A viral post on Twitter/X about a screaming baby on a plane has the internet divided. Does complaining about a crying baby on a plane cross the line, or is it fair game?
Continue reading: Delta Passenger Rants About Crying Baby: Crybaby, Or Parents To Blame?
Share your questions, experiences, and thoughts below.
I was on a flight recently to GRR and this toddler was relentless for the first hour, but finally naturally calmed down.
However, the parents made ZERO effort that first hour to do anything to calm their child. That's 100% on the parents. What made it worse is they were totally oblivious.
someone should have told the baby they were on a premium airline!! that might have soothed them!!
I know this is harsh. But who cares?? It's bottom feeder trash content. I'd much rather see a finished review of your Air France new la premiere product than this internet drivel about a screaming baby. You know, high quality rather than recycled internet trash content.
Parents should be responsible. Also use common sense and decency. The idea that my parents would have considered taking us as toddlers on an overnight flight would have been unthinkable.
The mum posted that he was unwell, they were travelling from a wedding and believe it was his first flight. She was very polite and seems was made to feel embarrassed by this.
As an adult he should have bought some noise cancelling headphones, or even regular earbuds and listened to some music or something else distracting rather than being an attention seeker. Am sure he was perfect as a baby. Not
He has a barstool twitter account. That automatically disqualifies the "as an adult" statement
If there was no AC no wonder why the baby would cry. That guy probably doesn't have kids so he blames the parents first. Then he realises he can blame Delta, of course they're to blame if there is no AC
The difference between a baby screaming and an adult screaming is that the adult should have learned enough self-control to know when it's acceptable and when it isn't long ago. If there's no AC and the baby's hot, showing it a screen probably isn't going to do anything and the parents probably already tried that long before this "adult" started his twitter whine.
At the end of the day, commercial aviation is PUBLIC transportation. You will deal with the public, that includes kids, that includes pets, that includes adults with worse manners than kids or pets. Put on your big boy britches and deal with it.
Based on obviously only the information in this story and comments, it seems like there's blame all around. Delta's mess of a flight probably made some adults want to scream. The parents should have tried doing more (maybe ask the FA if they could get up and walk him/her around), and the guy could have been more understanding. No one wins here.
I'm with Jason. Over the last few months there's been a really disappointing increase in clickbait-y trash stories like this. I stopped reading Gary and Matthew because their content swung almost exclusively toward that after Covid. Very sorry to see OMAAT heading in the same direction.
Feel bad for this guy and wonder if he will ever have kids. Yes, it is really annoying having a crying baby on a plane but there are babies that cry because parents don't care and babies that cry because they are hurting and crying is the only way for them to express that. Has he heard of ear pain? That is very common when babies are on planes, change on pressure can cause a lot of pain and there is not much parents can do if that happens.
I for one will be very disappointed if the Paris Air Show is not covered extensively herein. When I asked in an earlier post if Ben was going to the show, a matron like contributor told me to wind my neck in. I took the response to mean that Ben was not prepared to answer a simple question with a civil comment.
Ben, not having kids doesn't automatically disqualify me from assessing the actions of parents. I know what reasonable public parenting looks like by virtue of being a member of the public.
Ignoring your screaming child for an extended period of time on an airplane is wrong. As long as the child is still screaming, parents need to make their best effort to calm the child down. I understand parents are not magicians but they should be making a continuous effort. I don't know what exactly happened here, but I have been on flights where the parents just shrug and let it go on, expecting everyone else to tolerate the consequences of their decision.
(PS: In general the statement "you're not X therefore you can't have an opinion on Y" is wrong. It's almost always deployed as a weak attempt to silence disagreement when the arguer can't think of a relevant rebuttal.)
I'm assuming that they weren't ignoring the child, so much as nothing they did worked. And not having a child does mean that you don't really understand how difficult it can be to calm a child down.
(pauses)
No, it doesn't.
Clearly you do not have children. Good. Keep it that way.
A baby is going to baby, no matter how much performative calming you wish to see from the parents. Grow a pair and buy some noise-cancelling headphones.
I believe Ben isn't doing a full review of the new La Premiere, because it's sponsored and a special flight, where it might not be reflective of a "normal" flight.
Speaking of manners, well raised gentlemen do not wear baseball caps indoors for hours. He is either ignorant or possibly insecure about thinning hair.
No, because in his preview that there would be a full review, with the appropriate caveats
Jason, don't read then. This is Ben's blog and he is free to publish whatever he wants. When you have your own blog you can do the same. I for one appreciate this kind of articles (and I was on a similar situation with a crying baby behind me two weeks ago on an American Airlines flight.) Rude.
How much did barstool pat have to drink that day ? Humorous piece to us av geeks as a crying baby is a rookie complaint. Up there with being out of your meal selection. 100% the influencers fault. Babies and their parents have a right to fly. Perhaps barstool bro can fly private next time.
I won't Ricky. It's just sad to see the degradation of what had been a sterling product. That said, it's happening everywhere and, as your comments belie, everybody's standards continue to sink. Too bad, I came here for reliable high quality and timely content. That seems to be giving way to less, but more drivel. Ashamed.
Barstool Pat is an asshole. Put your noise canceling headset on and get on with life.
(I am never excited about children on aircraft but an adult of ordinary intelligence should be able to understand this).
Barstool Sports has made a brand out of being entitled whiny man-children. This dude is staying on brand.
Worse than a crying baby is a little kid who is wild because of lack of parental discipline. That said, babies should not be allowed in international business class if it is a red eye.
The excuse could be that children under 12 cannot sit by themselves for safety reasons, such as if the oxygen mask drops. They must be seated next to a parent or equivalent. Of course, that leaves an opening for children under 2. Close that opening by not equipping business class seats (the pods, not the European type business class with economy seats) with more than one oxygen mask.
Thank you for pointing out the hat thing. It's a stupid look. And gentlemen should know better.
Another selfish, entitled, arrogant bro who thinks everything should happen according to his world view. babies on planes are a reality of life.
Don't like it, then fly private. Otherwise, zip it. You are just a summer's eve and no one cares about your first-world problems.
I think this is the crucial point.
From what I gather in this case, the parents were embarrassed.
Then I have sympathy.
Although perhaps their embarrassment was what stopped them walking up and down the aisle.
It is good if parents have confidence that if they try, people will be sympathetic.
It's the situations where parents give the impression that they don't care which annoy me.
"As much as I love kids, when I board a flight and there’s a little kid seated near me, I’m not like “oh yay, how exciting.”"
I guess I am an outlier. I genuinely like sitting near kids. It brightens my day.
Parents who fly with kids under 6 should have their children removed by child protective services. There is absolutely nowhere your kid needs to be that you need to force them to sit in a pressurized metal tube for hours. They won't care that grandma died and they won't remember that trip to Maldives.
The hypocritical audacity in this post is just wild. Apparently everything should happen according to Parker's world view.
Oh Willy. You've really got to abandon your trite pearl-clutching attempts to dunk on anyone who doesn't share your exact worldview. I honestly don't think I've ever seen you agree with anyone. If I offered you free ice cream you'd accuse me of being inconsiderate to the lactose-intolerant.
In this instance, if you think noise-cancelling headphones make a dent in a shrieking baby, I've got a noise-cancelling bridge to sell you.
It's always a chuckle when someone who claims to preach tolerance really just means that you should tolerate them.
If they're kids who fly a lot, they're usually good. My brother & SiL spent years comminuting between London and NYC in biz & first with their two kids from the time they were infants, and there were very few disruptions. Sometimes, however, the wheels fall off the carriage and the situation becomes desperate, and parents may well have dark thoughts of applying "pillow therapy" to their offspring.
No man who owns even one solitary baseball cap can be regarded as a serious person.
I’m sure what I said that suggests I have a world view on babies on airplanes. This guy is a jerk who thinks he is entitled to a flight in his terms. He is. It’s called private flying…unless @Chris you plan to start kicking babies off plane for crying.
Y’all seem to think that anyone who is unwilling to tolerate entitlement is somehow hypocritical. We’re not. We’re just tired of folks like you weaponizing any free thought that disagrees with your world view. No matter how many ways you try to gaslight this, what we have here is an entitled bro who thinks the world should revolve around him.
That’s my opinion and you are not going to change it with the flimsy argument you’ve provided. I’m open to changing my mind, but you’ll need to do better.
Where were you on my last WN fight when I was occasionally kicked by the adjacent 'adorable' lap child ? I would have had a seat swap for you that you 'wouldn't dare refuse' !
I should at least be grateful he wasn't screaming @ dangerous decibel levels... Given the two punishments, I'd still have selected the first as my 'inflight amenity' !
@Ben:
When I had my child, we did not fly in the first eight years and did not dine out in the first five years. Other flyers and diners paid to be where they wanted to be and I had
decency not to impose my unforeseen/ unexpected child problems on others. It is
disingenuous to read from commentators that others should fly private when it is normally one child misbehaves on the flight or in the restaurant. I am horrified to read the US carriers allow pets in seats, not cargo, on domestic flights. The main ultimate goal of the US carriers is profits, barring lawsuits, and let passengers and employees fight each other. Parents are the root cause of the problem and they should not put themselves and others in such situation. Period. Not after damage control or to blow it off. Parents can travel by car with their youngsters to train them before taking them on the flight. You often mention US FAs provide lackluster services mainly because there is no supervisor/ manager on duty to provide guidance and discipline. When you reach adulthood at age 18 and lack basic interpersonal skills, you are not prepared for the job market. Schools do not teach such skills. Only parents do. East Asian FAs have far superior nurture and their cultures/ religions are much less violent than all others. You may not realize but many people choose to be single because they watch enough horrible parentings in their lives. Parenting demands only the right ways, not the right remedies or no wrong ways, because we as a society will bear the brunt of bad parenting and financially support those who are the products of bad parenting. It is quite insulting to say childless people lack knowledge of parenting and must refrain from criticizing other parents. I am neither of middle east descent and expert nor high official at any capacity and Ivy League grad, but I am confident that I know and understand the region more than 98% of the population.
LOL .. " pillow therapy " .... I won't ask you to elaborate !
... could there also be a 'sock supplement" if the former fails to take hold ??!
I"ll just let my imagination/fantasies run wild !!
Well, no, really ..... That precocious kid was astute enough at his tender age to realize he indeed was NOT on a premium airline & wailing for redress/reaccomodation !
* WN flight * .... Thankfully it nowhere nearly escalated to a 'fight' !
Never mind the Freudian slip ...
I put in my earplugs, Bose headphones playing a white noise loudly and remind myself I only need to put up with it for X number of hours while the parents have to take that kid home. Works.
Sounds like an oversimplified strategy in this specific instance:
!) Delay
2) No A/C
One never knows the 'X' number of hours an interminable (rolling) delay could devolve into ..
And the lack of A/C could easily be the final "coup de grace" for everyone onboard & probably at least partially explains the heightened intolerance. DL should have done better..,,
When the 2-year old (guessing at the age) is leaning over the top of the seat, screaming at the top of his lungs directly at me in the seat behind non-stop for a 6+ hour flight, even with the newest Bose headset it's extremely unpleasant. I kept thinking, he has to wind down at some point and take a nap ... '.. just kept going and going and going ...'
@Watson
Flying is public transportation, and there's plenty of valid reasons people fly with their babies. If you can't be mature enough to accept and account for that, that's a YOU problem.
Agreed...
I would have liked to see an attempt at a soothing 'walk of shame' up & down the aisle, if possible to 'share/distribute the wealth'...
Or at least some gesture to show they're trying, which is all any reasonable person could ask for ..
@Dusty, please point out where I said babies shouldn't fly. I'll wait. Seems to me like reading comprehension is a YOU problem.
Through genetics, I have lost 90% of my hearing. My cochlear implant does not pick up sound so much as vibrations. Thankfully, I can turn it off and be completely deaf. Some people might feel sorry for me...but not in this instance. I can get off this flight without a thought about it.
No one can blame a child for acting like a child. That would be unfair.
But we can blame parents who bring a child on a flight who is not ready. That is entitlement.
Until your child behaves in ways that do not disturb others [e.g., can attend a live performance quietly; can sit through a meal in a restaurant; can make it through a movie without talking] they are not ready to fly. And no one needs to bring an infant on a plane.
Air travel is different from other forms of shared public space for one main reason: nobody can leave. If your child acts up during a live performance, you can take them out of the venue. If your child is melting down in a restaurant, you can take them outside. If your child fusses during a movie, you can take them to the lobby.
You cannot do that on a plane. If you choose to bring a child on a plane and it is miserable, that is entirely on you. You made your child unhappy. You made the other passengers unhappy. You might be unhappy, too, but it is 100% your fault and your responsibility, so you deserve zero sympathy.
Parents, please show others the respect they show you. Do you think you are special, that your child is special, or that being a parent entitles you to disturb people? If they are not bothering you, why do you feel entitled to bother them, tell them to ignore it/get over it/use headphones?
And Ben, your new parent biases are showing, and they are not attractive nor are they lending you any credibility. Singling out people who do not actually have kids as “rich” to judge the parenting of others and referring to “this guy’s genius solutions” sarcastically is beneath you. Passengers, regardless of family status, who are not bothering anyone have every right to expect the same treatment.
If God sends me to hell and forces me to spend an eternity in an airplane seat next to a crying baby or this guy, I would choose the baby
I think this guy is just content farming but I find it interesting how a lot of the "child free" people aren't content to live their life as they see fit but want to dictate to others how to live their lives and where to take their kids.
Not talking about everyone or even most people who don't have kids, mainly talking about the people who never shut up on the internet about how they are not having kids. The type that tends to unironically use the word "fur-baby".
The point is that the parents should do as much as they can rather than "ignore" the situation. Many airlines would not even wake the parents if they are sleeping which is outrageous.
Agreed - parents need to do everything they can think of to settle their child.
There’s a limit to human endurance. When the crying has been unceasing for more than two hours, almost anyone without a supply of Ativan in their hand luggage will have reached that limit. This guy happens to be the only person with a decent social media profile who’s complained. I’ll wager that most of the other pax; and one or more of the cabin crew; may well have been experiencing homocidal ideation by the time the L1 door finally opened.
Based on my experience taking hundreds of flights on all continents is that in North America and Europe babies are crying a lot, while in Asia, Latin America and Africa they are crying much less. I asked a pediatrician about this, and she said while there is no study on this, it seems logical to her, attributing the effect on food and parental behaviour.
He seems like a seasoned traveller who has seem this countless times before, like we all have. But the idea of 'constant' crying for hours? With, it seems, no evidence the parent was doing much at all? Not acceptable. We have all been on crying baby flights. It happens all the time. You can't get around it. But there's a limit to everything. Usually that parent is trying, sometimes desperately, to do just that. Distract, keep the child thinking of something else, anything at all. It clearly seems this was not the case here. Hence the frustrations. If that parent WAS desperately trying anything, this video would not have been made and he would've had great sympathy in this situation.
I would bet the parent had noise cancelling headphones and was watching their cell phone the entire time!
The dude had a meltdown because of a crying baby and a warm plane. On the anniversary of D-Day, it is interesting to see how this current generation of young American males can’t handle the slightest inconvenience without having a social media whine fest. Maybe he should lay off the estrogen supplements and buck up.
Completely agree with you! Parents feel entitled when their child act out of bounds. Nobody is crazy enough to judge a parent if a baby cries for a while because of the change in air pressure, etc. But a crying baby for two hours is unbearable.
On the contrary, the same people in this comment section dictating how the parent should act seem to be the same people that were livid about Delta diverting for a sick dog a little while back. It seems to me to be more a sense of extreme entitlement and selfishness, coupled with lacking the self-awareness to realize they are in fact using "public" transportation.
@Watson
Correct, I'm making the point that since you are taking public transportation, there's a good possibility of you being exposed to screaming babies. Sometimes the baby is going to scream, because there is nothing the parents can do to make it comfortable. See this very instance, baby is stuck in an uncomfortably warm plane and because the A/C is broken there's no cooling it down. There's no guarantee the parents can get it to stop. That's the maturity part you seem to lack. The ability to understand that there are times when the parents have tried everything, and until something outside changes the baby isn't going to be happy. I promise you, as bad as it is for you, it's 100x worse for the parents. So kick back, read a book, and get on with your life.
Well, if this guy does not like one baby crying then what would he say about four crying babies. I was on a long haul flight several years ago. One crying baby was in front, the other crying baby was toward the back, another crying baby was on the left side of the plane and the other baby was on the right side of the aircraft. None of the parents did anything. They just let the babies cry for hours. It took a long time to get any sleep but I kept silent because what could you really do about it. So, he should at least appreciate that these parents did try their best.
They also may be new parents so they still need to learn. They can learn from other parents or from reading materials on how to help in this situation. Ben can also give some advice. I remember when he was pre-stressed about future long haul flights with Miles but Ben and Ford did an amazing job and it may be that they did their homework and researched about it.
Not a bro whining and crying about a whining and crying baby! It's so hard to live in a society sometimes. Poor guy...lol
Being confined in a plane, train, bus or anywhere you can't escape a crying baby is wrong of the parents to have forced this upon others who cannot extract themselves from the situation. Just the other day I saw a fully loaded tourist excursion boat go by with a screaming baby. Why is it Cool to take a baby out into the hot, sweaty, Florida sun, on a boat, a place no one can leave for two hours? Uncivil, Inappropriate and Rude of the mother.
It's odd that you equate not wanting to be disturbed with immaturity. Parents are responsible for continuing to try to calm the baby as long as the baby is making noise. It's just that simple.
And as an adult you're responsible for understanding that crap happens beyond yours or the parents' control and whining about it on social media just makes you look like an infantile jackass.
If they have some teeth and can eat food get a lollipop and stick it in y
Their mouth! Daaaaaa
Pretending like there's nothing you can attempt to do about your baby crying and then whining on social media that it's everyone else who's the asshole for not just putting up with it - that's some Karen-level entitlement there.
My original statement is quite tame and a reasonable compromise - people shouldn't complain if (and only if) the parent is making a good faith effort. If you think that indicates immaturity, infantilism, and jackassery, that says far more about you than it does about me.
Most parents flying with a shrieking baby have the attitude that the baby is as important to everybody else as it is to them (hormones and evolution form the basis for that, but privilege makes them not understand it).
It's not. It's no more appropriate than any other passenger making that much noise the whole time.
If you have a baby, take the year off from air travel -its one of things new parents have to give up. Or learn how to make it stop crying, before you subject everybody else to your lack of experience.