ashill

Kids, especially young kids, are not always the same. They can easily go from happy as a clam to very upset in the blink of an eye, and they have good days and bad days. Do some kids do that more than others? Yes. Do parents have a fair amount to do with the behavior? Yes. Do I get very angry at parents who don’t keep control of their kids? Yes. But it is patently false to describe a kid who cries for one entire flight as unfit to travel.

Most likely, that same kid is perfectly content most of the time (ie only short bouts of unhappiness) on nine flights out of ten. My daughter certainly is. But I don’t have much ability to predict when she’ll be an absolute turd. And I certainly can’t predict her mood on a travel day weeks or months in advance when I buy the ticket.

And by the way, sometimes letting the kid fuss is good parenting. If the kid wants attention and gets it by screaming, rewarding the behavior with attention and comfort is not going to make the behavior less common in the future or for the rest of the flight. Sometimes it’s really hard to know what the best course of parenting is. If you’ve figured it out, please enlighten me! I sure haven’t got the parenting thing perfectly down, so I try not to judge other parents from afar.

fotographer

I have been on many flights with babies crying, noticed its at takeoff and again during landing, babies, are babies,, they will cry when they are .. hungry, sleepy, diaper needs changing, and of course pressure changes in their ears.
just remember we were all babies once, (well my wife says I still am, but not the crying part)

nlkm9

couldnt agree more--i still remember a flight several years ago, this couple came on board with a little girl who screamed at the top of her lungs for 2 full hours. the only time she would stop is the one time the woman got up and walked with her up the aisle...just once--the rest of the time this child shrieked incessantly, and there were about 6 of us with our hands over our ears because it was so loud. Except for the one time, the coupe never got up or attempted to shush the child, and that is what made me angry.

Terence.Hill

That's an interesting observation. My parents told me horror stories about my behavior when they took me to places where I really did not want to be. I apparently tended to scream the entire time and when I was a toddler I also ran amok and threw things around. It usually happened when I was confined to a dense space with many people around - subways/trains/buses but also narrow aisles in a busy grocery store. They left me back with my grandparents when they went shopping or to a place they could not drive to, which was what I really wanted, I guess. I was 12 years old before they took me on a flight with them.

Ruth4325

Saying that infants or children should be banned from flights or premium cabins because they sometimes cry is just as ridiculous as saying that adults should be banned because some of them get drunk and shouty from time to time. I’m sure most parents would be trying everything they can to calm a crying infant down. Why would you not?

My kids have both flown with us from a few weeks old and are definitely better behaved than most adults in premium cabins.

If it was me in the OP’s situation I’d put my headphones on or a set of earplugs and not get worked up about it. It’s public transport after all, and they’re not breaking any rules, as the airline has rightly pointed out.

pauleeepaul

I was on this flight 15-20 times at the end of the MD-11 era. Thankfully most of the travel was in J. I did have one memorable flight in Y. The whole cabin seemed to be full of Eastern European tourists (who i suspect were not Finnish) who broke open their substantial duty free purchases and a raucous party ensued across the North Atlantic. The FAs tried to calm things down but then gave up and hid. A crying baby or two would have been a blessing.

bse118

I never said that the parents don't have a responsibility for their children. Of course parents are responsible for their children.

In no sense does that responsibility extend to an airline having to compensate passengers for crying babies. That's an absurd leap. And no, there's not "vicarious liability" for a crying child.

It's also a massive leap to say the child in question was "physically or emotionally unfit." Or that the airline would have any way of knowing that even if it were true.

Remember we only have the OP's account of situation - and OP obviously had an agenda with the post.

The idea that airlines are going to start banning children (or should) is laughable. There are a scant few airlines that designate child seating areas. And I know of none that ban them from J cabins.

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At this point what does this thread have to do with AA? It's a he-said dramatization of an incident on a JAL flight...

shuom

Speaking of infants in premium cabins... one of my favorite pictures of my daughter.

Babies cry on airplanes. Its is a part of life. If the parents did absolutely nothing, I could sympathize with OP. However, I highly doubt the parents did nothing.

azepine00

hard to say.. some parents absolutely refuse to use pacifiers ipads benadryl and become rather adversarial if those are suggested..
while its up to them how to raise their kids it would be nice to have less rigidity in pablic spaces as courtesy to other pax...

knit-in

Parents take offense to suggestions of drugging their kids for your enjoyment!? Pesky!

SS255

kb9522

And yet posters on FT get really pissy when you suggest they shouldn't take drugs when flying... Double standard?

WearyTravellerMSP

As a parent and an XP, I can see both sides of the debate.

That said, I am generally much more upset with unruly children (wandering unsupervised up and down aisles, banging or kicking seats) much more than crying babies. One realistically can't be completely controlled. The other can be.

soliloquy

I had the same experience on a LH flight from CLT to MUC - the longest mentally challenging flight of my life. Everyone has a different level of sensory aversion/defensiveness and I am a mom, so I get that you can't always console your child. They might have inner ear problems or some other discomfort that they can't articulate because they are...well...babies. I think it's impractical to ban children from flights as this seems a bit draconian. But, I empathize with your frustration. Listening to a screaming child for hours and hours is like torture and can definitely push the limits of your emotional intelligence. I also agree that the noise cancelling devices don't seem to be made for baby decibels. It would be awesome if they had a lavoratory type space that was sound proof so you can usher the baby in there until they stopped.

I'd like to stick the snorers in there as well!

coolcoil

Same here (though I bounce between EXP and PLT ) The youngest of my three is now past the toddler stage so now we have no worries about uncontrollable crying. We were fortunate over the years to only have had one incident where my 3-month old son, who had been an angel on the outbound flight flipped 180 degrees on the return and screamed from door closing all the way to the runway. Nothing would calm him. I would not have blamed the pilot for turning around and kicking us off. Fortunately he fell asleep as soon as we took off.

I rarely see parents who don't try at all, but I witnessed a doozy a couple of years ago in J on a 767 from MIA to ORD. A father, mother, and four kids ranging from baby to about nine years old. The baby was quiet. The other three were running up and down the aisles screaming. When the FA politely asked the father to have his children sit down, he literally said, "With what I paid for this flight, why should I have to take care of my kids?" He was a jerk for the entire flight, complaining about everything that did not meet his imagined standard that was roughly equivalent to flying in int'l F. He made it clear that he was going to file a complaint about the flight attendant when we landed. Fortunately, I was in a position to hang around at the gate and make sure the supervisor who received the complaint was informed that the FA and the rest of the flight crew had been nothing but professional and exhibited amazing patience with that customer during the entire flight.

My suggestion to parents is to try to get bulkhead. At least that way you don't have to worry about the kids kicking the seats in front of them and they can get down on the floor to play. The other alternative I've used is for members of the family to have the seats in front of the little ones so we keep the suffering in the family. It's actually tough for little kids not to kick the seats - when they are strapped in their legs stick straight out.