It’s a really cold day. The kind of day where you need gloves to keep your gloves warm. Three scarves isn’t enough, and snow boots plus thermal socks just about stop your toes going numb.

But of course, the kids don’t seem to understand the need for outerwear. ‘No coat, no coat, no coatttttt’ screeches the Wee Man. This is because his favourite one, the red one, is in the wash. Nothing will convince him that the blue one is equally good. Bubby D’s protests, on the other hand, are more passive. I put her shoes on, she pulls them off again. I put them on, she pulls them off again, then pulls off her socks. I put them on, she pulls them off…

You see the pattern there.

Anyway, with the blue coat eventually jammed on to the Wee Man, thanks to the use of bribery – allowing him to ride his balance bike which is normally not allowed when we’re going on the bus – and resigned to the fact I’ll be on constant sock-and-shoe replacement duty, we finally get going. The walk to the bus is accompanied by a strange whining noise that goes a bit like this ‘aaaaaa-idontwantthatoneidontlikethatmummywhywhywhy aaaaaaidontwantmybikeidontwanttowalk aaaaaaTHUMP’.

(the thump is Bubby D’s shoes hitting the ground again)

Eventually, feeling someone is twanging tightly wound banjo strings in my head, we reach the bus stop, and HURRAH, the bus arrives.

And I try to get on.

When suddenly…

‘tsk’ goes an old lady. You should take ‘that thing’ (pointing at pushchair, as she hauls her own monstrous shopping basket into the bus) in the back doors. You mothers and your ridiculous pushchairs think you own the road…mutter, mutter, tut, tut.

Ignoring her, knowing that the pushchair is thin enough to negotiate the aisle and given the fact the Wee Man has already jumped in the front door I wheel us in at the front. Fishing around for my Oyster Card, I feel, rather than hearing, another good dose of judgement coming my way.

‘Good gracious, look at that poor child’ remarks a lady of the older generation to her equally decrepit and wrathful seating companion, whilst glaring at me in disgust. ‘Her mother has taken her out in the cold with NO SHOES OR SOCKS ON. Poor little mite’.

The ‘poor little mite’ chooses that moment to sneeze dolefully, causing a snot volcano to erupt from her nose.

And of course, the wipes are in the bottom of the pushchair, which I’m still trying to manouvre to the pushchair bit of the bus. Something which has become near on impossible, thanks to the Wee Man wedging his bike lengthways between two large-ish passengers whose legs are blocking the aisle. ‘Aren’t you going to help him with his bike, then?’ asks one of these ladies, of course not offering to help herself. I wonder if she’s even considered the fact that I’m not superman, a flea, a kangaroo or other similar being with pushchair jumping powers which clearly means I AM STUCK BEHIND THE PUSHCHAIR and cannot get to him to help. ‘Perhaps if you moved your leg..?’ I suggest, hesitantly. The lady scowls, the passenger on the other side moves his leg, and the Wee Man wobbles his bike so it taps the scowling lady’s leg.

‘AAAAARRRGGGGGGGGG did you see that he DROPPED HIS BIKE ON ME!’ the lady howls, intermittently looking around the bus for glares of solidarity between the times she is giving me dagger filled looks and making barbed comments about my fitness as a mother.

It’s worth mentioning by this point that the bus is still stationary. The driver wont leave until I’m in the pushchair bit, all nicely parked up. And it’s looking like that might take a while. He’s not horrible about it, in fact he looks quite concerned for me – but he’s about the only person on the bus that does since most of the passengers vary between being bored, impatient, slightly cross and outraged. It’s also worth mentioning that I have Ehlers Danlos Syndrome, which causes chronic fatigue, joint problems and physical mobility issues and means that moving in a normal way is painful and takes a lot of effort. So contorting myself into crazy positions, trying to please everyone, get everything out of the way and get us all seated and sorted is even more of a problem for me than most mums. Do the people on the bus know this? No – and of course I don’t expect them to – I don’t wear a big badge advertising the fact (although I have considered it on occasion). Should it matter? No not really – a struggling mum is a struggling mum, whatever her physical condition. And if you see a mother struggling with two small children, should you offer to help or sit and blindly judge them? I know which one I choose. Unfortunately, everyone else on the bus seemed to prefer the other option.

Muttered judgements of ‘poor little mite’, ‘disgusting mother’, ‘she needs to learn to look after them better’, ‘why wont she wipe that poor little lass’s nose’, ‘pushchairs shouldn’t be allowed on buses’ and many, many other similar comments are echoing around the bus as finally, FINALLY, the Wee Man gets his bike free, I jam it in the luggage holdy bit and manage to manouvre the pushchair past the sea of glaring people and into its allotted space without causing any further anguish to anyone. And we sit. And I nose wipe. And I console the Wee Man, who is a little bit scared of the wrathful screaming lady. And I jam Bubby D’s shoes and socks on again, and watch in wonder as she stares happily out of the window and leaves them where they should be. And I feel my red face go a little bit less red, feel my breathing start to slow back to a more normal pattern and the pain in my knees start to lessen a bit.

And then two stops later, still bemoaning her ‘probably broken’ leg to anyone who will listen, the largeish judgemental lady hops off the bus, her face a rictus of dramatic agony. Many other passengers look on in sympathy, whilst those just boarding the bus stare in confusion, wondering what on earth the fuss is all about.

Gradually, the judgers leave, the bus is filled with more and more new and less ‘tutty’ passengers, the redness on my cheeks fades and I begin to relax a bit.

And then…it’s time to get off the bus…