Try this idea on for size: Just don’t post.
Because something is happening here
And you don’t know what it is.
Do you, Mr. Jones?
Tolerance and acceptance of children is part of The Deal. For the same reason you see a child floundering in the lake, you jump in to rescue. An adult, you can get away with standing on the shoreline shouting encouragement.
Parenting is the most human of all actions, save for love-making, with which it is sublimely associated. It is more human than art, science, or theology. It is more necessary than any profession - not doctors, not teachers, not even lawyers are as elemental, as crucial.
It is also a crippling experience, especially early on, when one’s life is circumscribed and bounded by how far you can go before you are needed back at The Center. We are compassionate for the lame, the halt, the blind.
Parenting is equally worthy of our tolerance. If I can’t give them some slack, I’ll go and get some more.
I wonder if any airline has ever thought of having a family section? Or maybe a family only flight so if you don’t want to travel with kids you can specify, it might help people like milroyj travel in peace. I don’t really like having to travel with noisy children but come on man, thats just life - one day when you grow up you might, just might have kids of your own.
milroyj, all due respect… but you’re being a jerk.
Being annoyed or inconvenienced by others is simply part of going out in public. You should learn to deal with it, as it’s part of being human and living in a human society.
People are stinky, sweaty, loud, have a tendancy to bump into you and spill coffee on your shirt, emit noxious odors from various places, etc. be they adults or children. Such is life! If you wish to avoid this, the best advice I can give you is to stay home, where you can pretty much control your environment. If you go outside, you open yourself up to the bad grooming habits, bad living habits, or simply annoying things that others do.
I agree 100% with you that children on planes are annoying, but there’s fuck-all that you or I can do (or should do!) about it. Face it, people and their progeny are irritating. Suck it up like everyone else, and try to see the humor involved. 
I once did a trans-Atlantic flight in the second floor section of a 747 where, incidently, all the people travelling with children had been put.
Did you have children?
Alas no. I asked for a front-row seat so I could have more room for my legs and that was the only one available.
Well said luci.
I’ll laugh my ass off if milroyj gets stuck in your unenviable posistion one of these days. Karma in action…
There is no question that kids should be allowed onto flights and public transport - what are they supposed to do - teleport? The only issue is that parents should actively attempt to make every effort to keep their kids comfortable, quiet and occupied, no matter how tired the parent may be. Them’s the breaks. It’s your kid - you chose to have it - now you try to minimise the discomfort it might cause other people. (Just as if you yourself suffered from a cough or a sneeze, you would try to minimise the noise for the comfort of others).
The problem in this part of the world is incredibly badly brought up kids. Partly this is because many children are basically shoved 24/7 in the care of low-paid asian nannies, who are far too downtrodden and insecure of their position/status here that they would never dare to chastise the child. They probably don’t even speak the child’s language, eg Sri Lankan maid, Arabic child. So they will sit meekly and demurely while the kid screams/bawls, etc.
Quite often, you witness this with the mother sitting right beside. The mother won’t do anything either. She will sit there looking bored and lazy, while the maid struggles to passively control a screaming brat without offending it or the mother.
Then the other phenomenon you get here is ill-behaved kids travelling in first and business class, often with their own seats. Fair enough - their parents have bought the tickets. But it is pretty pissy for businesspeople that paid for the upgrade so they can actually do some work in-flight, or get a better night’s sleep, to have kids screaming and messing around.
One of the most bizarre things I ever saw was with European parents - their baby starting screaming in the middle of the night during a long-haul flight. Fair enough - babies cry. They had the bulk head bassinet seats. What did the father do? He stood up in full view of everyone, jiggling the baby. He positioned its head over his shoulder so it looked down the entire plane load of passengers, its mouth/screaming fully directed at them. It woke everyone up.
Why couldn’t he have sat down, and jiggled the baby back to sleep behind the semi-sound wall of the back of his own seat, minimising the distraction to others? Because he was selfish and inconsiderate. Not the baby’s fault - the parent’s fault.
I wish I had a fucking tool. I have to use my hand. Or my girlfriend. 
What is the father doing?
The content of this thread is complete proof that some people (milroyj included) were never children who had to fly and were, thus, born adult and therefore have never mentally “grown up”. It’s sad because these things can’t be helped - the longest flight you can have is 24 hours from one place to your destination with a stop-off, if by dumb luck you’re stuck with the same uncomfortable infant or hyperactive brat, it’s at most, one day out of your life. Just be goddamned grateful you didn’t die in a plane crash.
If you are stuck with the brat who has no respect for others, tell the parent. They do have the responsibility to control the child. Infants can’t be helped so unless you want to nurse it to sleep and try to relieve its wind pains along with the numerous other pains babies’ are wont to feel then shut the fuck up and quit yer bitching.
Brats. 
This is perhaps the finest post I have ever seen from you on this board, e. So often I find myself in sharp opposition to what you stand for; here, I can only salute both the sentiment and the eloquent manner in which it’s expressed.
- Rick
Nothing, most likely. Maybe sitting in another area of the plane. I ran into that on a flight back from Italy, with an Italian couple. The father was a few rows up (he came back at one point to visit his wife and kid), and the mother sat there and meekly was repeating their ~2 year old boy’s name on occasion, while he ripped up headphones and in-flight magazines, threw pillows into the aisle and played in it while elderly Italians were attempting to get past him to the lavatory, and so forth. Finally, when he was reaching a food-covered hand towards my stitching - the mother and son were sitting immediately in front of us, he was standing on the arm rest and looking back, I was in the lavatory - my husband sternly said “No!” and you could have sworn the kid had been struck by lightning. He looked completely stunned, as if he’d never been told that before, but turned around and sat down without making a sound.
And milroyj, if the sound of a child is so offensive to you, please let us know until what age children should be able to be out in public without a muzzle/gag on. If you don’t want to deal with kids on a plane, don’t sit back in the cattle car section, pay some money and sit in first class. That comes with the territory, and the world does not cater to your whims.
Ah, lamentably no. milroyj mentioned in the thread in question that his parents were smart enough to never take him out. At first, I thought they must be horrible parents. After reading his posts, however, I can see their side of things.
– Imran
In several recent threads, 'luce has been shocked to find himself agreeing with me. After reading his post above, I’m forced to return the favor.
Tragically, it is Sunday and the liquor stores are closed. I’m going to go lie down for awhile.
God, milroyj, way to be a grumpy selfish jerk.
My parents live a considerable distance (8 hour drive/45 minute flight) from my mom’s family. When I was a kid - yes, even a baby - we would fly there. What’s more reasonable:
a. that a baby be allowed on a short flight so that her grandparents, aunts, uncles, and counsins can see her?
b. that grandparents, aunts, uncles, and cousins (over twenty people in all) all fly to another city to see their new relative?
Of course, our relatives did come visit from time to time, but to demand that all family reunions, weddings, funerals, etc. be held 500 miles away from the participants’ home because the baby might annoy some fuckhead on a plane is stupid in the extreme.
Oh, but babies don’t even know they’re at a family reunion, wedding, or funeral, right? Ever think that a parent might not want to leave their child to someone else’s care, even for a weekend? My parents never took a vacation without me and later, my sister, until we were adults. If they couldn’t afford four airplane tickets and it wasn’t kid-friendly, it didn’t happen. They were responsible for us.
Once! Just once, I swear it!
From the bottom of my heart, thank you elucidator.
Carry on.