The thread title is just the bit that we click on to open the thread. The opening post contains the detail of the question, which, yes, did mention general-purpose public spaces almost in passing.
Right. but I was talking about public spaces that I move about in, and you still saw fit to correct me based on your own, different context.
Loud noise causes me pain too. I still maintain that as an independent adult, the pain in my ears is a lesser evil than evicting a parent with a distressed baby from the carriage.
I don’t think I was particularly unclear. Maybe you should read more carefully (like, more than the thread title, for example) before responding.
This.
I no longer have small children. And i still hate hearing them cry. But there’s often nothing practical the parents can do. And no, exiting the bus and hoping another one comes by when the baby settles down is not usually practical. (Although if it is, God bless you for doing that.) So the rest of us just have to suck it up with as much grace as we can manage. If you smile supportively at the parent, you may help calm them, which in turn makes it easier for them to calm the baby. That’s about all you can do that’s constructive, though, unless you are especially good at distracting babies (I’m not.)
Babies are one of the expected costs of living in a civilisation, which among its other functions needs to rear the next generation. That squalling baby may be your doctor or shovel your walk when you age. Really, we all have a vested interest in the next generation.