Are you kidding me?

[Pangloss62]

First of all, don't assume I have the same disdain for cellerite parents and their kids that I do for the ones I call out below, but this past trip of mine presented some real "winners."

1. So. I get my 24A window seat and I buckle in and everything is fine. Then this really chirpy blondie woman and her lantern-jawed generic husband thrust this HUGE baby carrier seat toward me. I couldn't tell if they thought the kid would survive a crash in it or what, but as soon as they came close to me, the woman says: : "Do you want to change your seat, because if I strap this in here, you won't be able to get out?"

So I say to myself: "Oh, so you're saying that if that there is a crash, you and your little kid will take off and I won't be able to get out? So because YOU bring your kid, pay for an extra seat for the same, and put a humongous baby carrier in the middle seat, I have to choose between keeping my window seat or moving to accomodate you and your fucking kid?" WTF!! Most parents I've seen travelling with infants carry their kid with them; they don't create a little throne in the middle seat. And then she said she was telling me this because if I had to get up to use the bathroom "You wouldn't be able to get out." Then I said to myself: "Oh really? You can put the seat in but once you connect it to the strap it has to stay there until we land? Gosh, I wouldn't want to inconvienience you; I'll just hold it in."

2. I enter the subway car at Harvard Square when I see this woman with a HUGE, two-kid-wide "baby carrier" enter into the car and esentially take up the entire aisle. But she wasn't even carrying babies; these kids were about five years old!! They were twin sisters who immediately got out of the thing and took their places standing on the seats to look out the window. And there stood this woman, with this big empty kid-carrier blocking egress to all that were on the other side. At each stop people had to strain and walk on others' toes to get around the thing. WTF!!!

I'm sorry, but parents can be really self-centered fuckwads.

[DanaC]

So. I get my 24A window seat and I buckle in and everything is fine. Then is really chirpy blondie woman and her lantern-jawed generic husband thrust this HUGE baby carrier seat toward me. I couldn't tell if they thought the kid would survive a crash in it or what, but as soon as they came close to me, the woman says: : "Do you want to change your seat, because if I strap this in here, you won't be able to get out?"

So I say to myself: "Oh, so you're saying that if that there is a crash, you and your little kid will take off and I won't be able to get out? So because YOU bring your kid, pay for an extra seat for the same, and put a humongous baby carrier in the middle seat, I have to choose between keeping my window seat or moving to accomodate you and your fucking kid?" WTF!! Most parents I've seen travelling with infants carry their kid with them; they don't create a little throne in the middle seat. And then she said she was telling me this because if I had to get up to use the bathroom "You wouldn't be able to get out." Then I said to myself: "Oh really? You can put the seat in but once you connect it to the strap it has to stay there until we land? Gosh, I wouldn't want to inconvienience you; I just hold it in."

Umm.....I'm not a parent, but that sounded like she was being considerate to me. Rather than having to ask her to remove baby and seat and all the resultant kerfuffle, she suggested a change in seating arrangements to alow you easy access and her to still use the baby seat.

I'm sorry, but parents can be really self-centered fuckwads.

usually they're child-centred fuckwads .....and that's their job. Inconvenient as that is the for those of us without any small people to look after and annoying as it can often be (particularly the inconsiderate sounding woman in the second example) it really is part of what makes us survive as a species.

[footfootfoot]

Originally Posted by Pangloss62

I'm sorry, but parents can be really self-centered fuckwads.

They're right up there with dog owners...

[footfootfoot]

Originally Posted by DanaC

usually they're child-centred fuckwads .....and that's their job. Inconvenient as that is the for those of us without any small people to look after and annoying as it can often be (particularly the inconsiderate sounding woman in the second example) it really is part of what makes us survive as a species.

Well they oughta be CCFWs but often they are SCFWs, letting their kids tear ass all over and act out because the parents are afraid of their own spoor. I'm not bragging, but when I tell the inch3 to do something such as "let's not throw rocks" (looooong before they are aimed at people, mind you) he listens. Even in the midst of his supposed terrible twos he is really well behaved. A big part of that is being aware of what is going on the the world of him. A pretty simple world really:
eat, sleep, play, cuddle, read. repeat. If a parent is willing to pay attention to a kid and anticipate kid's needs they can head off tantrums when they are at the butterfly flapping its wings in south america stage.

/soapbox

[DanaC]

*nods* fair point.

[Pangloss62]

They're right up there with dog owners...

Dog owners can be worse.

I disagree with what you said. I paid good money to have my seat and be able to leave it in case of an emergency; or to go to the bathroom. I chose my seat because I wanted to look out the window at the clouds and landscapes. She should have selected a window seat for her kid, not a middle seat; either that, or the crew should have found her a customer who would give up a window seat. By doing what she did, she put the onus on ME to make things fit HER wishes.

As it turned out, the kid was really cute, and it seemed she smiled and laughed for me more so than she did for her generic corporate brochure dad.

In the end, I'm just a softie for the kids, just not for their freakin parents.

[footfootfoot]

Originally Posted by Pangloss62

In the end, I'm just a softie for the kids, just not for their freakin parents.

Well there's always the spank ray...

[Pangloss62]

Those guys live and work in the ATL. Brac is much like he sounds, and so is Space Ghost.

[footfootfoot]

Originally Posted by Pangloss62

Those guys live and work in the ATL. Brac is much like he sounds, and so is Space Ghost.

I wonder if they have trouble ordering pizza for delivery?

[Pangloss62]

I wonder if they have trouble ordering pizza for delivery?

I don't know. But Brac just cracks me up, with or without pizza. He was on a local college radio station recently and was marvelous doing ad-lib. :p

[euchrid]

Originally Posted by footfootfoot

If a parent is willing to pay attention to a kid and anticipate kid's needs they can head off tantrums when they are at the butterfly flapping its wings in south america stage.

The above statement is total balls.

I, too, am blessed with the demonic entity known as a two-year old child, and she is also very well behaved. My partner and I are calm, gentle, and stop most tantrums before they happen. But every now and again, we have to make her do something that she does not want to do. Sometimes, it's getting on a bus, or standing in a queue. Sometimes, it's when she's tired. You can anticipate your kid's needs all you want, but sometimes you're in a place that you don't want to be in either, and you wish you could throw a tantrum as well. Sometimes, life isn't that ordered.

However, there are some parents who make the whole thing worse. As a parent, I find little in the urban environment more irritating than other parents who take up all the space, push in queues, or hit you (or your kid) with their oversized pram/pushchair. My partner and I have managed to raise our child from birth to two and a half without carrying fourteen bags, 75% of the time without a pushchair or supersized backpack, without a car, and with hardly any money. Some parents are just selfish and they raise selfish kids to fuel a selfish society.

What we need is a program of Total Sterilisation, where nobody can have a child without submitting a lengthy proprosal and set of documents proving how capable they will be of raising a healthy, intelligent child, which will then allow them to have the sterilisation reversed. (That was supposed to be a joke, but I'm kind of warming to the idea now I look at it again).

[DanaC]

euchrid, I just followed your link and read No-one To Blame. Excellent poem. Really like it.

[footfootfoot]

Originally Posted by euchrid

The above statement is total balls.

I, too, am blessed with the demonic entity known as a two-year old child, and she is also very well behaved. My partner and I are calm, gentle, and stop most tantrums before they happen. But every now and again, we have to make her do something that she does not want to do. Sometimes, it's getting on a bus, or standing in a queue. Sometimes, it's when she's tired. You can anticipate your kid's needs all you want, but sometimes you're in a place that you don't want to be in either, and you wish you could throw a tantrum as well. Sometimes, life isn't that ordered.

However, there are some parents who make the whole thing worse. As a parent, I find little in the urban environment more irritating than other parents who take up all the space, push in queues, or hit you (or your kid) with their oversized pram/pushchair. My partner and I have managed to raise our child from birth to two and a half without carrying fourteen bags, 75% of the time without a pushchair or supersized backpack, without a car, and with hardly any money. Some parents are just selfish and they raise selfish kids to fuel a selfish society.

What we need is a program of Total Sterilisation, where nobody can have a child without submitting a lengthy proprosal and set of documents proving how capable they will be of raising a healthy, intelligent child, which will then allow them to have the sterilisation reversed. (That was supposed to be a joke, but I'm kind of warming to the idea now I look at it again).

I'm sure you are joking when you refer to your 2 year old as a demonic entity, and it can be fun to play the suffering parent card, but it underlies a truth in many cases about the inconvenience of having a child. If that is one's position. I've never felt that inch3 was a demon in any way. He's a two year old and like all two year olds he knows he is completely dependant upon us for his survival, yet at the same time, would like to excercise a little taste of control over his world. Not so much that he feels he is driving the runaway train, but not so little that he can't have his juice in a blue cup either.

As for making them do things they don't want to do that is a big challenge to your creativity. It is the hardest thing for me to remember that children don't have reasoning faculties like adults, supposedly our ability to reason isn't fully developed until we are in our 20's. (think about it, probably true) My wife is always reminding me the "keep the magic alive". I forget he is in a very different world from me where puddles are rivers with huge boats floating on them and cranes that can *SMASH!!!* etc. Me telling him not to walk in puddles w/o his puddle boots is yanking him away from that fantasy. I guess he doesn't like that all that well, much as I don't like being yanked out of my Cate Blanchett reveries by being asked to take out the trash.

One thing that has worked for us, which may be coincidence and may not work for everyone, is that we really kept the direction of the inch3 to a minimum. I figured the less he heard "don't do this, do that, etc" the more likely he'd be to listen to us when we meant it. So far it has worked. My wife has a lot more trouble with him than I do, obviously their relationship is different. I think he knows he can get a rise out of her, where he doesn't with me. I just arch my eyebrow and give him the quizzical look and he usually busts out laughing. Unless he's really tired. Then the question is: How could this situation have been prevented? Sometimes, you do get caught in a situation and there's nothing you can do, but I think the groundwork for tantrums is laid long before the event.

I've only got one child and he's never had a tantrum, so I'm far from expert. That's partly the fear of having another, this one has been so easy.
Just so you know, we don't use bribes to get him to behave or cave in to every whim and demand. I see 90% of demands on his part as being petitions for limits. It scares the passengers to think that they are calling the shots. "Yes, that's a nice truck. I love it too, we're going to leave it here in the store." I don't try the "you've got lenty of trucks already" routine that a lot of parents try. That is greek to kids. The other way validates his feeling about the truck, empathizes with him and sets limits.

Sorry aobut going on so long, I don't mean to sound pedagogic, I'm just comparing notes.

One other thing I just recalled, when my wife was doing direct care with these autistic men she said a technique the care givers used to give direction was
1. Verbal (give them a minute to respond, then)
2. Gestural (indicate the thing you want done)
3. Physical (physically assist the person to perform action)

This allows the person a sense of choice apparently. I'm sure a psychologist could explain why it may be effective. In practice it usually goes:
"Inch3 it's time for bath." wait a few moments for it to sink in. Then I point to the tub, and then I chase him around the room screaming and tickling and making tummy farts, and then we have a bath.


Your point about selfish parents and selfish kids reminds me of story a friend of mine told me about a group of tourists who got off this bus in South America to visit a remote village where there happened to be a shaman living. He went up to the people from the bus and greeted them and exhorted them all to "dream a smaller dream"

I look around at all the paraphernalia that most parents get sucked into and I am nauseus at how big some dreams get.

I've often mused about having to pass entrance exams in order to be a parent or get pregnant. but that's another thread.

[glatt]

Originally Posted by Pangloss62

1. So. I get my 24A window seat and I buckle in and everything is fine. Then this really chirpy blondie woman and her lantern-jawed generic husband thrust this HUGE baby carrier seat toward me. I couldn't tell if they thought the kid would survive a crash in it or what...

They paid for that seat so they could have a little more room to spread out. Plus, it's safer than holding a kid on her lap. Airline regulations say she has to use a car seat for her kid if they do that. All car seats are that big. Again, it's government regulations. She wanted her husband to be able to sit with them. The airline did a bad job assigning the seats for this flight. Non of this is the family's fault. So the mom talked to you to explain the situation and hoped you would offer to trade seats with the dad. You were within your rights to refuse, but you shouldn't be blaming the parents at all. You had the opportunity to not sit next to the kid, and you chose to keep your precious window seat.

I actually think the mom handled this the best possible way. She used this thing called "communication" to explain the situation to you so you could make an informed decision about what your actions would be. That you chose not to trade seats with the dad and complain about it on the internet, blaming the parents instead of the airline, speaks volumes. If you don't like mingling with the riff-raff, you should fly first class next time.

[Pangloss62]

If indeed the airline assigned that seat knowing it would have that huge kid carrier, I agree that it was their fault. I can't believe they would let those things on any seat other than the window seat.

Non of this is the family's fault.

Well, they chose to have and fly with a kid, so they are kinda at fault too. Why can't they just sedate the kids and put them in some plastic carrier and put them luggage bin?

And give me some credit here; I was very polite to the couple and even made the kid goo goo ga ga and giggle.

That you chose not to trade seats with the dad and complain about it on the internet, blaming the parents instead of the airline, speaks volumes.

C'mon. "speaks volumes"??? Am I the only one to rant about an ultimately trivial situation? Isn't that a big part of the cellar?