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I had to take the bus for years when I had a baby. Most of the time, he was good as gold. But some days, yes, he would cry. I tried to comfort him but sometimes babies just cry. Now that my kids are older, when I see a mom on the bus struggling with a small baby I smile at her to let her know I understand. It's bad enough when your baby is crying, let alone being treated the way the woman in the OP was.
WOW, I cannot believe the nerve of that bus driver!! I'm not sure how it will go down in Portland but if that was NYC that driver would get fired.
If that had happened to me there would have been no way I would get off that bus! I'd pull out my phone call the cops and then start up the video feature and record the driver.
It is really awesome that her fellow passengers supported her.
With all the crazy people I've seen on buses, a crying baby is one of the last things I would care about. Also, buses are usually a necessity. It's not like the woman was disturbing a movie theater where she went for some entertainment; a bus is a form of transportation!
If it were a toddler running up and down the aisle screaming his fool head off with a temper tantrum, I would -certainly- side with the driver - that magnitude of distraction can be dangerous when you're responsible for the lives of a few dozen people in a bus.
However, if it's a baby in the back of the bus wailing his little head off because he has a touch of the croup, or is teething and sore, well there's not much to be done about it, and it's not a behavior issue, and the kid can't possibly be -that- much of a distraction since he's making all that noise from one spot. The driver should be able to either tune it out, or allow it to become part of the "things the busdriver hears" and move past it.
While I can sympathize with the bus driver's frustration, I agree with everyone else that it's not something "out of the usual" that he shouldn't expect to experience as a bus driver. If the baby and mom were in the front seat, I think it would have been totally appropriate to ask the mom to move to the back, so as to reduce the distraction to the bus driver. I think that's reasonable. In the back though, already? Eh. It'd annoy me as a passenger. Annoying me as a passenger though, doesn't require that mom get kicked off the bus. Maybe *I* might ask the driver for a transfer ticket and get off the bus and wait for another one..but no I wouldn't try to get mom kicked off.
With all the crazy people I've seen on buses, a crying baby is one of the last things I would care about. Also, buses are usually a necessity. It's not like the woman was disturbing a movie theater where she went for some entertainment; a bus is a form of transportation!
Agree. Babies crying in restaurants, in theaters, in stores, etc.: yes, parents should exit the situation as soon as possible. But on the bus? No way. And while I'm sure everyone would have been happier if the baby wasn't crying (probably most of all the mother!), most reasonable people would recognize that yes, it is indeed unreasonable to kick a mother and a fussy baby off a public bus.
For what it's worth, I'm a regular public-transit rider, and have been bringing my son on the bus and train since he was a baby. I've never had this kind of experience. (the only bad experience was when we rang the bell, and because we didn't make our way fast enough to the exit the bus driver started going, while a bunch of people on the bus yelled loudly for her to stop; I think she just wasn't paying attention.) If anything, I've had drivers go out of their way to be welcoming and friendly. I even once had one stop the bus and refuse to move until someone gave me a spot to sit! (I had a young baby and was holding a folded up stroller, and there were no spots, and few places to stand, on the crowded bus) And many a passenger has talked, waved, or otherwise interacted with my son. And while I could handle my stroller myself, I also had plenty of people offer to help carry my stroller on or off for me, or otherwise offer a helping hand.
I read several places that this driver has been suspended. Here is one:
UPDATE: Bus Driver Suspended After Kicking Mom And Baby Off Bus - FM News 101 KXL (http://www.kxl.com/kxl-news/UPDATE--Bus-Driver-Suspended-After-Kicking-Mom-and/11084585 - broken link)
It looks like the passengers are saying the baby was a newborn and the driver said it looked like the baby was 2. The transcript is interesting. I wonder where it will go from here or if the whole story will come out.
When so many decided that the least bit of unpleasantness was akin to assault. And yes, I'm totally serious.
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