Miserable people on planes and trains!!!!

[Bumdiddley]

I, ds22mo and dd3yo and dh were returning from holiday on Gatwick Express.

Ds decided to have a tantrum 10 mins from Victoria so I stood by the door and tried to placate him eg. toys, sweeties, cuddles, etc.

I noticed a woman come to the door and make a comment. I ignored her cos, well, ds was going muclear. Then, she put her fingers in her ears.

When ds calmed down I asked her to repeat herself. She said "I'm not going to talk to you". I told her " If you don't like travelling with the hoi polloi, don't use public transport" She said something dismissive.

I walked away from her, (absolutely livid) as I as still carrying ds. I started saying to ds (so she could hear) "Aw, bad lady is tired and angry. Poor lady doesn't only wear sunglasses inside, but also has a bad dress sense"

I'm still angry the next day. People on the plane were giving him evils too because he liked to pootle up and down the plane.

I know not everyone will think he's a cherub and I tried to keep him quiet...
You know, I'm not sure where I'm going with this I just needed to write it all down so I can forget about it IYSWIM!

Oh kitty love, I'm not being nasty to you - just trying to point out that other people have problems going on in their lives that will impact on their good manners and patience.
She could have been mortified when she thought about it later.

Sometimes you just have to let it go.

What some of you don't seem to appreciate is that a 2.5 year old, 2 year old, 18 month old cannot control their fears, impatience, stress, tiredness, hunger, frustration as well as an adult can. Your level of expectation of a toddler's self control is way above what, in my opinion, is realistic. I think this has little to do with being 'well behaved'. Even calm, laid back, patient children can have tantrums in difficult situations.

I honestly don't understand how this discussion turned out to be so nasty.

Well you know I've got children. When i couldn't manage them out of a tantrum, I would take them out into the corridors of trains or into the back of planes, and apologise profusely to everyone in sight on the way back. I loved people who were kind and supportive about it. The point is that even the people who did really mind having their peace disturbed were nice about it.

Quattro - she came and stood next to me!!

I calmed ds down and then said "I can hear you now. Can you repeat yourself"

As for the Vicki Pollard/ chav comment - I'm very proud of my blond topknot and er..what defines a chav exactly?

And I was in a corridor - just like what you does - whoops slipping into chav (I think)

i run up & down planes with my ds3 , prefer that to DVT!

uriel i know! sorry i sounded all humpy didnt i! Maybe i should change my name to humpydumpy it has a certain ring to it!
i was very nice and didnt say a word to her by the by, i just took a description and vowed i wouldnt rest till i had hunted her down.....
on a personal note i don't mind the screaming or shouting from kids on planes anything to distract me from the thought i'm going to crash and burn any second of the terror ride high in the sky!..... and breathe

Having no car and having all our family either abroad or a long way off in the UK, I think I can say I have had a fair bit of experience of travelling with children of all ages: from the daily bus journey to 17 hours on the train to Berlin with a toddler.

And IMO what you do is you work bloody hard on entertaining them! You accept that you can't sit and read your paper during a journey with small children. You think out things to talk about beforehand, you bring books, you look for points of interest in the landscape, you make up stories (dh has a wonderful series of stories about a magic broom specially designed for waiting at bus stops).

You are going to have the occasional meltdown, that's inevitable, and you may not be able to stop a tantrum once in progress- so no blame to the OP for that. But I often see parents who make no effort at all to talk to their children and then get cross when they have a meltdown. As a parent on public transport I think you do have a duty to be pro-active.

And yes, I have travelled when I have been exhausted and with bad headaches, it is hard, but then the other passengers may have headaches too and my children=my responsibility.

Oh, and I hate it when parents don't do anything to stop their offspring from kicking the seat in front. It hurts and makes you feel sick if you get kicked in the back ever two minutes.

But I make a point of smiling encouragingly at parents struggling with tantrumming children. Because despite my best efforts, I have been there...

The above not aimed at the OP at all (you would have had the encouraging smile from me!) but at some of the other posts.

As Blueberry says, small children cannot control themselves in a nasty situation. But sometimes you can do a lot as an adult to keep them from experiencing a situation as nasty. Be prepared with snacks, jokes whatever. And be prepared for the fact that it may not work...

kilty

Sorry, misread your name before.

I don't think anyone here has posted that parents should not do whatever they can to make the journey as pleasant as possible both for their children and the other passengers. However, there is such a thing as over-stimulation too. It's a fine line. Some tantrums you just cannot stop and I think passengers have to have some understanding that a toddler is not going to behave like an adult on public transport.

I hope I wouldn't have responded as OP did, I think it was sinking to someone else's level personally. She was trying to deal with a toddler having a tantrum.

Reading one post, as the mother of a 14 month old with 2nd baby due in 7 months, I wondered how on earth one is meant to "discipline" a child that age on a train.

I've encountered some annoying kids when out and about with ds but not as many as awful parents. On one train journey last year dp and I were horrified by a woman telling her 6 year old that he had just ruined the whole holiday. Another woman sat behind us on the way up to Leeds turned out to be on a second train with us, and was telling her own older children about the awfulness of this nasty woman.