Here's a new take on crying kids on airplanes!

The BBQ Pit
81

Wow.

I never want kids of my own, and children screaming and crying and acting out in public often give me the shits.

But the level of woe-is-me self-absorption among some of the “keep your kids at home” brigade on this thread is pretty sad. Get over yourself, people. The rest of the world doesn’t have children simply to make your life difficult. And having children should not preclude people from making what are often essential trips by airplane.

Would you really prefer to deal with a drunk, catsix, who was lurching down the aisles and threatening violence to anyone who tried to calm him down? Or screaming obscenities at all and sundry because the flight attendant refuses to get him another beer? Do you really think that we ought to hold children to the same level of accountability as adults?

While i often get extremely frustrated when children continuously wail and cry on airplanes, in my experience the parents often appear to be having a worse time than i am. Not only do they have to put up with the noise like everyone else (and, despite what you may think, being a parent doesn’t make you immune to the sound), but they often appear extremely uncomfortable and embarrassed because they know that everyone else on the plane is getting angry at them and their offspring.

Making a plane journey is often not a matter of choice in the same way that, say, eating at a restaurant is. If you have to get from Chicago to San Francisco, or from Tallahassee to St. Louis, a car trip is often not an option. If it’s an international trip, alternatives to air travel are even less plausible.

In short, suck it up, crybabies.

82

BTW, nittanylion, the whole “here in America” shtick just makes you sound like an idiot.

83

It’s true, though, mhendo. Sorry you think that.

By way of example, I’d like to point out that Disney World had trouble with visitors from certain South American countries jumping and cutting in lines, and worse. They were not used to the American custom of what I will call civility, and so frustrated the American tourists at the parks with their behavior. Our behavior is uniquely American.

84

Well, we’ll have to agree to disagree on the first point, as I’d much rather put up with a drunk adult than a screaming child. YMOV :slight_smile:

I think almost everyone will agree with your second point, however. Nobody (I don’t care what their age or behaviour) deserves to be drugged against their will, especially by someone with no medical training.

85

Really? And you know this how? Been to every country around the world, have you?

Having lived in Canada, Australia, Great Britain, and the United States, and visited a few European and Asian countries as well, i can assure you that civility and consideration are not peculiarly American traits.

The most amusing thing was the fact that you directed your post at a Canadian. Now, while it might be a stereotype, i’m sure it hasn’t escaped your attention that, here in the US, Canadians actually have a reputation for being particularly friendly and polite (except when they pull on hockey gear). I think most Canadians would feel that they don’t need lessons in civility from you.

And, regarding the constant stereotyping of South Americans, particularly Brazilians, at Disney, may i recommend the book Inside the Mouse, written by the Project on Disney. You might learn more about your own culture before you go stereotyping those of others.

86

Fellow migraineur Catsix I feel your pain. Nothing like the stress of flying, waiting in lines, crowded airports and kids screaming to trigger a white hot screamer of a headache.

Makes me recall a plane ride from Kennedy though Hell to Tucson, Arizona with our 14 month old daughter many years ago. I was in the middle, she was on my lap and about midway through the flight she began to scream and didn’t stop until the plane landed. Let me stress that she was fine, smiling, healthy and happy when we boarded. What we didn’t know and found out when we got her to a doctor in Arizona was that she had an ear infection that must have been excruciating. Probably worse than the migraine I had for the next several days.

To the man next to us trying to read the Book of Mormon: thank you for smiling and not killing all three of us. As for me, I will never shoot a dirty look at a family with a crying baby on an airplane again. Parents ignoring their misbehaving children is one thing. But crying babies can’t always be comforted and the parents may well be beside themselves. I know I was.

87

Was on a Mat’s flight many moons ago. There were 6 of us GI’s. The rest were mothers and children. Young children. The six of us baby sat all the way across the Pacific.

I WILL go to heaven.

88

mhendo, thank you, from the bottom of my heart. I was starting to think every person in this thread was a heartless cretin. You’ve reaffirmed my faith.

nittanylion119, you’re an idiot – the OP was about a kid 19 months old, the only other age cited by the other anti-kids folk was 3-ish. 3 is just about old enough for a kid to accept instruction, but it depends on the kid.

But you’re saying an 19-month old baby’s crying is the parent’s fault ???

Jesus fucking mother of god! – a 19 month has a vocabulary of like 20 or so words, has no concept of time, and is the most selfish animal you’d ever meet (excepting yourself, of course). Beyond pummelling an infant into unconsciousness or drugs, sometimes they **fucking cry ** and scream really fucking loud, whether the parents want them to or not. And no matter what the parents do.

I have been the poor slob traveling with a barely 2 year old not all that long ago. Here’s what my spouse and I did in hopes our kid would be quiet on the flight:

  1. Rented a DVD player and some kid-movies.
  2. Bought new little toys beforehand to pull out at times he was fussy.
  3. Packed juice, snacks, toys, crayons & paper, storybooks, anything we could think of to distract him.
  4. We also took a car seat onto the plane, partly for safety, partly because he couldn’t act out if he was belted in securely.
  5. We arrived at the airport early, took turns playing with him, trying to wear him out with games like “chase Daddy down the terminal” in hopes we’d wear him out and he’d relax on the plane. By the time we boarded, mommy & daddy were in tatters, he was fresh as a daisy.

The flight was in the afternoon. 2-year-olds take naps, our strategy was to hope he’d nap; if that didn’t work, we’d try to provide distractions and entertain him.

And how did it go? For about the first 2+ hours (of 5) it went swimmingly. For reasons that can’t be known, after that he’d had it and decided to scream his lungs out for 2 1/2 hours more. Toys, candy, DVD movies, etc, would bring a brief respite for 10 minutes or so, then the wailing would begin again.

I took him to the bathroom about 10 times. So did my wife. Until the people at the back started giving us dirty looks. We talked to him, sang to him, tickled, cajoled, threatened, picked up and walked around with him, anything, any fucking thing we could think of to get him to please please please please just stop!!!

You might as well reason with an oncoming train.

I must agree with catsix - a kid wailing is a frightful thing, and will take the paint off a car if done well.

Try it at point blank range, dammit.

In about hour four of this horrible nightmare, the flight attendants were coming by asking if there was anything they could do, and we were nearly in tears. We’d apologised to the rows around us when possible; the people in seats near us were mostly understanding, although some looked a little frayed.

Several times during all of this, as we’re trying desperately to calm and placate the kid, some asshole like nittanylion119 or BondJamesBond would walk past down the isle and pointedly glare our direction.

Oh, yes, thought I, I did this just to annoy you, no other reason. I’m really fucking enjoying myself, not a care in the world. I just thought I’d plop a screaming demon-badger from hell in the seat next to me for fucking fun, just to annoy you. Now please go fuck yourself somewhere else.

Mercifully, my kid was an angel on the return flight. Go figure.

Now, all that having been said – if someone has kids that are within the Age of Reason, say 4 or so and up (as mine is now, mercifully), and they’re running around being brats, then by all means blame the parents.

But complaining about the noise or especially lack of discipline from newborns thru young toddlers, and blaming the parents, is like being pissed about the weather. Ignorant at best.

If the parents aren’t trying thier best to keep the kid from bothering other people, then yes, they are being unfair to the other passengers. But sometimes nothing works for very young children, and the parents are doing the best they can.

And as far as keeping kids off of airlines – when you have your own airline, I’ll be sure to ride some other, with or without children. Until then, deal with it like everyone else. And when you have kids, I’ll be sure to complain loudly to everyone about every sing transgression your kid makes in public and I’ll be sure to blame you for it.

89

SAPPHIRE WOLF WROTE: “Sure, Bond, take the “brat” to the back of the plane where the people there will bitch too.”

The seats at the back of the plane are generally cheaper than those towards the front of the plane. Those “discount” tickets you see advertised on the internet or by wholesalers are usually these undesirable seats. By placing kids in the back of the plane, you give people the option to pay more money to avoid being “brattled.” Give people a choice. Pay more money to avoid the horrors of spoiled travels.

SAPPHIRE WOLF ALSO WROTE:“Children get bored very easily. It’s going to be tiring for them, already, to have to be at the airport two hours prior to departure time. Add the flight time in there, and you will have yourself an especially unhappy small person…Especially when the child needs to run around and burn off some of the boredom, but the parents are trying to contain their child’s energy for the benefit of ungracious people like you.”

Sounds like you just proved my point. Would you tolerate this kind of behaviour in a restaurant? in a movie theater? in a university-level lecture? If so, then I seriously question your manners!

90

RY’S DAD WROTE: “May you forever be cursed to be seated next to a colicky 14-month old with leaky, cloth diapers.”

My you be cursed with having little “RY” grow up to have a loud, untalented garage heavy metal band that plays out-of-tune, covers of KISS, Ozzy, and Whitesnake at all hours of the night in your downstairs living room!

91

SQUEQEE WROTE: “BondJamesBond – did it ever occur to you that, despite every thing a parent does, the kid may scream anyway? As someone who has tended a young child on a long flight, and tried everything I could to appease the child and try to get them to sleep or at least be quiet, and nothing worked”
What gives you the right to annoy, disturb, bother, or otherwise deprive the other passengers of their ability to read, write, sleep, work, concentrate, talk, eat, or do whatever else they need to do on that flight? Most passengers just want to be left alone.

92

Um, excuse me, Einstein – at a restaurant or theatre or whatever, the parents can step outside with an unruly kid, and they surely should do so. On an airplane, they cannot. What would you suggest, short of parachutes?

93

BEAGLEDAVE WROTE: “And the back pedaling begins…oooh look at me…I can chum the waters with a juicy kid rant…and then when called on it, back away like a 747 from the gate.”

I would strongly suggest the BEAGLEDAVE go back and read my initial post more carefully. You will notice that the “NOUN” that refers to a human child is preceded by an “ADJECTIVE” that modifies that “NOUN.” For example, in one sentence, the “NOUN” “brat” was modified by the “ADJECTIVES” “little”, “screaming” “unruly” etc. Clearly, the “VERB” was intended to apply to a “brat” who was “well beahved” “quiet” “polite” “well mannered.”

94

I give up. I hope you marry a badger prone to multiple births with parents in Thailand. Enjoy the flights.

95

CRANKYASANOLDMAN WROTE: “I know crying or disruptive kids are a nuisance. They do not compare, however, to a large lurching drunk who voluntarily turned himself into a hazard by overindulging in alcohol. Nor do these children deserve being drugged by a serious medicine not approved for humans their age.”

What is the difference from the point of view of the distubed passenger? The lurching, loud, drunk disturbs the passengers the same way that the screaching child running up and down the aisles disturbs the passengers.

We ask other passengers to be tolerant of parents who can not or will not control their misbehaved children. On the other hand, we scorn or punish the peson who can not or will not control their rowdy, drunken behaviour on the plane.

NOTE TO BEAGLEDAVE: Please note the use of “ADJECTIVES” here as well. If a person wants to get quietly sotted on a flight and fall asleep into his or her peanuts, then go right ahead. The problem is when the person becomes annoying to other passengers.

96

Um, that’s not entirely true. On the most recent flight I took, I paid the “normal” price. I got stuck in row 23 of 25.

You question my manners? I don’t mind having bad manners if that means that I will never condone the drugging of an infant - especially with a drug that is unapproved for a babe that small…and by someone who isn’t even medically qualified to prescribe it, much less dose it!

You go right ahead and question my manners.

I’ll question your ethics.

97

TO ALL: Yes, I made a lot of replies to this thread in the past hour or so.

I write this because some schmuch is going to point out the obvious.

98

This FA is as stupid as they get, spiking a child’s juice. I know the mother did’nt want her child to cry anymore than the rest of the flight wanted to hear it.
Get some headphones and rise above it, jerk. I would have packed a full bag of toys and food to keep my niece or any other child I’d travel with to make sure they wouldn’t be bother. I’ve used my headphones to soothe my niece, and for her it works.

99

Yep. I sure would rather deal with a drunk person than a screaming kid. Air marshal can restrain, cuff, and put the drunk person in his place. If anyone at all tries to discipline the screaming wailing kid, their parents start in right away, not telling the kid to quit misbehaving, but telling the flight attendants or whoever else that they aren’t allowed to tell Junior to sit in his seat and stop shrieking. Drunk people are preferable because something can be done to discipline them.

Will you still say that if the shrill sounds of children screaming induce a migraine that makes me throw up all over the place?

So this is the ‘worship children’ world in which someone who doesn’t particularly want to be crammed into a tiny space with a squalling kid is a cretin? Think what you want about whether or not I have a heart, because I’m not going to apologize for saying that I don’t want to be trapped with a screaming kid. There are many reasons I chose not to have any, and that’s one of them. I’m not about to apologize for not thinking everything a kid does is just fine, even when it’s an ear-splitting wail in a tightly enclosed area I can’t get out of for six hours.

You mean like in the seat next to me where the screaming three year old was on my flight from Pittsburgh to Arizona? Or how about crawling up my leg like the kid on the flight from NYC to Pittsburgh? The mother of the second kid told me I was being a bitch when I asked her to keep her kid from climbing up my leg and getting cookie crumbs all over my suit. Imagine that, I didn’t want an expensive suit ruined by chocolate cookie. I must be inconsiderate as hell of the fact that ‘kids will be kids’.

On second thought, that idiot mother should’ve kept that little monster in his own seat where he couldn’t destroy the property of other passengers. Shoulda taken a lesson from the mother and kid I sat by on the way from Phoenix to Pittsburgh. Polite, quiet, well-behaved kid who said ‘excuse me’ when he needed to go to the bathroom.

100

Huh.Thanks for the grammar lesson, Sparky.

But…here is your reply…

Sorry…don’t see any qualifiers in that paragraph. You’re telling all parents to leave their kids at home with their grandparents…or dope them up. But maybe that fancy learning you’ve had didn’t take with me…could you kindly point out the adjectives that modify/qualify “kids” or “baby” …so that you’re only referring to poorly behaved kids?

Thanks.