I don’t have kids. I don’t particularly like kids. But I don’t blame them for existing. I’m starting to get sick of people who do. See, here’s a quick story:
I flew back to NY yesterday. Sitting next to me were a couple with their new eight-month old baby. I knew the kid’s age only because they told me. Specifically, the mother got there first, sat down, and started to wipe down the trays and various surfaces. She caught me wondering what the hell she was doing and explained she had a grabby eight-month old. Anyway.
So they get situated and the kid is happily burbling away. We take-off and the kid wails a bit. Ears popping and so on. The father held her for awhile and then passed her off to the mother was right next to me. I’m listening to music fairly softly, and reading and this kid is kicking me with a spare leg. I mean, her leg and my leg met. She wasn’t trying to kick me, she was just moving her leg. Occasionally she would make noises and reach and pluck at my shirt, or arm, if they were in reach.
New things! Close by! Explore! Explore!
Then she started to cry. And they soothed her. Later she cried more. Etc.
As we landed I said to the mother “Just so we’re clear, I’m not in a hurry, here. you have a small child. Take your time and don’t stress about it.”
And she looked at me, confused.
“Do you spend a lot of time with kids?”
“No. I don’t generally even like them.”
“Well you’re really good with them.”
“Naw. Hey, I don’t like flying and I understand what’s going on around me. If I could scream a few times myself it might help. So, you know…”
And they seemed confused. I wasn’t mad, I didn’t care or get annoyed with their child at any point. You know why? The kid was reacting like anyone would or should, given its age and grasp of events.
Babies have no idea what’s going on! You put them in a plane, keep them bundled and it is loud and feels funny and hurts when their ears pop and… of course they cry! They’re not comfortable, and are often scared.
Small kids? They’re huge bundles of energy. And worse they think flying is going to be the best thing ever. It’s flying! But then it’s being locked in a small metal tube for hours and not being allowed to get out of your seat and play and… that’s hell for a child.
Children cry. They scream. They don’t know better ways to express themselves, or at least more ways that are considered acceptable, and so they express themselves the best they can. they aren’t doing it to spite you or annoy you. They’re upset. and they are allowed to be! But getting mad at them, or worse, mad at the parents – what does that do, exactly?
It teaches parents they shouldn’t take their kids anywhere. Which is bullshit. Kids have a right to explore this planet too, it makes them better humans with wider perspectives. And if we have to put up with a bit of screaming for a few hours, poor us. We have headphones, we have coping techniques, we have experience.
If you, as an adult, can in no way cope with a small child being a small child for a few hours I strongly suggest that perhaps it isn’t the child who shouldn’t be out among people, but it is you.
And this comes from someone who doesn’t like kids. I don’t. but I don’t deny their right to exist and I understand their limitations and capacities. I’m not saying ignore a 10 year old who won’t stop kicking your seat. No, they are old enough to know, as frustrating as it is, that bored doesn’t mean upsetting other people. So, ask nicely. Nicely. I try to apologize to the parent, making it clear that, you know, little Joan is super-bored and I get it, but can she be bored without quite as much kicking? It’s all good, just… let’s try. And if it fails, yeah it annoys me, but so long as Joan and her dad made an effort to adapt behavior, hey, it’s a start.
Remember: You were a kid once too. And wouldn’t you have loved to not get yelled at for being a kid before you could understand what people wanted out of you and why? Spread the respect.
Don’t let kids run wild and unsupervised, but also let’s not put them in cages and berate them for being small humans who are, emotionally, unrestrained. We can teach them, and accept them or we can brow-beat them and make them resentful and, possibly, worse humans in the long run.
So next time you travel and there are six screaming kids on a flight (this has literally happened to me), laugh it off, read your book and pretend it’s a shitty auto-tuned song from some band you’ve never heard of. And then ask for a vodka and raise the bottle to the parents who are just trying to raise the best humans they can.
Eisner and Harvey award winning editor, writer and tired person. Novelist, comic writer, cat owner, NY'er.
I’ve never flown but I have taken my kids on public transport before and I wish I were lying when I say that your attitude is rare. So, as a mum? Thank you.
Thank you. Just, thank you.
” Kids have a right to explore this planet too, it makes them better humans with wider perspectives. And if we have to put up with a bit of screaming for a few hours, poor us. We have headphones, we have coping techniques, we have experience.”
Awesome.
It’s coping mechanisms and experience that stop me from throttling cell phone loud-talkers, which irritate me more frequently and to a higher degree than any kid who’s too close to nap time (or is hungry),ever has.
Yeah, see, adults who can’t behave in public are a whole different problem.
You know, as an adult my parents like to rub it in all the times I embarrassed them in public as a little kid. Forget the fact that I was a model student growing up despite having a learning disability and that I didn’t party in high school and that I didn’t have sex until college and that I didn’t even swear much until I entered my late teens. They really do like to remind me that during moments like this I got cranky and embarrassed them. So yeah, I try to take young kids in stride during times like that. Even if the kid is doing it on purpose, I’ve babysat and nannied and taught enough swim lessons to know that sometimes the caregiver can only do so much and berating them about the situation won’t help anything.
Do people really gripe about babies being babies? When I see people complaining about children, especially on planes, it’s usually a gripe about children who are behaving wildly inappropriately and the parents are doing nothing to contain them. A baby crying because of popping ears or boredom or stress is one thing. A five year old running up and down, pitching fits, or kicking your seatback while the parent pretend it isn’t happening is something totally different. You don’t have to hate kids to hate parents who refuse to train their children to behave age-appropriately in public places.
Yup. People really do gripe. Anbd also a 5 yr old pitching fits… again. THEY’RE FIVE. They thought it would be a big adventure and they’re bored to hell and back. Kind of to be expected. What should the parent do, exactly? Drug them? At ten, totally they should know better. At five? Maybe not, eh?
I want to thank you and tell you that as a mom of 5 reasonably well-behaved children that I absolutely love your post.
I agree with most of what you said in your post. Planes are a bad place for small children. However, they are a form of transportation and they are going to be there so learn to deal with it. Fine.
Now lets talk movie theaters, restaurants. Just because you decided to bring a child into the world does not mean that I have to tolerate your child behaving badly when I am paying money to enjoy something.
I don’t live to accommodate other people and their spawn. If you have a small child please don’t drag them to a place where they are going to bum out every single person that is trying to enjoy their evening. Or afternoon. Or whatever.
I am with you in terms of movies, generally. But resturants… you know what, you live in a society. Deal with that fact. It isn’t just YOUR comfort that matters.
How wonderfully put. I have a 17 month old daughter, and we flew to Camada when she was 3months and home at 6 months. She is a great child, but just like you said, her ways of expression are limited right now! As she gets older I expect her to “adapt” as you put it, to certain places & situations. Like being bored but finding something else to do besides kicking the seat, slip ups happen, we correct them and move on :) thank you for this posting. I shared it on my Facebook & a mommy group.
Elexsis
Nicely said. I’m not a fan of kids (except my own, of course), and, sure, I get annoyed sometimes and their noise and their ability to grow ten extra hands in order to grab and smack and throw all of the things at the same time and whatnot, but you’re absolutely right – they’re tiny humans who simply haven’t learned how we’re supposed to behave in public. Every single thing is new and confusing and scary and when they experience new, confusing, scary things, they behave accordingly, which is different than how one might behave having the coping techniques we only gain through time and experience.
I love your suggestion to basically just suck it up. We know this too shall pass, so just deal with it and don’t punish the parents, who are just trying to make it through, with your disdain and nasty comments.
What a wonderful perspective that I wish SO many others had. My husband and his family are from another country so our children have been flying since they were tiny – even across the pacific! We have always done our best to keep our 3 children calm, engaged in something and otherwise, reigned in on flights (and in life, in general). BUT, you are absolutely correct that young children have limited ability to amuse themselves or articulate in socially acceptable ways what’s going on. Also, it is physically impossible for a young child to sit stock still for long (or even semi-long) periods of time. They have just as much right to travel as anyone else and it’s quite time everyone recognizes that.
Also, rather than getting annoyed, if people would simply pay attention to the situation, the vast majority of the time it is quite obvious that the parent is doing everything possible to remedy the situation. Speaking from experience, it can be incredibly frazzling to be the mom of a baby screaming during landing and NOT be able to comfort that child. The most frazzling part isn’t always that you can’t fix the situation, it’s that you KNOW others are judging you.
Because I haven’t received enough Internet abuse this week, here’s the counterargument:
If I brought a ghetto blaster on the plane, and played a recording of a child crying, that wouldn’t fly (so to speak). From a third party perspective, a parent deciding to bring their child on a plane amounts to the same thing: an adult bringing a strange noise machine on the plane.
That said, of course humans should be tolerant of each other.
No, it really doesn’t amount to the same thing. ONE IS A TAPE PLAYER. THE OTHER IS A HUMAN BEING. There’s a small but critical difference there.
APK: But a third party, it’s a thing making noise. It’s origin doesn’t really matter.
Also, your use of capital letters does not strengthen your argument.
You can turn a ghetto blaster off. Babies are not actually machines.
Darren: The use of caps wasn’t meant to strengthen anything. It was meant to highlight the sheer ridiculousness of this. If you can not work out the difference, even to “a 3rd party” and the sourc eof the noise doesn’t really matter you have much bigger problems than my use of caps. Ya know? Seriously. The difference is, in fact, all the difference.
Nicely written.
I have personal worked on several revisions of the Miniature Human Project, both my own and as a big part of others’. Most of the time all kids really need is someone willing to be patient and communicate with them.
Certain kids, like your theoretical kicking 10 year old, need the adults in their lives to be more observant. That’s not their fault, it’s their parents fault. If I take a youngster on a plane (and I have more than once) it’s my job to teach them what’s acceptable behavior, and to call them on it if they drift absentmindedly into inconsiderate behavior. But sometimes Dad falls asleep, or Mom goes to the lavatory, or the slide into obnoxiousness is really gradual, and having other adults take a moment to just say “can you not kick my chair,” or “can you sing quietly to yourself? I need a nap,” can be just as effective.
And yes, crying babies can be a real pill, but they don’t know any better, and they’d be happier than the rest of us if they were not in pain/uncomfortable and not crying.
Hmm… if Darren is going to criticize your use of all caps, then maybe he should use the right form of ‘its.’ Unless he really did mean ‘it is’ rather than the possessive ‘its.’
That said, I have been on both sides of this and I *LOVE* your post. I am a frequent work traveler and have been plenty annoyed at babies and children on the airplane. *I* have been annoyed. And guess what? *I* just sat there annoyed, doing my best to distract myself from the annoyance. Babies cry. It’s what they do. Nobody likes it. I didn’t give parents dirty looks. I *have* tried to engage the babies and children if they were near enough to me – distract, make funny faces, etc.
It’s the same thing in restaurants. You don’t know the situation – maybe it’s grandpa’s birthday and the whole family was expected to come along. Maybe the family is on vacation. Or maybe, just maybe, the parents are trying to expose their child to new experiences. Whatever. We deal with all sorts of annoyances in our everyday life. At least the baby can’t help it. The stinky guy, the obnoxious drunk, the too-loud cell phone talker, the smoker smoking nearby – they had some control.
As a parent now, I do *try* my best to keep the kiddos quiet and well-behaved. And in situations where I can help it (restaurants, etc.), if one is acting up I try to remove them from the situation so as to limit the annoyance. And when I can’t control it, stop it, remove the child, etc., I appreciate the looks of sympathy and support, and hate the looks of judgment.
I know I tell you a lot that you made me cry, but you know, I’m a crier. Deal with it. I literally cried reading this, because so many times people have been jerks to my kids and me about their behavior, which has been fine. I mean, sometimes not perfect, but age appropriate. You know, I keep the screams to a minimum and teach my kids to respect people around them, but just a couple of weeks ago, someone fussed at me because my kid wouldn’t speak to them in the grocery. You know, my three year old, who has also been taught not to talk to strangers.
Also, as the restaurant issue: as a mom, I firmly believe that the difference between a ten year old who can’t behave in a restaurant and a ten year old who can behave in a restaurant is that the one who can has been there and done that. I have a three year old who is better behaved in restaurants than a lot of older kids, because she’s been to so many and knows what is acceptable and what is not. If you are in a bar or a rated R movie, you have the right to not expect kids around you. If you are in a family movie or a family restaurant, then you better get used to the smalls.
I’m childless and not a particular child-lover either, and I agree. I even argue that parents traveling with small children deserve all the extra time, help and respect they can get, because what they are doing is harder than traveling without kids. If it inconveniences me, whatever. I can deal with it.
Also? I will do what I can to help. Get things out of your overhead bin, carry bags for you, wipe up spills…because I’m a decent human, that’s why.
I think it is INSANE that the airlines don’t/can’t/won’t guarantee parents seating with their kids. INSANE.
I would hate to think that my shitty attitude about kids traveling would be the thing that would keep parents from flying and taking their kids to see the grandparents or aunts and uncles.
All I ask in return is that, if your kid is kicking my seat back, please make him stop.
Stands, applauds, whistles, cheers.
Thanks man