The kindness of strangers: I used to hate being judged, but then a woman on a train praised my parenting

I saw that my toddler was annoying some passengers but the words of encouragement made a stressful situation a lot more bearable

• Read more in the kindness of strangers series

I had my eldest child when I was 19, and being a young mum can be tricky – I was used to feeling judged by other people in public.

One evening, I was on a crowded train home in Melbourne at peak hour, which is also witching hour for toddlers. My two-year-old son just started losing it, so I was distracting him with silly noises and games. It was largely working and he was mostly laughing and squealing with delight. I registered that it was annoying some passengers, but the alternative would have been much louder and annoying for us all. Making matters worse, no one offered me a seat, so we were standing up and bumping into other people, who were getting pissed off.