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Subway Etiquette: Should You Give Little Kids Your Precious Seat?
By
Jen Carlson
Published Jul 26, 2013
Modified Jul 26, 2013
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By
Jen Carlson
Published Jul 26, 2013
Modified Jul 26, 2013
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Spotted on the subway this morning: Cruella Deville reading some vapid glossy magazine article (probably) and intentionally (probably) ignoring these doe-eyed, sleepy-headed children who walked right out of a goddamn Norman Rockwell painting and just wanted to rest their tired tiny legs before a long day of playing and napping and daydreaming about fantastical and wonderful worlds that they will soon find out don't exist.
Listen, no one really knows what's going on here or if these kids even wanted to sit, but the tipster who sent this photo didn't paint a pretty picture:
"This morning on the 2 train... This horrible woman saw these 2 little kids needed a seat, and just sat there keeping on with her magazine. Kids really looked like they wanted a seat, but she kept ignoring them. Wearing horrible zebra print leggings too."
While zebra print leggings are certainly questionable, they are off-topic and unrelated (but she actually seems like she is pulling them off!). Let's talk human decency: Is this woman really "horrible" for not giving her seat to two children? Isn't there some sort of subway etiquette rule that you give seats to your elders? Upon seeing the photo, Gothamist staffers weighed in:
- "Are you supposed to give kids seats? They're so much younger than us!" — Jen Carlson
- "I don't give kids my seat. They can barely sit still to begin with! I'll let the mom sit if she displays good parenting skills, but those kids can STAND." — John Del Signore
- "I always give up my seat to parents attempting to wrangle several children. Otherwise, I employ a complicated algorithm of the child's age/spryness weighed against how hungover I am." — Lauren Evans
- "No. If a woman is holding a child then I would let her sit, but kids? They haven't had the knee surgeries that I have. Let 'em stand." — Josh Steele
- "I can't even begin to imagine the kind of sociopathic narcissism that would allow an uncrippled adult to sit there reading while two small children are bounced to and fro by a moving subway car! Their little arms can't even reach the poles!" — Jake Dobkin
Relevant note: One of these staffers has children, the others do not.
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etiquette
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Jen Carlson
Jen Carlson is a former WNYC and Gothamist editor.
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Gothamist is funded by sponsors and member donations
Gothamist is funded by sponsors and member donations
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