To think this is peak entitlement?

[lalafafa]

Dear parents that are worried to take your kids on a flight: (As someone who just took 4 toddlers on a flight from Vietnam to Boston, here’s our advice)

Don’t worry about anyone else except for the well-being of your children and yourself.

Don’t worry if your kid doesn’t want to sit still.
Don’t worry if your kid cries.
Don’t worry if your kids makes noises when they are excited.
Don’t worry if your kid runs up and down the aisles.
Don’t worry if your kid happens to
kick the seat in front of you.
Don’t worry if your kid leaves a few crumbs on the ground.
Don’t worry if your kid turns the reading light on and off…
Don’t
Worry
What
Others
May
Think
Of
You
As
A
Parent.
Worry about your kids well-being;
Worry whether your kid is happy;
Worry whether their diaper is clean;
Worry about the logistics of wherever you’re going;
Worry about things that are IN your control!

No doubt — every passenger deserves a comfortable in-flight experience and you should do everything in your power to help this.
BUT
Kids are not robots and we can’t control their every move — no matter how much we prepare.
They are kids.
They will be kids.
They will act like kids.
Be respectful but don’t waste your time worrying what others think. This silly idea that we must apologize for traveling with children is slowly becoming the norm and it’s ridiculous.

Again, this doesn’t mean letting your kids be maniacs. It doesn’t mean being disrespectful and making a mess and not cleaning it up. Or, letting your kids scream the entire flight and not trying to make them happy (though sometimes this is unavoidable). It means to do your best and shake the rest off.

And to those that are flying without children: Tolerance and a
positive attitude will go a long way.

By the way — our kids were not well behaved on the 13 hour leg. They did not sleep. They cried often. They made crumbs. It was hell for us because we were exhausted. We probably took over 10,000 steps up and down the aisles. But, now it’s over and in the past and we already forgot about the other passengers on the flight :)

The only irritating people I’ve ever encountered on flights have been adults!

There are definitely parents like this. I was unfortunate enough to be next to one of them (or rather, next to her child, she was on the other side) for 8 hours. Four year old jiggled, pulled on the seat in front, repeatedly spilled his juice —on me— followed by his mother immediately getting a refill, listened to her phone with the volume on until I pointedly offered a pair of kids’ headphones for the in flight entertainment as she’d forgotten to get them. And and and.

Other side of the aisle my is my husband with my seven and three year olds who are irritatingly being total bloody angels. Didn’t hear a peep from them for the whole flight. But we’ve never tolerated disturbing other passengers, while this woman clearly concurred with the numpty who wrote this thread.

There's not much you can do if a kid is screaming and won't be comforted, no.
You can stop your child kicking the seat in front and generally being a nuisance. You can stop them running up and down the aisles (which is dangerous, for them and others)

I would pay more for a child free flight, and I wonder if parents would pay slightly more for a child friendly flight?

Honestly, I think a lot of people think that children are far more disruptive on flights than they actually are and a lot of people like to feel annoyed about people flying with children.

I once took three co security flights because my father was in hospital with a life threatening health emergency. I took my toddler with me. He was angelic for the first two flights we took (cumulative 21 hrs with a short stop in between). We still got glared as waiting for our flight/getting on it. When we got on our last flight he was a bit tearful and didn’t want to get on (fair enough I didn’t want to either). He wasn’t particularly loud and stopped quickly. Not to mention it was only a 45minute flight. The looks I got from other passengers, you’d think I’d just beaten a puppy to death in front of them. Needless to say some people are going to think that you are the worst person in the world for bringing children on to a flight no matter how well behaved they are (especially if you are a young woman alone with a child looking really disheveled after 24hours traveling).

I really don’t give a shit what other people think on flights. I make sure that I choose flights that are as pleasant as possible (we normally break up the trip taking two long flights with a day in a hotel in between). I make sure that my children are as happy as possible by paying attention to them on the flight and bringing adequate snacks/entertainment with me. I make sure that my children know the flying etiquette (they greet staff politely, the use inside voices, they don’t thrash around in their chairs or kick the chair in front, if they want something they ask for it quietly and get it immediately, if they don’t get it it’s because it’s not possible, they know this is the deal on flights and are pretty well behaved as a result).

I can do everything right and my children can be perfect but there will still be people who are pissed off that they are there.

Why do 4 toddlers even need to go on holiday to Vietnam anyway? Ludicrous people and a ludicrous, selfish attitude.

Butchy--I noticed that too. The children in the photo appear to be having a toilet picnic.

There is another where the toilet is used as a table for a toddler.

You sound very entitled. You should perhaps think of somewhere to go with a shorter plane journey for your small people. I can only think what a hellish trip it was for everyone else.

I bet you complain about swearing in pubs after 8 o'clock because little Augustus and Orphelia can hear.

Just keeked a swatch at her Insta, God help me. Most recent photo features one small child sitting on toilet with bottoms down. Lovely. hmm

While eating, it looks like.

The pics featuring toilets are just too much over appropriate boundaries for me.

Sounds like they're trying to convince themselves more than anything.

I spent an overnight 9 hour flight watching a father completely ignore his 2/3 year old son, leaving him entirely to the flight staff to deal with. The boy screamed, ran around, stood up on his seat and rocked it backwards and forwards, pulled blankets off of sleeping passengers and startled them awake (the ones who had somehow managed to hide and ignore him). The hostess had to literally chase him all over the plane and grab him and return him to his seat. Dad either watched tv or reclined his seat and closed his eyes. He barely flicked a glance at the kid for the whole 9 hours.
When we arrived at our transfer airport, the dude attempted to walk past me to skip the line as he couldn’t be arsed to queue like everyone else. Given that I was waiting there supervising fifteen teenage girls that had been listening to the kid yell all night, while he’d had free childcare, there wasn’t a cat’s chance in hell he was walking by. I shot by arm out across the gap and enjoyed him actually have to wrestle his own child for the forty five minutes it took us to clear customs.
The girls and my fellow leaders were quite impressed with my elbow of steel.
I still can’t quite believe the absolute balls of the man. To literally expect the hostess to stop your child terrorizing other passengers by deliberately waking them up, grabbing their blankets and yelling in their faces. I watched an elderly man have a blanket snatched off his head waking him up. He startled awake and how he held it together without murdering the kid or his ignorant father, I don’t know.

“I believe in traveling and meeting people from other cultures and making the world [my kids’] sandbox,” Goldstein says.

... ps: they have a business that is joint USA & Vietnam. So they went there for work. Something tells me that home-ed is in their future.
-I just spent way too much time stalking them.

I just spent way too much time stalking them.

Ha, me too. Super cute kids though!

Run up and down the aisle, kick the chair in front, really😳 I don’t bloody think so!!!

Flew for the first time with DD when she was 3. We took a bag of toys that wouldn’t disturb other people and produced something new every time she looked bored. She was not allowed to run around. She was not allowed to kick any chair. If she’d even started to whinge/cry, we’d have stuffed chocolate in her mouth. Not our usual parenting technique but making sure she was happy on the plane meant that everyone else would be happy. Her behaviour was our responsibility.

The woman who wrote that clearly doesn’t care that much about her children because otherwise she’d care that people won’t want them around.

I had a flight like that @nachthexe.

The mother sat down did up her belt and ignored her children. She was in the front row of the middle block of four seats. She sat to the far left and her children sat one seat away. The crew did up their belts for them. The youngest ended up undoing his belt during take off and getting up. She ignored that. Then she didn’t help them at all when the meal was served. The youngest must have been about 4. I undid all his packets for him.
He was a nightmare much of the flight. Running about and shouting. Every so often he would try to get his mother’s attention but she would ignore him. Eventually he went to sleep.

Huh? How is this peak entitlement? Because the instagrammer sounds like a sensible mum to me. What’s wrong with her message? Focus on what you can control. You can’t stop children being children. You can try to get them to be respectful but some people may be grumpy anyway despite your best efforts.

Personally I hate the idea that people have to apologise for having children. They’ll be paying your pension so perhaps be a be less grumpy with them!

Tell me OP, what if the seat kicking constantly child is sat directly behind you?

Well behaved DCs do exist. It just means proper parenting and boundaries put in place, obviously with toddlers and upwards. Babies are a different story as you can’t reason with a six month old. Thing is that some parents don’t want to stop their DCs doing what they want because their DCs enjoyment and happiness is the parents’ sole focus, even if at the expense of other people’s comfort. It’s just lazy and self entitled parenting I’m afraid.

I remember one time in particular flying with 2 year old DS, and he kept stretching out his legs and kick the seat in front of him. Everyone knows how annoying that is. After the billionth time of telling him not to do it I was physically holding his legs down and kind of losing it. Every time he so much as bumped the chair in front of him the lady in it would turn and give us a nasty look, despite my obvious efforts to stop it, and after a while I just wanted to punch her in the face. I know how annoying it is but I was doing my best, my child wasn't old enough to understand, and a tiny bit of compassion would have, indeed, gone a long way.

I think there's a big gap between having "a tiny bit of compassion" and not reacting when a child keeps kicking your seat. The fact that you wanted to punch her in the face even though your son was the one kicking her is unfair.

Why do 4 toddlers even need to go on holiday to Vietnam anyway? Ludicrous people and a ludicrous, selfish attitude

Well behaved DCs do exist. It just means proper parenting and boundaries put in place, obviously with toddlers and upwards

Yes they do exist but they're just well behaved kids. My son was always an angel - nothing to do with my "parenting" - he just wasn't a pain.

Somehow deleted my comment on the Vietnam trip. Agree not suitable for small kids. Go when they are older (although I am guessing the kids are not all toddlers).

if i was on a plane and a kid acted in some of the ways she described i’d be fuming. of course there’s some things you can’t control but you should stop the things you can

Reverse?