RateItAll: The Opinion Network

What if they have a dingo looking at them? I'd sure as hell cry...

Oh, come on. Babies are going to cry. What would be done with them when they cry? The pressure changes hurt their little, tender, eardrums and they are reacting. Get over it!

Yes,it seems there is a little damion the omen sitting next to me on every flight. It seems some babies and small kids do mind and are not too disruptive,but that is few and far between.there should be a kid only section.

I would love to ban them but we never know who the screamers are going to be. This past trip a woman with a toddler and an infant sat directly behind me...an hour flight. I was amazed...not a peep out of either one! I don't know how she did it. I would say the toddler has flown quite a bit....he had a booster seat and they checked the stroller in at the gate. Mom had the infant in a pack attached to her chest...that was a young baby.

Screaming children (ages 1-4) are next to worst--with their parents being the absolute worst. (I exclude babies because they can't really help it.) There are several problems: too many of them flying, and worse, not enough PARENTS who know how to discipline their children! Back in the ol' days--the 70s--there weren't that many kids flying on planes. And the ones who were there were generally very well disciplined. Parents judged wisely; probably because 1), the "Me" generation selfishness hadn't quite set in yet and people didn't feel like they had to "win" or get their way all of the time 2) there was some sense of community and ethical responsibility (i.e., we are all neighbors), 3) and because of all this, there were fewer namby-pamby inclinations to spoil their children: you're only as good as the next person. What does it say now when 40+ year old men and women bump into you and glare at you like it's your problem or when they try to cut in line? How is that supposed to set a good example for their children? What are the implications when as many parents--as their children--are squabbling at soccer games, baseball games, amusement parks, Chuck E cheeze etc.? Now, I should add that I wasn't a perfectly behaved child myself; I used to go to the park, run around in circles like a maniac and scream my head off (LOL, probably because we lived in a small apartment at that time and I would catch hell if I did that!). But my parents taught me right from wrong, that you should only do as you would be done by, that we should inconvenience others as little as possible--and as such, they didn't take me on an airplane until I was nearly 8: that's when (fortunately for them) my hyperactivity wore off. So, parents with cranky and misbehaving children (that is, if you realize it), listen up: 1) Get to know your and TEACH your children better: if they act up in the car, they're probably not ready for the airplane. 2) If they don't listen to you, you need to work on that before you take them to public areas where rowdiness is NOT accepted or even hazardous (restaurants, shopping malls, etc. ). Whimpering "time-out" doesn't really help. 3) Remember, you are your children's PARENTS, not their 3-year-old pals. Just because you want to be their friend doesn't mean you have to act like them, and this brings me to my final point, 4) GROW UP: if your children see you littering, cutting in line, acting selfishly, you've just given them the carte blanche to misbehave. Don't complain thirty years later that "young people are so rude"--because that's what you've essentially taught them from your examples. Chickens do come home to roost.

Seriously, now, the li'l crumbsnatchers need to be banned from those cheap redeye flights. They've caused me more sleepless nights than I can remember.

It's not the crying infants that bother me. . .but the parents who look the other way when small children (who are beyond the 'innocent infant stage') wreak havoc on a flight. . .and when you ask them to put down the magazine and watch their kid they look at you like you've given them cancer. . .

Not without a nice, fresh roll of duct tape. (((kidding))) I've had many headaches that could be attributed to some screeching baby's non-stop lung exercise. Just one of those things that can't be helped. We were probably all guilty of similar things at one time or another.

You can't prevent it but some people wish they weren't there. It's a fact of life that children will always be allowed on the plane.

This used to annoy me until I had kids of my own.

These days, I just feel a mixture of relief that my kids are beyond that and pity for the parents, who I know from experience would rather be shaking the baby until its jowls jiggle and the crying gives way to stunned silence on the baby's part, rather than singing about the Itsy Bitsy Spider and shaking rattles, while a couple of rows back, some judgemental assholes sit and and tut-tut about the inept parents up there in the bulkhead seating.

Inept parents should be the ones not allowed.

Planes should have gigantic "air strollers" in front of them...it might increase air drag but decrease total drag.

I'd throw full support behind this one, if only the whiny adults get the boot, too.

what can you do? babies have to ride the planes too. hopefully they will simmer down after awhile. I would rather put up with them then some obnoxious drunk, a couple who cannot wait to get to a motel and heavily make out in front of everyone, loudmouths,bratty kids whose parents are oblivious to their antics, etc, babies are the least of problems.

Depends on how long the flight is! In all seriousness, this is just one of those comes with the territory things. Not exactly a pleasant experience, but there's worse things, for instance, annoying people behind you- drunks, braggarts, nosey people, people talking about their jobs and kids all flight long. I know someone who had the utter misfortune to be stuck in front of The Backstreet Boys' publicist... ( oscargamblefro makes the sign of the crucifix and the southern Italian sign of his maternal grandfather's ancestors to ward off the evil eye.)

Silly, all babies cry at times. Ban the parents, not the babies. I know it may be aggravating when you want peace and quiet but we were all babies once. Now misbehaving toddlers is a different story; many times the parents are not being PARENTS and letting their children be disruptive.

If I can't have my bottled water and chapstick,I shouldn't have to listen to wailing and screeching for 10 hours.