After some kid’s tantrum caused a 15 minute delay in the plane taking off and considering the fact that there is absolutely no way to remove them such that they aren’t disturbing everyone else? Yes. Keep them off the plane.
I agree. As a single parent who lives hours away from my nearest family and close friends, it is impossible for me to plan every expedition away from home for the times when my kids will be at their best and for an activity that they find exciting. Either I save up all the errand running for Saturday, which makes that one looong and tiring day, or I make several stops during the week after work, which guarantees they’ll be at a time when all three of us are tired. So they’ve had to learn, by experience, that they’ll have to suffer through these things. I try to make things as painless as possible but life is life.
Several people have commented that they compliment parents and kids who are behaving well. I don’t. I seek out the kids and the parents who are frazzled like me and my kids. A stranger can sometimes get a fussy/crying baby or toddler’s attention quicker than the parent and that break in crying can give the parent the opportunity to get the child’s attention in a positive way. It makes the other parent feel less isolated and judged. Plus, it gets me and my kids out of our situation and makes us feel good because we were able to help someone else. If I see older kids (<12) doing stuff they shouldn’t be doing then I tell them to stop it. Then I tell my daughter I better not catch her doing whatever it was they were. (We watch SuperNanny so that I can say that several times during the show.)
I think this is what has changed the most in society, in regards to child rearing, and makes it seems that kids/parenting is worse now than yesteryear. When I was a kid I knew damn well not to misbehave in public even if my mother wasn’t around because any other adult would yell at you. (Plus it was a small town, my mom knew everyone and I couldn’t get away with jackshit.) I want other people to correct my children, not because I don’t want the responsibility of raising them, but because it provides me with added clout. It reinforces what I’m telling them, they know it’s not some crazy rule mom came up with, everybody expects that behavior.
Wow, really? I had no idea parenthood removed the right to visit family, attend a distant wedding or funeral, or take a vacation.
I’ll update my copy of How to be a Courteous Member of Society.
If that’s the case we should probably keep everyone off the plane whose behavior could cause a fifteen minute delay. Since that much delay has been caused more than once by paranoid passengers that believe the swarthy gentleman talking a foreign language two seats ahead of him MUST be a terrorist, that pretty much bans everyone from flying.
The “screaming toddler prevents takeoff” has not happened often - and usually seems to go hand in hand with one of the schools of parenting that puts child above everyone else. I really don’t think those schools of parenting are the norm - any more than drinking heavily and then boarding a plane and being disruptive before takeoff is the norm.
Good lord.
I must say that I never was much inconvenienced by other people’s children in my near 40 years of being childless; and now that I have a baby, I don’t think he inconveniences others - though he’s just starting to enter the terrible stage of throwing tantrums, he so far doesn’t do so much in public. But we will see.
I must say though that demanding never to be inconvenienced in any way by children in public is pretty well the same as demanding that there be no children in public - how on earth do you expect kids to be socialized and grow into useful members of society, and perhaps pay for everyone’s social security, if they can’t experiment with gradually learning how to behave in public by actually appearing in public?
How about dumping a glass (or pitcher if handy) of ice water on the tantruming kid’s face/head? Would the shock of it snap him/her out of it?
Then you’re as mean and stupid as I thought.
Woo, a FIFTEEN MINUTE DELAY! Have you ever even been on an airplane? Tell me; who causes more inconvenience and danger to airplanes, crew and pasengers? Adults or children? Speaking as a person who’s made 200+ commercial flights in the last four years and have never once seen a plane delayed by children, I’ll tell you right now: The real problem is bitchy adults. I’ve seen a LEAST a dozen or more flights seriously delayed - by more than 15 minutes - by adults. I’ve seen adults berate airline staff, get drunk, act disorderly, and generally cause plenty of anguish for everyone else; aside from just a few crying babies I’ve never seen a kid delay a plane, bring an airline employee to tears, commit a federal offense or otherwise ruin the flight. Logically, why not ban adults? Hell, adults blow up planes and fly them into skyscrapers. Kids don’t do that.
This is precisely the sort of idiocy I’m talking about.
Didn’t work at home the one time we tried it (works great on the dog, though).
Drat. 
Maybe it would take an entire bucketful? 
Pardon the non-PCness of this post, but no other word will suffice:
I don’t like kids, and I hate travelling with them, but I must say that I think the above is one of the most retarded things I’ve read on this board.
So true. My sister had the PERFECT baby and was convinced it was her wonderful parenting. Then, four years later, along came humple pie.
Well, that’s my kid - as we know well from parenting threads YMMV.
There is also only so much water I’m willing to fling all over my carpet and floors - or in public at a restaurant. If a tantruming kid bothers people, getting splashed with ice water can’t be much better.
Email me.
No, I wasn’t expecting quiet, I was expecting a mother to well… MOTHER. I never said I was disturbed by the crying, I was disturbed by the mother ignoring a crying baby.
As I said in my post, I’m a contractor and my experience was merely in walking by twice, so I wasn’t there long enough to be “disturbed by the noise” besides, it’s an Air Force base, I’m treated to F-15s (soon to be F-22s) several practice days in a workweek. My point was NOT the noise of the infant, it was that the mother, (like a lot of poor parents being pitted in this thread) wasn’t DOING anything, merely letting the poor tot cry.
Remember, the thread is titled “DO SOMETHING” Not “babies should never ever cry and kids should never make a peep”.
So basically you’re saying the same thing I just did. Yeesh indeed.
Honestly, I could care less what you want to call it. It all comes down to terrible parenting.
Making up lame names for it doesn’t make the situation any better or worse.
That and the fact that airlines will tell drunk people that they can’t get on the plane.
I don’t think a three-year-old kid needs to be on an airplane getting chocolate all over my suit, which is what happened to me on a flight from NYC to Pittsburgh. They can learn to be in public somewhere that they can be removed from the situation when necessary.
I’ve been on a lot of airplanes, and in my experience, kids are a close second to the actual airline itself.
And those people who are drunk and belligerent are not allowed to board.
I guess you’ve never been on the red-eye with screaming kids kicking your seat and making a mess while oblivious parents tune them out. If you’re lucky, you’ll never have to red-eye out of Orlando. The wailing and tantrums start right around the time the gigantic bags of Disney crap are put into the overhead bins.
And what about situations where no matter how much disturbance they make, they cannot be removed for hours?
Yet drunk people get on planes all the time and delay the plane. I’ve been on those planes as well, same as RickJay. And I’ve never been on a plane where its been delayed by a kid. Can’t always tell when someone is stupid drunk until they start abusing the stewardess.
I don’t think I need to sit next to the fat guy pretty much sitting on me wrinkling my clothes, as happened to me coming home from TechEd, but that’s what airtravel is nowadays. 130 pound me squeezed between two guys each double plus my weight. I’ll clue you in - you wear travel clothes on the plane, you pack in your day bag a travel safe wrinkle safe meeting outfit or have as your carryon your suit on a hanger - the stewardess with stash it for you. The three year old with chocolate, the guy with the orange juice, the sweaty gate change sprint, or just getting squished - wear comfy clothes for travel that you can change out of. I’m surprised you don’t know this, I haven’t seen someone wear an actual suit on the plane for a long time. Someone upthread (or perhaps it was another) bemoaned the casualness of our era, but there is no way I’m dressing up so bozo who smells like he spent his post security wait in the airport bar can drool on my shoulder during his nap.
I fly in and out of Orlando a lot. I’ve noticed that the red eye is surprisingly light on kids - always shocks me because MCO is the “lots of kids” flights. Especially if you fly out Friday afternoon - which is conference leaving day - Orlando is a huge tourist town, but like Las Vegas, its a huge conference town as well, and in both cases a plane of conference attendees is very different than the plane of tourists. I had more kids on my flight out to San Jose recently than Orlando. I’ve never seen gigantic bags of Disney crap pulled out of the overhead bins - even when taking the tourist flights with my kids. Brainiac4 flies there more often than I do - one of his vendors is in Orlando, and his experience doesn’t match either. Your experience in and out of Orlando does not match mine or my husbands - you must be unlucky.
Since you are so unlucky, and since kids on planes seems to bother you so much, and since its legal to take kids on planes, perhaps you should find a job which requires less travel - particularly if you are making frequent trips to Orlando. Or at least fly in and out of Tampa - its a little drive but you’ll be exposed to fewer kids.
Sorry, I was making conversation. Its easy to get lost here with lots of posters and sometimes no one responds to your posts. I won’t bother since it apparently offends you when people make small talk.
I liked your different descriptors of parenting styles. I thought they were dead on.
Bottom line is, you (general you) can’t please everyone.
There will be people with different levels of tolerance. Several of us in this thread alone could all look at the same situation and see 10 different things and 10 different ways it should be handled.
I think at the core of everything is basic courtesy. Simple.