Amelia Lester

And my daughter was obsessed with this button, of course.

I mean, it's a cool button.

And I said, okay, but let's wait until we actually do need to get off.

And then it got to the point where it was time to press the button.

And she'd mustered up the courage because she had to walk across the carriage to press the button.

And at that very same time, a man sat down in the seat next to the button.

And he says to this five-year-old girl as she's going to press the button, oh, little lady, you shouldn't do that.

Like as though she wasn't, it wasn't playful.

It was actually a little menacing.

And it was sort of like saying to her, you don't have the right to cross this train carriage and press this button and assert that you're getting off at the next stop.

And what I found interesting about it is that that is the worst thing you can say to a girl because girls already understand that breaking the rules is

is the worst thing they can do.

Like a little boy breaking the rules, it doesn't stab his heart in the same way.

Like for a little girl to feel like she's broken the rules is devastating.

And so she comes back to me and she's like, you told me I could do it.

And I said, of course you could do it.

You didn't do anything wrong.

I couldn't say anything to this man because I felt that there was a safety issue with the kids there.

And I didn't want to get into an altercation, which I would normally love to have with them.

But at the time I just had to be silent.