Motherf*ing Toddlers on a Motherf*ing Plane
By Glinda
Well, you would think we were talking about snakes by the way people are reacting to the fact that a supposedly unruly 2 year old and his mother were kicked off a Southwest Airlines flight. Southwest has since apologized, but it hasn’t changed the way people feel about it.
Here are some letter writers on the website Salon, who wrote in reaction to the news:
F*ck Her and F*uck Her Brat
I am goddamn sick and tired of screaming, misbehaving children making my time in public places a misery. Kudos to Southwest for having the intestinal fortitude to do the obvious thing: Boot their asses off the damned plane. If I’d been there, I would have given the flight crew a standing ovation.
The world doesn’t revolve around your spawn
People need to realize that. don’t get me started on people who bring their little beasts into movie theaters.
Keep the Kids Home
I was recently on a NWA flight, in first class, suffering through a kid screaming at the top of its lungs for the last 45 minutes of the flight. We surmised that the kid was sick with an earache and was basically being tortured for the latter part of the flight. The parents should have been charged with child abuse.
I applaud SWA. I wish them and other airlines would apply a very stiff surcharge to anyone under 12, in order to discourage flying with kids.
Throw Them from the Plane (at Altitude)
Sorry, I’m childless which apparently makes me already at risk for being an asshole, but having flown recently in a plane with a six year old kid who apparently was autistic and screamed the whole way? Fuck’em. If they can’t shut up, I don’t want them on the plane. That’s what driving was invented for.
I’ll have to write Southwest an email applauding their efforts.
It’s about time!!!
Finally! Throw mama from the plane and the screaming brat too. It’s about time someone got one of those lousy mother’s attention. Make your kids behave. This should happen more often!
All I can say is wow, there sure are a lot of bitter-ass childless people in this world.
I feel sorry for them.
November 3rd, 2009 at 8:43 am
At the same time, however, there are a lot of parents who are either unwilling or unable to control their children.
My wife & I, for example, have on occasion asked for our entrees to go and left restaurants early because we could sense that our 15-month old daughter was not going to be able to handle sitting there for the duration of the dinner. She generally does very well in public places, primarily because we schedule our lives around here feeding/napping schedule. We know that we’re going to have to alter our plans on occasion.
Granted, on a plane it’s not so simple, since there’s no other place to go. Some of these cases were undoubtedly children who were simply having an off day. There are far too many cases, however, of children who are simply out of control and have parents who have never lifted a finger to stop it. This is born out of a sense of entitlement and self-centeredness (not to be confused with self-interest) which makes certain people oblivious to any others around them.
This causes things like 7th grade students who have never been told “no” and literally do not understand why someone would raise their voice when telling them the same thing for the 12th time in 2 minutes. They say “nobody yells at me.”
Precisely. That’s why you’re behaving like a little [insert appropriate term here]
November 3rd, 2009 at 10:32 am
I think what irks a lot of people is that the parent will appear to be blithely ignoring the behaviour. I’ve been in public places with my baby when he’s started to cry, and I find that a simple, “I’m sorry for all the racket — it must be time for his lunch” goes a long way.
And I’ve been on the other end of it, too. Namely, a train ride where the two toddlers were chasing each other up and down the aisle, screaming, throwing things, and generally behaving like wild animals. The mother just sat there, interjecting the occasional “You get back here!”, but not actually getting up from her seat, and not once acknowledging the rest of us. If she’d had the grace to say, “I’m sorry, everybody — we’ve been on this train for 2 days and they’re going stir-crazy. I’ll do my best to keep the noise down”, then my own annoyance with her would have quickly turned to empathy. And who knows? I might have offered to help keep her kids amused.
If we parents can do the best we can to keep our kids from disturbing others, and at least have the grace to acknowledge it and apologize for it when they ARE disturbing others, I think that’d go a long way towards people being more tolerant of kids in public spaces. And if the parents do that, then those without kids should really be more willing to empathize.
November 3rd, 2009 at 11:10 am
I agree with the previous posters. I think the difference in how I feel about a child crying through a flight is how the parent is handling it.
I have 3 children, and I think all parents have had times when a child is misbehaving or upset in public. So I feel very sympathetic when I see a child crying and a parent trying to calm them down, placate them, or redirect them. I get it. I understand.
However, I get upset when I see a child misbehaving (or crying or screaming) and the parents do nothing, in hopes that ignoring the behavior will make it stop. Or worse, when a parent is barking out angry commands (“Shut up!”), yelling at the child (“WILL YOU STOP YOUR CRYING!”), or repeatedly threatening the child (“I swear, if you don’t stop this right now I am yanking you off this plane and we won’t see Grandma. Do you want that? Do you? I mean it. Knock it off. Do you want to get off this plane? I’ll do it. Cut it out.”).
If THAT was what was happening on the SWA flight, I’m all for removing the mother and child.
November 3rd, 2009 at 12:02 pm
I find the level of vitriol in these letters to be unacceptable.
Period.
November 3rd, 2009 at 12:13 pm
I’m with you, Glinda. Particularly the throw them from the plane at altitude one regarding a child with a disability. You don’t get to say that about a child. Ever.
November 3rd, 2009 at 12:19 pm
Yeah, the letters section at Salon can definitely be a cesspool. Unfortunately, I think it’s emblematic of our society at large, which seems to be growing ever more selfish and hateful.
November 3rd, 2009 at 12:27 pm
As a member of the very frequently flying public I openly advocate that parents traveling with small children be seated in a sequestered section of the plane reserved for this purpose, where their behavior problems are not forced on the rest of the passengers. If you are a frequent flyer, being in a tightly cramped and enclosed place from which there is no escape and being forced to endure screaming children whose parents are doing ABSOLUTELY NOTHING to control them for 5 or 6 hours will turn you frustrated and stressed out very quickly. I am not bitter nor am I childless, but I do respect the rights and space of other people and so should these parents. Sorry, but I applaude Southwest’s action in respecting the comfort of the other 98% of that plane’s passengers. I only bemoan the fact that they knuckled under and apologized.
November 3rd, 2009 at 1:37 pm
It can be pretty horrible when a child or baby is screaming on a plane. But guess what? It’s far worse for the parent and the child. Sometimes it’s just not possible to soothe a small child or baby, and I’m sure in a lot of cases the meltdown is an unusual behavior for the child. What most non-parents don’t realize is that young children can get so over-stimulated by new experiences (like flying on a plane) that they can’t process it and they get upset and scream and cry. The truth is that children are children, they can’t always control themselves. But they’re people too, and they have just as much right to be on the plane as anyone. Not long ago I was on a plane close to an elderly gentleman who farted every fifteen minutes or so. I swear the air was green and fetid. I would have much rather had a screaming child by me, I could have put on my headphones! Anyway, point being, have a little compassion for those parents and children.
November 3rd, 2009 at 1:46 pm
Maybe the solution is that more people with kids should fly, and crowd the bitter and angry folks off of the flights. I’d imagine that a plane full of parents would be more sympathetic and understanding, whether or not they were still annoyed. You can be annoyed and still have a little heart about a situation.
My favorite comments on this whole Southwest thing have been the people who start out with “I don’t have kids, but I was a kid once…” What the hell? We are were. How is that any kind of lead-in to an argument?
November 3rd, 2009 at 4:59 pm
I have kids, and have flown both with and without them. It isn’t always the best time, but I agree that making an effort and acknowledging the disruption makes a big difference (I also try to prep by having a bag full of distracting items they don’t normally get). But “annoying” isn’t exclusive to some parent/child combinations – are they going to start kicking off every annoying flyer? People who have loud, personal cell phone conversations? People who think that their carry-on has priority? My definition of annoying is probably different from yours, and vice-versa. This particular child may have fully deserved to be booted for all I know, but you can’t condemn all children for that (anymore than I will condemn all Salon readers for the small minded comments above).
November 3rd, 2009 at 6:16 pm
I agree that it is far easier to tolerate an unruly child when the parent appears to be trying do something about the situation or at least is apologetic about it. What aggravates it is when the child is annoying and the parent is oblivious.
I was at a friend’s house for an adult event and her fifth grader was running in and out of the living room, standing behind her mother and mocking her (the grandmother could see what the girl was doing), crawling behind the sofa and the chairs and in general being disruptive and the mother did nothing for 15 minutes. She finally told the girl to be quiet. I was getting really annoyed. Why couldn’t she have told the girl to stay in her room from the beginning? Did she really not notice how disruptive the child was? Do parents become immune to their children’s behavior?
November 3rd, 2009 at 11:10 pm
Firstly, I am childless and middle aged. Last year I flew approximately 80 times. NO ONE wants to have to fly with a crying or hyper child, even their parent(s). Yes a few are uncaring or allow their “spawn” to be disruptive. Most, however, are at their wits end when flying with an endless crying child. Apathy can be mistaken for exhaustion. You may be numb from 2 or 3 hours of upset screaming child. They are comatose from the last 24 hours of screaming child. Ear infections and sinuses cause sever pain when taking off and landing. How was the parent suppose to know the kid had stopped up ears? I have had a few times when I really wanted to scream from the pain and I am a reasoning adult. Someone in the article said they should have driven. Well, if you are so intolerant of others, drive your own damned self. Instead of bitching, offer to help! On one trip, the young lady sitting next to me was frantic. She had just sent her husband to Iraq. She had been shuffled from plane to airport to plane for 12 hours. I took her baby and let her sleep. The baby relaxed because she didn’t sense the stress from me that she sensed from her mom. The mom got a break. The other passengers got silence. So before you decide to bitch about a baby, offer to help.
November 3rd, 2009 at 11:11 pm
Be human….
November 4th, 2009 at 2:53 am
I don’t really care how much the parent and child suffer; it’s always MY suffering that interests me most.
However.
As the offspring of a longtime airline employee, I can say with some authority that a huge part of the problem here is a mismatch between expectation and reality. People expect airline travel to be fancy. Limo-class. It’s not: it’s an airborne Greyhound.
If you lower your expectations to that (and I assure you, airlines have; just look at the service levels) you’ll see that being locked up with a nonviolent screamer for six hours is more or less what you can expect.
November 4th, 2009 at 3:16 am
Maybe I’m selfish, but being around people’s uncontrolled children is seriously irritating (when the parents make no effort to control their child, and worse, expect you to kiss their ass simply because they have reproduced. Wow, your birth control methods failed! Go you!) Not only that, a young child’s screams are one of the most painful things another human being can listen to – as a species, we have evolved this hideous noise to force others around us to care for the infant and stop the god-awful racket.
Taking a plane somewhere is already a painful enough experience these days. I think it is going overboard to kick someone off the plane unless the child is crying nonstop for the whole flight. If it won’t shut up for five hours, maybe that is an indicator that there’s something wrong with the baby and there’s a good reason to land so they can get to an ER. However, I think it is completely reasonable to detest the parent and their noisy brat for giving you headaches, and to commiserate with fellow passengers about how there are very few good reasons to take an infant on a plane as it is. Can’t the grandparents visit YOU?
November 4th, 2009 at 1:16 pm
Can’t the grandparents visit YOU?
Well, no, actually, they can’t. Before my husband’s 85-year-old mother died, she was an invalid, having had a stroke while I was pregnant with my first child. She was a very unhappy woman in the final years of her life, and seeing her grandchildren was one of the few things that brought her joy. And as much as I, personally, hate flying with young children (not because they behave badly *mine didn’t, touch wood* but because I hate exposing them to the germy cesspool that is a commercial plane), I sucked it up for her sake.
Something to think about before you go around assuming you have total insight into other people’s motivations.
November 4th, 2009 at 7:20 pm
Yeah, a lot of the comments on Salon were of the variety of “If you have babies or toddlers, either drive, or don’t travel.” Unfortunately, that’s not always feasible. One of my dear friends works for the government and gets work assignments all over the world. She was recently re-assigned from Abu Dhabi to L.A. She has two pre-school-age children. What’s she supposed to do — leave them behind? Or put them on the container ship with their furniture?
I can sympathize with people being aggravated by a kid acting up or screaming. And I can definitely sympathize with them being annoyed if the parent(s) appear to be doing diddly-squat about the ruckus. But most times, the parents ARE trying desperately to soothe, distract, amuse, or otherwise cajole the kid into being quiet, and receiving dirty looks and mutterings doesn’t help anybody now, does it?
November 5th, 2009 at 1:57 pm
Apropos of this topic, here a very funny piece in the NY Times:
http://parenting.blogs.nytimes.com/2009/11/04/how-not-to-calm-a-child-on-a-plane/
I laughed! I heaved! It was better than Cats!
November 9th, 2009 at 5:24 am
“Yeah, the letters section at Salon can definitely be a cesspool. Unfortunately, I think it’s emblematic of our society at large, which seems to be growing ever more selfish and hateful.”
You people just don’t get it, do you? Yes, society has grown more selfish – but the selfish ones are not the people whose lives are being made hell by the screaming brats of feckless, incompetent parents, it is the feckless, incompetent parents who are the selfish ones. If you cannot control your children, do not go on public transport with them (or into a restaurant, for that matter). Too many people now are so self-centered that they don’t realize we live in a society. You cannot just do whatever you want in a public place.
Southwest Airlines was absolutely right in the first place, and wrong to apologize.
November 12th, 2009 at 12:21 am
You know, p (may I call you p?), I don’t have children of my own, but I bet your parents wouldn’t agree with you. Yes, some children do cry for five hours at a stretch. And part of being considered well-socialized is the ability not to blame people for things that they cannot control, like the fact that their baby is upset or has an ear infection. When babies are upset, they scream; we get that.
Sometimes they even do it in the comments sections of blogs.
November 12th, 2009 at 12:22 pm
I mentioned it before, p, but it does bear repeating. Sometimes the parents have no choice but to bring their child on public transport. Examples have been given above. Maybe they don’t have a car. Maybe the family is relocating. Maybe they are going to visit a dying relative, who wishes to see the baby.
Part of living in a society is being civilized, and part of being civilized is developing a bit of empathy, instead of automatically assuming that anybody who bothers you is deliberately being an asshole.
So, the next time you want to complain about the selfishness of the parents of screaming brats, you may wish to stop and consider the fact that maybe, just maybe, they’re not inflicting that noise on you because they’re selfish or sadistic, but because they have no other choice. And if you can see that the parents are visibly TRYING to soothe the child or otherwise keep the situation under control, then try cutting them some slack — they’re doing the best they can.
November 16th, 2009 at 11:27 am
I think an important thing to take into consideration is the age of the child in question. Developmentally, an infant has NO ability to assess inappropriate vs. appropriate social situations. Heck, they barely understand that mom and dad are separate entities from themselves. So it’s not always a question of moral failure on the part of the child or disciplinary failure on the part of the parent. Often it is simply that the child has been pushed past his or her zone of tolerance (and I mean, who DOESN’T experience that in air travel?) and simply does not understand due to the level of their cognitive development that it will all be over soon, and that screaming is just going to annoy the people around them. They literally CANNOT understand that.
Obviously, as children grow older, we can expect more from them in social situations, but until scientists figure out a way to impart the reasoning skills of a 6 year old into a 6 month old, then sorry, we just have to grit our teeth and turn up the volume on our headphones.