PIck your battles

I begin this by acknowledging that I'm not a parent, and watching my nieces on rare occasions doesn't qualify. Also, I don't know what had gone on with these two before they got on the train. But.

Yesterday we took the Metro down to Gallery Place. At Fort Totten a woman got on with a boy, maybe 8? I'm not that good at ages. Anyway, she sat down facing us near the door, with a wall and poster in front of her. He sat behind her, in the last seat in the car, next to a window. She said, "Come up here."

He said, "I want to look out the window."

"I said, come up here!"

"I want to look out the window."

"You get up here now!"

And so it went, until she reached over the seat to grab him and drag him up next to her, and he evaded, and she got hold of him and forced him to move, and he sat next to her, as far away from her as he could, looking away, with resentment in every line of his body. "If you ever hit me again -" she said.

"I didn't hit you!" he said, outraged (and he hadn't).

"You do what I say!"

When we got off at Gallery Place, they were still sitting there, he still on the edge of the seat and glowering.

I honestly don't understand why some parents choose to have these battles. What could it possibly have hurt to let him sit behind her? It's not like (a) the train was crowded - it was half empty or (b) someone could have snatched him away - he was in the last seat and she was between him and the door or (c) he could have run off - see (b). She could have said "Fine" to his first request. She could have moved to sit next to him. Either would have acknowledged her authority and his subordination and left them both happy. Instead, she pushed and made it something she couldn't let go...