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The story
The debate kicked off with a claim from users of “NanJ” (a 5ch discussion board) that while a baby crying on the train is unavoidable, it’s the parents who fail to comfort them who are in the wrong.
Single and married users clashed over whether parents should keep apologizing until the baby stops crying, and whether using a stroller on a packed train is acceptable — the discussion eventually widened into a broader debate over whether the minority should simply have to put up with it.
What people said
↑ Sounds like he dumps all the actual childcare on his wife.
Huh?? What are you even basing that on?
Sounds like the type to be day-drinking and wandering around town.
If you can't handle hearing a baby cry, YOU'RE the one who should drive instead.
So if it cries for an hour, you keep doing that for a whole hour???
Of course. Why should I have to feel uncomfortable because someone else's kid is screaming? Did I choose to have that baby?
A baby crying nonstop for a whole hour isn't normal. If that's really happening, something more serious needs to be dealt with.
Sometimes it cries even after you've dealt with it. Sometimes "dealing with it" just means waiting it out. And sometimes babies cry for over an hour for no reason at all.
Is that some kind of illness?
Re: #35
There are cases besides packed trains too, you know.
Thinking that if you just keep comforting a baby it's guaranteed to stop crying is exactly the mindset of someone whose whole idea of "raising" something comes from video games.
There are all kinds of kids out there.
Even for a single, low-status guy, if you want to attack someone using "justice" as your weapon, silence is the perfect tool.
Because "doing nothing" becomes righteous.
It's honestly bizarre that internet users are okay with that.
Isn't it about time that changed?
I feel like that doesn't match reality.
Right when the baby starts crying, they usually do the whole (oh, so sorry — *bow*) thing, right?
If you happen to miss that moment, does it count as "not looking sorry"?
That's ridiculous.
Or is the correct answer to keep a solemn face and chant "Sorry! Sorry! Sorry! Sorry! Sorry! Sorry! Sorry! Sorry! Sorry! Sorry!" nonstop until the baby stops crying?
That's just you reading too much into it because you're the "politically correct" type who treats even a baby as an independent "individual."
In my view, a kid throwing a tantrum and screaming isn't really its own "individual" — it's more like "property under the parent's management."
So what actually pisses me off is directly the parent's lack of management.
You're free to think whatever you want, but don't just make up assumptions and lob criticism that misses the point.
There are even some adults out there who can't control their own emotions — there's no way anyone's actually mad at a newborn baby.
I'm hideously ugly, and it's not like I'm actively trying to bother anyone, but just my appearance alone can make people uncomfortable — so in real life I live with an apologetic attitude about it.
In the same way, shouldn't the parents of a screaming kid carry that same apologetic attitude, even if the crying itself isn't really their fault?
No, the parents ARE responsible — they're the ones who chose to have the baby and chose to bring it on the train.
That said, I get wanting them to show an apologetic attitude.
Just try not to pile on the criticism too much, alright.
"Act apologetic" — what does that even mean?
A single "oh, sooorry" face and a little bow — that's enough, right?
Pretty much everyone does at least that much.
So either you missed the "sorry," or they did it and you still didn't forgive them, or you're just imagining some strawman parent who doesn't exist.
I'm not saying chant "sorry" nonstop, but at least keep an apologetic look on your face until the crying stops.
Too many parents these days do a little apologetic bow the second the crying starts, then go dead-faced a few seconds later and start scrolling their phone.
That genuinely pisses people off.
That used to be normal, back in the day.
From where I stand, your modern sensibility is the weird one.
This is just a difference in values, so arguing over who's "right" is pointless, and I'll leave it there — but remember, nobody's proven your sense of things is correct either.
The world doesn't revolve around me, but it doesn't revolve around you either.
Don't get the wrong idea.
"That used to be normal," you say —
I was born in the Heisei era so I have no way of knowing the vibe of the Showa era, but I don't think that was true even in Heisei.
Well, no use arguing about that now.
The correct answer to "who does the world revolve around" is "no one" — that IS the correct answer.
Given that, if the whole issue could be solved by a few adults just putting up with it, I don't think we should be piling more burden onto people already struggling through parenting.
Also, if we're going to pretend the world has to revolve around someone, I'd say it should be "the children."
If the logic is "the minority should put up with it," then it's the PARENTS who'd have to put up with it — they're the minority.
If "the minority should put up with it" is the rule, then these days parents are the minority, so "parents just bow and grin and bear it" settles the matter, right? Though that whole "the minority should put up with a bit" philosophy is really just your own personal value judgment anyway.
Background and Key Points
Japan’s rail commute is uniquely unforgiving for this fight: greater Tokyo trains routinely run at 120–200% capacity, and unlike quiet cars elsewhere, ordinary carriages have no designated stroller or family space — riders are packed shoulder to shoulder for 30–60 minutes. That crowding collides with a demographic crisis: Japan’s births fell below 730,000 in 2023, the lowest on record, so “is society hostile to parents on trains” is not an abstract manners question here but tied to national anxiety about a shrinking population. It’s also why railway operators (Tokyo Metro, JR East) have run explicit poster campaigns asking passengers to tolerate strollers, which is the backdrop several posters are implicitly arguing against or for.
The thread doesn’t actually split on whether crying itself is acceptable — nearly everyone concedes a baby can’t be commanded to stop. The real fault line is over the *sumimasen* performance: how long and how visibly a parent must keep displaying apologetic body language (repeated bowing, a fixed contrite face) versus doing one bow and then disengaging (checking a phone). That’s a distinctly Japanese social-contract dispute about sustained tatemae, not a Western-style “kids don’t belong in public” argument.
What outside readers will likely miss is that this isn’t really about babies at all — it’s a proxy fight over who counts as the burdened “minority” on a crowded train, singles or parents, refracted through Japan’s low-birthrate panic. Also never raised in the thread: nothing about colic, postpartum stress, or the maternity/pregnancy badge system (mataniti maaku) some parents use to signal need for consideration.
*This article is excerpted and summarized from the 5ch (Nanademo Jikkyo G) thread “Single NanJ guy: ‘Crying babies are fine, but parents who don’t stop them are NOT! (That’s a valid argument!)’ ← lol this guy“.
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