Oh man, I thought when I saw the title to this article—“My
Interminable Flight with a Crying Child”—yet another uptight non-parent complaining about the indignities of being subjected to strangers’ children in
public places. But it turns out that Chuck Cohen has some decent points—and he’s a
parent himself.
I still maintain that I have little sympathy for Cohen’s complete intolerance
for crying children on his plane (“Why should kids under the age of 2 fly free
on airplanes? And if they do, shouldn’t we institute a decibel charge?”), since
I happen to be of the school that believes going out in public means encountering
small humans—and sometimes, they’re going to cry.
But Cohen may be on to something when he argues that toddlers
cry on airplanes (and in the theatre) for a reason: they don’t want to go to London, or sit still in a
dark theatre for two hours. They’d much rather play on the swing set in the backyard.
Still, Cohen’s insistence that kids—and the vacationing
public—will be happier if they are left at home may be logical, but it’s not necessarily
practical. Are parents supposed to give up vacationing all together until their
children develop a sophisticated interest in London
theatre and Yosemite falls? And what about the plane flights that are to Grandma and Grandpa's house?
Photo: Mom's Buzz
Related Post:
When The Loud Neighbors Are Your Kids
