Looks like YooHooRoo didn’t last too long here.
How do you get banned with only 5 posts under your belt?
Oh yeah, being a jerk.
No, but asking the pilot to change the descent pattern is.
Having had the very unfortunate experience of flying with congested sinuses, I am now sympathetic when babies start crying. Hell, I cried, the pain was so bad.
That admittedly is over the top. However, your demand that a child never board a plane is equally unbelievable.
Thank you, that’s all I was trying to say in the original thread.
After that, people got carried away on both sides, I guess.
Asking the pilot to do loops for your child’s amusement is catering to the child’s whims. Asking if the descent can be made shallower in order to lessen pain for a congested child is not.
Delay the landing for hundreds of passengers just to so a congested child can be a little more comfortable? Get real. Just because you forgot to wear a condom two years ago doesn’t mean the world fucking revolves around your kid.
Would you waste 16 hours of a single strangers time just to keep your kid from crying for a few minutes? Wasting 5 minutes time each for 200 passengers is the equivalent of doing that. (200 * 5 equals a thousand minutes. Divide that by 60 and you have more than 16 hours)
I’m of two minds on this. Sure, my gut tells me that making the descent more shallow is going to lessen the kid’s pain and lessen the risk of medical complications, then by all means, do it. But on the other hand, if the kid is that miserable, then why even put them in the position of being in such pain? It’s scary. And what if the pilot cannot, for whatever reason, make the descent more shallow? What then? The kid goes deaf (well, possibly)? Screams his or her bloody head off, making everyone else in the plane miserable?
I don’t know. Either it’s a big deal or it isn’t. If it’s a big deal and the kid is miserable, then don’t take the chance and don’t fly with the kid until he or she isn’t so congested. It’s not worth the risk. If it isn’t a big deal, then okay. The pilot may or may not be able to make the descent more shallow. But don’t bank on it or expect it, because there are other passengers to consider.
Well, I’ve heard that ear pressure can be uncomfortable, but I never heard of it being out right dangerous to one’s hearing.
(I swear, if I ever have kids, I’ll probably end up wrapping them in bubble wrap before I let them out of the house.) 
Hearing loss from barotrauma (such as experienced by change in altitude) is almost always temporary (usually measured in minutes). Generally, many barotraumatic injuries over time would be needed to cause any sort of permanent conductive hearing loss.
Now if your kid has chronic middle-ear effusions and goes from one acute otitis infection to another, and does not have patent tympanostomy tubes in place, then you’d best check with your doc quite closely before flying with the kid. But I don’t believe there is any medical indication to “descend more slowly”.
you with the face can attest to this. Upon descending into the Newark Airport once, my ears refused to pop. Not only was the pain horrific (imagine a balloon expanding in your head, smashing everything in the process), but I could not hear very well. My own voice was amplified three times as normal in my head, and because of this I felt compelled to speak in whispers. So I couldn’t hear people and they couldn’t hear me! Having not experienced this before, I became a panicky fool.
I thought it would go away once we hit pavement, but a day later I was still impaired.
An old friend of my mother’s got on a plane from Ireland to America with a stuffy nose and lost 80% of her hearing on one ear, permanently. Really, I swear, I’ve met the lady, it’s true. But, that probably won’t happen to you. I take a decongestant before I fly if I’m stuffy just in case, though.
Oh, and:
This really stuns me - that’s exactly what the rest of us were saying, that babies might have somewhere to go, too. Jackass.
Hey, my kid is 26 years old. He can take his decongestants and suffer through with the rest of us. My response was to milroyj’s characterization of a way to possibly lessen pain (and that godawful crying he hates so much) as catering to a kid’s whims. (What dictionary is he using, anyway?) Perhaps he should understand that something that will mitigate another’s suffering can go a long way toward alleviating his, at very little cost to him.
Shallower descent adds very little time to a 4 hour flight. What, you think the world fucking revolves arround you?
Do you think the fucking world revolves around some goddamn kid with ear pain?
Nope.
But I do think that, as a passenger, I’d rather have a descent that takes 10 minutes and is quiet than one that takes 3 minutes and is filled with screaming child. Especially since the faster descent most likely just means more time waiting on the ground for the gate to clear… with, of course, the still-screaming child. Whee.
I have two children, currently ages 4 and 5. We first traveled by plane when our youngest was 2-1/2, and our focus was on trying to minimize the distraction and annoyance that we know a child can cause. I spend the trip monitoring my children’s behavior.
I really don’t understand the anger I am seeing directed at kids. If you’re angry at insensitive asshats who shouldn’t be parents in the first place because they have no clue how to take care of a child, go right ahead. I’m right there with you. But don’t be mad at the kid, and don’t be mad at the parent who’s really trying to do the best for a child.
Here’s a doctor’s opinion. Does anyone have any cites indicating the contrary?
Well said, Brianiac.
The rest of this post, I suppose, is addressed to those without a lick of compassion.
I’m neither a parent nor a child, but I can recognize the plights of both passengers and parents. As a parent, you’re quite conscience of how inconvenient your child is being to everyone. You do what you have to, though. It doesn’t mean it feels good, but you have to defend the indefensible.
I don’t understand why there’s such a hatred for parents that do their job, though. I can see if the mother is sitting there letting the kid cry, but if she’s doing her best, that’s all you can really hope for. Would you have liked some asshole ripping in to your mom because she couldn’t get you to shut up as a kid?
– Imran
Okay-I’ll agree with milroyj.
Taking kids onto a public airplane is not forcing others to cater to your child’s whims.
Changing a flight pattern, IMHO, sort of is.
I think what the kid-haters are missing is that a lot of parents are not the types to let their kids go wild, and hopefully no one actually wants that.
However, there is a limit to how much you can control your kid.
This is why you research.
This is why you plan.
This is why you try to keep inconveniencing others to a bare minimum through whatever crafty solutions you can find.
That is part of the reason why Bordelond started the thread.
And yeah, some people are obnoxious. I read a thread on another board about this topic and noticed that a few mothers were comfortable placing their child rear-facing in a giant car seat on the plane so that the person in front of them couldn’t recline.
Yeah.
That’s obnoxious.
However, the “obnoxious shoudn’t be allowed to fly” argument is just silly.
We’d have, like, 2 dudes on every commercial flight.
As I said in the other thread, children aren’t second-class citizens.
Sure-you don’t have to like 'em.
Lord knows many people don’t, and there’s nothing wrong with it.
But they’re no less annoying than the massive b.o. guy or the drunk, loudly chatty ladies who loiter in the aisles, oblivious to staff and other passengers.
As elucidator said, children are part of the deal, just like every other annoying person 9and don’t think for a minute that you aren’t one, to someone out there! )
Fine, fine post, e.
Great stuff.
Well, anecdotally, a rapid descent, even in a pressurized airplane, can result in great pain if you don’t equalize the pressure. An infant is pretty much incapable of doing that on his own, so if there is any kind of obstruction you have to potential for an ear block, which is enough to make me writhe in pain.
I’m not saying it’s frequently the case, nor am I claiming to be a doctor. I’m just describing a situation where a rapid descent could potentially jack a kid up. Anyone is more than welcome to refute my statement if they like.
Excuse me? You wrote something to the effect of a blanket “so, don’t fly” and there being no good reason to ever fly with a very small child. No caveat as to over-the-top requests.