proper and modest

[adrian_turtle]

I like public transit. I grew up in a car-based world, where the only way to communicate with other travelers was turn signals and flashing high beams, and those were dangerous. [1] I'm one of those people who smiles at strangers and says "good morning." When somebody asks the world at large, "why are we stopping?" or "when is the bus coming?" I

Comments

[moon_custafer]

That's awful -- I'm glad you and the other woman did say something to him, at least. And I hope the teacher has a talk with the kids afterwards to try and explain/undo anything they might have picked up from him; I hope she said nothing at the time because the school has some kind of "don't engage with the trolls unless they physically touch the kids" policy, and not because she didn't think she needed to.

Argh, I hate society sometimes.

Regarding tattoos -- the "but how will it look when you're older" argument against tattoos always strikes me as a weak one: anybody who thinks aged tattooed skin looks bad likely feels the same way about aged skin in general, so who cares about their opinion. It also strikes me as -- forgive me while I figure out how to word this -- part of the mindset that all older women are automatically backdated to the Victorian era; not only are they not permitted to be sexual or in any way counter-cultural, any past personal history in which they were so must be expunged.

[adrian_turtle]

Thanks. I sometimes hate society too, but on this kind of small scale, maybe we can do something to make it a little less hateful.

I think you're right about that argument about tattoos. Some people (most people?) think aged skin is ugly and old people ought to be ashamed of it. The obvious point of a tattoo is to be displayed, to show off your skin. Even if it's in a place you only show to a lover, it's still display and how dare you. Being pretty, or at least trying to be pretty, is supposed to be the price of being a woman in the patriarchy.

[amaebi]

I love what you say about tattoos, and think you're quite right.

[naomikritzer]

That guy sounds wildly creepy and inappropriate. He also sounds mentally ill, but it's possible to be mentally ill AND have some boundaries about what you say to strangers on the bus, especially three-year-old strangers.

(FWIW, when my daughters were three, they routinely wore bike shorts under their dresses. When they started wanting to forego shorts, we talked about "sitting like a lady." At some point Molly stopped wearing dresses entirely and Kiera got a little more conscientious about how she sat. Creepy comments from a stranger on a bus would not have been helpful at any point in this process ever, omfg.)

[adrian_turtle]

He also sounds mentally ill, but it's possible to be mentally ill AND have some boundaries about what you say to strangers on the bus, especially three-year-old strangers.

Absolutely. After all, I am mentally ill. It's the creepy and inappropriate that matters. I don't think his underlying beliefs are really that unusual--so many people think it's wrong for girls to be too immodest, and/or think men are entitled to dictate how women and girls display their bodies. Those ideas aren't wrong like the mind control rays are wrong.

[kate_schaefer]

All children are ours to protect, and your notion of protecting children is a whole hell of a lot better than Mr. Emphatic's. I'm sorry the little girl went through that, glad you and your ally were there to defend her, and I hope she took away from the whole encounter that some grownups will step in and help when other grownups are scary.

[adrian_turtle]

Thanks. I hope so too.

[chienne_folle]

Thank you so much for doing that, for being brave and strong.

It sounds to me as if this guy may have had some psychosis -- that "invisible mind-control rays" thing is pretty out there -- so it makes sense that his behavior was wildly inappropriate.

What you did is completely different from what he did; you intruded to protect a child, a child whose designated guardian of the moment wasn't protecting her. Protecting children is every adult's business, and I think you absolutely did the right thing.

Hindsight is always 20-20, so it's easy for you to think of ways you might have handled it better NOW. In the moment, one reacts without much time for thought, and it sounds to me as if you handled the situation well. You intervened to limit damage to a child, and I think you deserve several pats on the back for intervening effectively, all the more so because the teacher wasn't doing her job.

[adrian_turtle]

Thanks for the reassurance, and the reminder that it's so much easier to second-guess afterwards than to do anything at all in the moment.

[sovay]

That's horrific. I'm glad you intervened.