'A mum asked me to give her hungry kid snacks on a train - I feel bad for refusing'

A woman who refused to give a snack to a stranger's child while stuck on the subway has been left questioning whether she made the right decision. She was travelling home with her shopping when the train came to an unexpected halt.

When a struggling mother asked around for some food to appease her grumbling child, the woman rebuffed her as she didn't want to crack open her shopping on the dirty carriage.

Initially feeling like she was well within her rights to refuse, she began to feel guilty after the mum gave her "dirty looks" for the rest of the stoppage and the remaining journey, The Mirror reports.

Questioning her morals after getting home, she headed online to see whether others thought she was in the right - or if she was cruel for not helping out the parent.

Posting on the popular forum about her uncomfortable journey, she wrote: "I occasionally make the trek to a popular, but cheap, health food supermarket a little bit out of the way to get groceries for the month.

"Yesterday was one of those days. I was on the subway back to my apartment when the train stopped in the tunnel. The conductor got on the loudspeaker and said we were being held at a stop, we'd move again as soon as possible.

"We ended up being stuck for 30 minutes, super annoying but oh well. Around the 10 minute mark a kid around five years old sitting across from me started squirming, complaining he was bored and hungry."

The woman, from Manhattan, New York, explained that the mother tried and failed to calm down her son, and turned pleadingly to others on the carriage when her boy began throwing a tantrum.

The woman continued: "The lady all of a sudden turned to me, and asked if I had bought any granola bars or something and if I could give one to him. Which, no I hadn't, and I told her just as much.

"She then asked if I would open up the box of crackers (visible from the top of the bag) and give some to her kid. Here's the thing - at this point I don't know how long we were going to be stuck in the subway, and I really didn't like the idea of opening food in there.

"So I just told her 'No, sorry, I don't want to open them here'. She said 'Wow you're a nice lady, that's for sure...' She kept giving me dirty looks for the rest of the stop and kept doing so until she got off before me."

When the woman got home, she replayed the situation to her other half. She continued: "I told my partner about this and she said that I'm not in the wrong, she's glad I didn’t open our groceries on the subway.

"On the other hand, I'm starting to feel really bad about it because it was a hungry kid, and of course you want to give a hungry kid food. I don't know what to think."

Her post racked up a large number of comments, with most Redditors supporting the woman's decision to keep her food to herself.

One user replied: "I can't imagine ever asking a stranger to feed my kid and getting annoyed that they didn't - that's some weird entitlement she has."

Another said: "I feel like the bare minimum you can do if you are a parent travelling with a child is carry some water and crackers for emergencies. It had also only been 10 minutes. If you had sat there for hours I could understand asking you for help and pooling resources but a five-year-old kid can survive not eating for a while."

A third user commented: "I could see it if they were stuck somewhere for hours/days. But this was a half an hour. The kid was feeling peckish, he was not going hungry."

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