It's A Precious Baby, And Sometimes You Gotta Speak Up

    It happened on the Amtrak to New York City not long ago. Some golf friends of mine and I were heading to the Big Apple to celebrate a birthday. We were talking golf, telling stories about other friends and family, etc., and preparing for a wonderful afternoon and evening at the self-described oldest bar in New York City; the famous McSorley’s Old Ale House. We were having a great time...still on the train! And then...

    A young father stood rocking a stroller, gently trying to settle his baby. The child fussed—briefly, normally, as babies do. Then came the response from an older rider nearby: “Are you kidding me?” It wasn’t just irritation. It was something sharper— a sense that the child’s presence was an affront; that this small, ordinary scene of family life did not belong in that space. But a train is not a private sanctuary. It is shared civic ground.

    So, being the jack-ass that I can be at times, I said something. Not because I wanted to (well, maybe a little), but because it was needed. Too often, we let these moments pass. I know I have, especially when I was younger. We hear the comment, feel the discomfort, and look away. We tell ourselves it’s trivial, not worth the trouble. And so the behavior goes unchallenged, and the expectation quietly shifts: Children are tolerated only when they are silent, invisible, and unobtrusive. And, let's be honest, how often does that happen!

    This time, however, probably because I am a little older, I didn’t look away. I said, simply, that the father and his baby had every right to be there. I may have added something like, “Would you mind being quiet? Thank you.” Well, that may not be an exact quote...whatever. And maybe I felt a tad more sensitive, ironically, because I do not have children of my own. In any case, the response I got was immediate. I was cursed out—loudly and without hesitation—in front of friends and more than a few other passengers. It was unpleasant...even for me. But it was clarifying. Because this was never really about a crying baby. It was about whether we still believe that public life requires us to share space with people whose needs and rhythms sometimes differ from our own. 

    A baby on a train is not a disruption to be engineered out of existence. It is evidence that society continues; that families are moving through the same public spaces as everyone else, not retreating from them. That thought process used to be understood. Children were part of daily life. They were present in stores, on sidewalks, on buses and planes. Their noise and unpredictability were not always welcome, but they were accepted. Adults absorbed the inconvenience because they recognized something larger at stake; the work of raising the next generation does not happen offstage. For the love of Hamlet...It’s life!!

    Today, that understanding is fraying. We have grown used to environments tailored to adult preferences - quiet, controlled, efficient. When those expectations are disrupted, even briefly, the reaction is no longer patience...but offense. A baby crying is treated less as a moment, and more as a breach in protocol. The result is a subtle but real narrowing of public life. Families begin to feel out of place in the very spaces that should bind communities together. The message, whether intended or not, is unmistakable: Manage your children elsewhere. Really?

    That thought process is not a sustainable model of civic life. And let me put it even more bluntly: It’s bad manners. I know that may sound quaint in our post-modern world, but it needs to be said more often. A society that cannot accommodate children in our most basic shared spaces is a society that has forgotten what those spaces are for. Dare I say, it is a society that is slowly losing its way. Public life is not designed for comfort alone. It is also designed for coexistence.

    That type of coexistence requires things that are increasingly in short supply: restraint and patience. And trust me, I am talking to myself, as well. It also requires the ability to endure small inconveniences without blowing them up into “end-of-world” screaming matches. It requires recognizing that others—parents, children, families—have an equal claim to the space we occupy, even when their presence is not perfectly aligned with our preferences.

    And sometimes, more importantly, it requires engagement. Norms do not hold on their own. They are maintained when ordinary people are willing to assert them, calmly and without theatrics. That does not guarantee a positive response. It may invite hostility. It may escalate.

    However, silence carries its own cost. When incivility goes unchallenged, it does not just melt away. It hardens. What was once a passing comment becomes an expectation. What was once rude, become normal.

    On that train, after the shouting subsided, things did return to normal. The father kept rocking the stroller. The baby settled. The ride continued. And I actually shut the hell up! But my friends and strangers, adults and children, had been watching. They saw that when something is off, you do not always let it pass. You speak. You engage. You make it clear, in however small a way, that public life comes with obligations, as well as rights.

    For the record, I’m glad I did what I did. And I am even more glad that things did not escalate, as they easily could have. Not because it changed the person who lashed out...I know it didn’t; or that I received a few handshakes, etc., when we got to Penn Station. But because it reinforced something more important: That on a train—and in a society—everyone belongs.

    Here endeth the lesson.

Write to Peter: magtour@icloud.com