What I have said is that screaming infants, shrieking toddlers and the like are an imposition on other passengers, and common courtesy dictates that passengers not impose on other passengers without a compelling reason. What follows from that is the hope that parents of such children would refrain from creating such an imposition on, for example, red eyes and long-haul trans-oceanics, where the imposition is greatest. What I find disturbing is that a number of posters on this thread (mirroring a number of parents I've encountered on flights) simply said, in essence, "I'll take my kid wherever I want whenever I want and I don't care who is disturbed or bothered," -- and usually followed by an insult.

Because of the prevelancy of this attitude, my personal preference is that children be banned from commercial aircraft. However, obviously, that is not going to happen (though I would happily patronize any airline that did so, even if at a higher per-ticket cost). Failing this draconian approach, it would be nice if the airlines restricted flying children to a "family section," or, at least, insured that F-class pax would not be subject to intrusive child-created nusiances, just as the airlines try to insulate F-class pax from other adult-created annoyances.

These are, however, rules-based solutions and would not be necessary if, as I said in my first post to this thread, all passengers made the effort to respect all other passengers by not imposing on each other, and not expecting each other to bear the imposition as a matter of right. Common courtesy (and no name calling) -- that's all I'm advocating.