A pregnant woman shamed an elderly couple on social media after they refused to move from seats she said she had reserved on a long train ride across the UK.
Amanda Mancino-Williams was traveling from Cheltenham to Nottingham with her three children and multiple bags when she found an elderly couple sitting in her reserved seats on the CrossCountry train, reported UK site Metro. When she confronted the couple, the woman allegedly told the mother of three her tickets “didn’t matter” and that they weren’t moving, Mancino-Williams wrote in a Twitter thread last month.
“If a mum with 3 kids and bags has 4 reserved seats for a long train journey, and you’re sitting in their seats on a full carriage, don’t tell them that their tickets don’t matter in a posh voice and then say you’re not moving and refuse to make eye contact,” Mancino-Williams wrote in the post, along with a photo of the couple. “Don’t be these people.”
The 37-year-old had her three kids sit on the two seats opposite of the couple while waiting for a conductor to come by to help resolve the issue, she said in the thread, which has since gone viral. Mancino-Williams added that another passenger offered the family his seats but ultimately took the first-class seats offered to her by the conductor.
“I would always give up a seat, reserved or not, for someone wo (sic) needed it more. But for her to tell me that my tickets meant nothing and then refuse to acknowledge me?” she wrote.
Mancino-Williams, who says she is visibly pregnant at 6.5 months, took to Twitter to vent her frustrations at the couple’s behavior, but also said the situation is more about “bullying and entitlement.”
“Wow, had no idea this would blow up in the way it has. I’ve been getting requests for statements and just wanted to say a few things. This situation is not about my children not having manners enough to stand for the elderly. This is about a culture of bullying and entitlement,” she wrote.
“My kids and I were being fair and following rules and these two were not. They immediately switched into bully mode as they saw us approach, clearly aware that those seats were ours.”
The British mom said that the conductor would have most likely helped the couple find seats, given how accommodating and helpful the employee who assisted her was, but instead “they broke the rules and tried to make my children and I feel powerless. I don’t have time for that.”
In a statement to the New York Daily News, Mancino-Williams defended her actions on social media, saying that respect is earned, regardless of age.
“[There have been] people accusing me and the children of being unkind to the elderly, making the assumption that the entire elderly population is kind and pure. These people acted like jerks from the outset,” Mancino-Williams told the outlet via email.
She told the newspaper that in no way the situation stemmed from some form of miscommunication, writing, “there was definitely no misunderstanding on their part.”
Another person who was allegedly on the same train told Mancino-Williams on Twitter that the same couple had pushed their way to the front of the train, getting on before anyone on the train could get off.
Mancino-Williams added that her frustration was with the couple’s behavior, not the couple themselves, saying that they could have instead been “kind and reasonable” and hopes “they do better next time.”
