SINGAPORE: A woman took to social media to share that a lady asked her to get off the MRT “because her baby kept crying.”
“Are we expected to rush out of the train any time our baby cries?” the woman wrote on r/askSingapore on Wednesday (Jan 7). “Having kids in Singapore is hard and insanely costly and my family is in no financial position to buy a car or travel exclusively by taxis,” the woman lamented.
The woman said that she, along with her family, was travelling on the TEL line the other day around 7pm and that they boarded the front cart as “it usually has some space for the pram.”
However, about three stations away from their destination, her baby in the carrier started to wail.
“Maybe he was over-tired or over-stimulated by the smells and noises, but he became inconsolable. We fed and changed him before the journey started, but he is 6 months old, so can’t exactly elaborate on reasons for crying,” the woman wondered.
She also stated that they tried their hardest to soothe and distract their baby but to no avail.
“A lady who was standing with the MRT staff (I assume she might have been the MRT employee as well) turns to me and says in an authoritative manner: You should stop your journey now till you soothe your baby.”
The woman was left speechless after hearing what the lady said. Fortunately, the next stop was their destination, so they alighted immediately.
“As a parent of course I am biased to defend our right to use public transport, even if it means occasionally inconveniencing others (we do try our best not to of course). But I am curious to hear what other people think about this issue,” the woman said.
“I won’t ask you to keep it down, nor would I ask you to get lost.”
Many came to the woman’s defence and said that although they would be annoyed by the noise, they wouldn’t dare ask her to leave the MRT.
One commented, “I won’t ask you to keep it down, nor would I ask you to get lost. It is public transport after all.”
While another said, “You are not in the wrong. Babies cry unexpectedly and it’s fine. This is public transport, all kinds of passengers are onboard, if that karen doesn’t like crying babies on MRT, she should either go to another cabin or just get out and wait for the next train.”
Meanwhile, other Redditors had a different interpretation of what the lady said to her.
One Redditor explained, “I’m trying to be generous here, but it is possible that ‘You should stop your journey now till you soothe your baby’ is meant to be ‘go breastfeed your baby if you need to’ without mentioning breastfeeding.
Few local women are so garang as to breastfeed on public transport, even with a cover. So it’s not so much that you’re offending the other passengers, but rather that your priority should be to soothe your baby.”
Another Redditor said, “If they allow people to blast their music on full volume, why is a baby crying an issue.”
Nowadays, more and more people are speaking out against the issue of people blasting their phones at full volume on public transport.
Earlier this year, one man even took to social media to ask if someone had ever tried asking these types of people to turn down the volume on their phones.
Read more: Is it safe to ask SG people on MRT to turn down the volume of their mobile phone videos/music/games?