If your baby is crying...DO SOMETHING!!

The BBQ Pit
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Couple of interesting letters to the editor of the N.Y. Times Wednesday (in response to its Week in Review piece “Kids on the Plane? Maybe I’ll Have That Drink”).

One writer says “…For very young children, making noise, being active and protesting one’s confinement are not “bad behavior” but are developmentally normal responses to being on an airplane…with all of the valid concerns these days about airline safety and security, how much terror can a 2-year-old really hold?”

From another: “…For the next 10 hours, the children (on the plane) screamed, fought, climbed, fell and screamed some more…I felt no sympathy for the parents. They never apologized for the disturbance they caused. Instead, they behaved as if they owned the plane and seemed to feel that the other passengers should be enjoying the distraction they provided.”

Yes. And don’t think the rest of us aren’t grateful for the parents who decide what that threshold level should be.

True, those who don’t agree that the “certain level of noise and rowdiness” is tolerable will act accordingly, including glares, comments, and on up to more tangible expressions of displeasure.

The parents of these kids will just have to tolerate a certain level of opprobrium. :smiley:

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Well, to be fair to them, if you know this poster’s unreasonable hatred of anything womanly or having to do with children, it’s hard to acknowledge what she said, since it’s essentially meaningless as a measure of how “people” think regarding this subject, she’s extremely biased and bizarrely over the top on this subject (women and children).

Her history and long-standing misogyny bring a bit of “the little boy who cried wolf” to most of her posts. Even when what she has to say does make a bit of sense it’s far too tainted with her generally misogynist beliefs.

I apologize but I have to agree with Levdrakon’s and Jackmanni’s opinions regarding this. Though I don’t at all agree with some of the harsh, snipey WAY some of it comes across. But then, we have to deal, this is the pit.

catsix’s post DO support your belief that “people” are saying, in effect, children should never be allowed out in public view until they can behave like perfect robots. But again, it’s not what “people” are saying in this thread, it’s what cat believes because she truly hates women and children.

But the other guy’s post (sorry I forgot the poster’s name), where he states (paraphrased), “My mom didn’t take me out until I could behave, probably around six years old”. I think you’re misinterpreting that statement. A lot of people say that when they mean (to paraphrase yet another poster whose name I’ve forgotten), “take them out in public for practicing appropriate behaviour, but if they blow it, it’s back to Mickey D’s and Chuck E. Cheese’s until the parent feels they might have a better shot at handling it, rinse lather repeat”.
I’m not sure how to make this more clear to those few parents who are feeling sensitive to this, and/or feeling is if someone is saying they’re bad because their kid is a monster sometimes.

No one is saying that a parent is “bad” if their child misbehaves, or if a baby cries. They’re saying IF and when this happens, and it happens in a place where others, (many others), can reasonably expect to have some semblance of normal background noise, then the parent needs to address it.

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Do you have a link to that piece? I’d like to read it. FTR, if there are kids on a plane with a fairly obvious “absent” parent in tow, I’ll have that drink or a valium also.

I never get on a plane without earplugs and at least OTC sleeping tabs. And not just because of unruly kids and parents who ignore them.

Air travel is a major level of hell all by itself, kids or no kids.

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This is it, although registration/payment could be required. Excerpts:

"Maritz Research recently surveyed 1,000 people online who had flown in the last six months for feedback on how airlines could improve customer service. Nearly three-quarters suggested that airlines segregate families in their own section, away from other passengers.

Though Ms. Foss said misbehaving children were only a minority, the fear that one or more of them might be on board can loom large in the minds of travelers. And when an uncontrollable child happens to be on a flight, passengers may not have much sympathy for the parents, or the kid.

Earlier this year, a 3-year-old girl who threw a tantrum and refused to be belted into her seat was removed, along with her parents, from an AirTran Airways flight. AirTran reimbursed the parents for the flight, but when the parents went public with their protest, AirTran received more than 8,000 e-mail messages and phone calls — nearly all supporting the airline.

Ms. Foss, a flight attendant since 1985, says the way to maintain perspective in the air — even if a screaming infant is assailing your eardrums — is to grin and bear it. That’s what she does.

“Most airlines are working with minimum staff,” she said. “So you have two flight attendants, 12 unaccompanied minors, a handful of crying babies, four wheelchairs, a couple of air marshals, and some drunks.”

“It’s a circus on the fly, and I’m the happy clown!” she said cheerfully."
Wheeee!!!

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I’m fine with sticking families in their own section - put them all at the back of the plane. They should also guarentee families sit together. Last plane I was on I was sitting next to two little girls, their dad in the row behind me (I switched with him and therefore ended up sitting between two big men).

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Don’t know Cat’s history, as I’ve said; I only go by what is posted here. Disagree on the other fellow - that’s not the sense I got from his post at all. But that’s hardly important.

I naturally recognize you are in the other “camp” on this. All I think we are asking for is the same as what you are asking for - a basic degree of consideration.

I’m not seeing anyone disagreeing.

Though frankly, until this thread I never gave the matter much thought, because in all my years out in public I can count on the fingers of one hand the number of times I’ve actually been truly bothered by other people’s kids (aside from air travel) - and until I had one of my own, I wasn’t particularly comfortable with kids.

It simply doesn’t seem that common an occurance (airplanes aside) as to warrant such debate. Or maybe I’m just not very sensitive.

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Or maybe we just all have waaaay too much free time at work, and need to find something to bicker about. Weeee!

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I was in a local bookstore a month or two ago and there was a woman there with a baby that screamed 45 G-dblassted minutes, and was still screaming when I left. If the baby is that upset, why don’t they take it outside.?

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Well, as a fellow parent, one who has had kids meltdown in public, I’m not sure what “camp” you think I’m in. Having been there, and had to deal with it myself, my only “camp” is that parents not simply ignore a misbehaving child (as I’ve seen people do numerous times).

You know? It’s not the kids that bother me at all. In that sense, folks are right, kids are just being kids, even when they’re being brats. What bothers me is parents who won’t parent. Period. And if you’ve had rare experiences with non-parenting parents, you’ve been lucky.

This is one good point. Some people do seem to be pretty oblivious. I’ve seen parents able to carry on conversations with others in their party, completely oblivious to the pain their child, screeching at 180 decibels, was causing the ears of innocent bystanders.

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Hee hee. Um, that was the basic gist of the original post, and the previous 9 pages all ask, debate, and answer your question here.

:slight_smile:

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I just flew again today. The short flight was not bad, but the flight from Chicago to NY had something like 5 babies/toddlers on board.

There was much screaming and upset when we took off, which is understandable. There was some screaming here and there, and I was able to sleep, read my book and generally understand that these are tiny kids held captive. It is simply not how they are wired.

–shrug-- I personally find the idea of a babies section to be wholly reprehensible, as I do the idea of a family section.

Not too far behind are the designated sections for the elderly, blacks, women Jews and cripples. If you want to fly an airplane whose demographics are desginated to make James Watt happy, be my guest.

Its called " A Society", people. You know? Where we were all babies once? Where we live in proximity and unless we’ve got the scratch and inclination to charter, we fly as a homogenous group of humans of all races, sizes, genders and whatnots?

What the fuck. :mad:

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Bing bing bing!!! We have a Godwin’s Law winner!!

You lose, thread over.

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Als sie mich holten,
gab es keinen mehr, der protestieren konnte.

Thank goodness someone invoked Godwin. I was waiting for this thread to die.

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One is pleased to be of service !!!

:smiley: