Do parents have an obligation to quiet their kids on a plane? (Europe, safety)
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I don't travel without in ear beats and a fully charged iPod classic. There were three kids screaming bloody murder on my last flight, but once my bag was stowed and seat belt bucked, I didn't hear a thing until I landed.
And oh, that means I can completely ignore those stupid chatty old people.
Spare the rod, spoil the child. This thinking is all too prevalent theae days. Kids look to parents for direction. If they're not guided, then they will not know how to behave. Slap on the butt might be necessary to get the point across to some.
Good way to guide them. If someone won't do what you want, hit them. Actual good parents use a whole lot more energy, time and thought to teach their children how to be good people and good citizens. The brutalized children may cower in fear of your belt, but the moment you turn your back they're running riot. The parented children internalise manners and social mores. And yes, all of them find it hard to fall asleep on an overnight flight to Hawaii.
My favourite part of this whole thread is how the grumpy old men are defending their supposed right to be grumpy, while children must be bright and cheery at all times. Flying **** you off? Make you uncomfortable and annoyed at very small thing? Yes, it does that to children,too.
You're the expert ... on EVERYTHING.
You even such an expert that you can argue a former FA. Gawd, it must be exhausting being so knowledgeable about EVERYTHING. How on earth can you stand being so amazing?
Obviously you never worked international long hauls. I've been on three in the past year, on three different carriers. ALL had the bulkheads reserved for families with younger children. ALL of them.
Parents do not have an obligation to keep kids "quiet" any more than bros and sorostitutes have an obligation to stop talking about screwing doggy style with several different partners while downing 5 gallons of alcohol. On my last flight back from Hawaii a few U of O college students decided to recount their trip in livid detail.
"Oh my god Lindsay is such a ***** " "Dude I drank so much that night I like ****ing passed out." "Oh god bro that pu$$ was so rank dude but I hit it anyway." "I wouldn't fu%$ her but I'd let her blow me" After 30 minutes I finally got up and asked them to please use more appropriate language there are kids sitting in front of them who can hear every word. They said "okay dude whatever, sorry" 10 minutes later back to the same conversations. Do 20 somethings talk about anything other than getting drunk? It seems like the word fu#k has replaced um. "So yeah dude I was like at %$%ing black rock and I saw a huge ass mako shark, I was like, oh $#%^ dude I gotta like get out, dude it was so sketchballs!
I'm convinced 20 somethings language has degraded to the point of embarrassment. Well, let me rephrase that. Everyone's language has degreaded substantially. Even In first class I couldn't escape THE BROS. LAX flight, go figure. 2 guys wearing tight Hollister T-s and skinny jeans with douchey spiked hair. Their convo was no better than the college kids.
Everyone, behaves crappy on air planes, it's a nasty little confined space. Don't like it? take morning flights of fly first class. Can't get out of bed early enough or afford first class? then **** and deal!
I'm really tired of the war on children.
I have really well behaved children, but when they were little it was impossible to keep them "quiet" or keep them from being scared during turbulence or crying and pitching a fit during decent and landing. I don't like sitting for 5 hours, but I can keep my emotions in check because I'm an adult a 2 - 4 year old can not. A 2 year old has no idea what they want and being on an airplane just makes things worse.
My kids had just as much right to be on a airplane as anyone else. I didn't get a discount or anything I paid full fare for 5 seats every time we flew. I paid $2500 you paid $500. The airline follows the money.
I did my best to keep my kids quiet but when they were under 4, all bets were off, especially later in the flight. Get some noise canceling head phones. Most people hate flying now so now kids just amplify the problem. The airlines cause our misery. 30" inch seat pitches and trying to cram 189 people into a plane that normally carries 160 = a lot of cramped hot, pissed off people already disillusioned by paying so much for so little.
Now my kids are fine on airplanes, but I always feel for that family who gets on and has to instantly be confronted by some douche threatenting them for something they can't really control. To me it has gotten ridiculous. On my last flight from OC some old *******, told the family returning from Disneyland that his children "better be behaved." The kids hadn't even done anything other than be excited kids coming back from Disneyland.
DINKS and single folks really annoy me. You don't want to have kids..your life is so great with wine tasting/bar hopping and your dog and your nieces... yada yada yada, that's fine, but stop the war on children. Oh and quit calling yourself cat or dog "parents." You aren't parents. Putting food in a bowl is not the same as raising a human child.
You paid $2500 once a year to take the kids to Disney. I pay $2500 a month (if not a lot more) for business travel. The airlines don't give a flying farce about you. They care about their bread and butter, the business travelers. By the way, you sound pretty jealous of those who have chosen not to have kids.
Are some of these kids flying for free? Just curious. If the parents claim that they will sit on the parents' laps, but the flight is not full, can the kids claim an empty seat despite that they never paid?
Kids over the age of two are required to have a paid for seat. If there is an empty seat next to you, you are welcome to use it for the lap baby.
There is nothing more annoying than a person with a squirmy, ticked off two year old on their lap who spends the entire flight kicking and screaming. If that kid was in a seat, buckled in, they would be a lot less dangerous to others. I had one mother tell me I shouldn't have brought my Starbucks on the plane as her kid could reach it on the tray table and burn himself. Excuse me? Her problem to control the brat, not mine.
That's pathetic. Three options? No stickers, no playdough, no markers, no beads, no schleich figures, no jigsaws, no lacing cards, no books, no DVD player, no ipad, no array of snacks? Let me make a wild guess... your single child is under two and you've flown once for about three hours over a single time zone. No wonder you're an expert.
I wouldn't bring stickers on a plane--I respect the airline and wouldn't want them to have to remove an errantly placed sticker. Playdough stinks, I wouldn't subject fellow travelers to that.
This was back in the 1980's. We didn't have electronic gadgets back then.
I never said those were the only things I brought, I had plenty of other things to occupy, as well as snacks and juice boxes (which were a brand new thing back then.) As I said, hid first flight ever was a trans Atlantic long haul.
Modern world of parenting. then they wander why others want restaurants to seat them in non-kid areas more and more.
Some of our favorite restaurants now won't seat children under six, period, and have a one strike policy for both children and obnoxious adults. They would rather tick off one guest by nicely packing their meal and sending them out the door than an entire restaurant full of guests. Too bad the airlines don't follow suit.
Before anyone gets their panties twisted, I am not advocating tossing people out the door mid air, but upon landing telling them they aren't welcome on the carrier for a year, refunding the return ticket, and sending them on their way. I guarantee that the first airline with this type of policy will quickly become the most popular carrier, and people will gladly pay a premium price to fly them.
I have to totally disagree with you on that one: we have had a few flights ruined by young children, and few by adults. We have flown all over the world, so it isn't like we are novice flyers. That being said, yes, a parent should do all he/she can to keep kids quiet. If this means a good firm hand on the bottom oh well. I know it isn't possible to totally get infants or toddlers quiet, I know the ear pain for them can be pretty bad, but any child over 2 or 3 should know how to behave. When I see comments like yours, I wonder if you are one that flies with your noisy child?
Great post. I can think of maybe three times ever that there has been an obnoxious adult on a flight (and once it was the flight attendant!), and dozens and dozens with out of control kids.
On South American buses, women with several children get on the bus, and just park their kids on the lap of any passenger who doesn't have her lap already occupied by a lamb or a basket of eggplants. Nobody has a problem with the idea that children are raised by the whole community.
I like to think that most countries are not third world and evolved enough to not put your child on the lap of a stranger. If someone put their kid on my lap, the kid would quickly find themselves on the floor--regardless of what country I was in!
As many people have posted, it it hard for children to clear their ears while flying sometimes. If the child is in pain for the entire flight, it would be difficult for the parent to calm the child. We travel with our children on a regular basis and despite our best attempts sometimes they would cry or fuss. Thankfully for us, never for an entire flight.
I think we all agree that infants and younger toddlers with ear pain get a pass. That really isn't the issue at hand, it's the brats that are allowed to behave like banshees with parents that ignore the behavior or come on board completely unprepared to care for their children.
By the way, the first time the pressure is bad enough to make them cry in pain, a visit to the pediatrician is in order before they fly again. Not making the effort is selfish and cruel on the part of the parents.
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