Kate Harding’s piece Screaming toddler on a plane is looking for a free pass to do some parent judging. Harding doesn’t want to be a shit about it, so could you cut her some slack? By the time she lists her caveats you probably can. No judging child outbursts in public if they also involve harried mothers, tired and cranky kids, children with special needs, children who might be in pain, children who are frightened, mothers who are at least trying, parents who are in the process of teaching their child something, even if that process is not obvious to you the observer etc etc.
I have seen child hatred bigotry, sometimes loud and proud and sometimes on the down low, from feminists and non-feminists alike, and Harding’s views ain’t it. So yes, I find Harding pretty reasonable. Are children sometimes inconsiderate, some more so than others? Well hey, I hang out in playgrounds on a regular basis and I can attest to seeing the odd bout of inconsiderate behaviour. Do I think there are shitty parents about? Yes, though really, how to compare a noise disturbance in your favourite coffee shop with the much wider problem of shitty parents who neglect and abuse their children. (And who suffers most in the case of shitty parents?) OK. I will hereby issue my official blue milk free pass for judging parents.
Then.. scroll down through the comments on Harding’s piece and….. a more toxic collection of irrational, anti-social, and utterly intolerant hatred towards parents and children you’ll rarely come across.
And you wonder, what was Harding’s point again?
blue milk 
Did you read my open letter to Kate Harding?
Ruth’s open letter to her is great, and that post plus a few others (I can give you links if you like) is what sparked me to write the Adult Privilege Checklist. 🙂
Kudos to you for not judging..I am a strong believer in the idea that in most situations our own personal pov is too limited to truly judge effectively. Case in point, many “Special Needs Children” look totally normal, so I’m glad you are advocating people mind their own business when it comes to annoying children. Or another way to put it, if you don’t have something nice to say, don’t say anything at all. My only suggestion is that onlookers might offer to help the parent in some way, even if just by holding a door open for the stroller, or carrying groceries, and giving them a quick smile to show that you understand.
Dove
Yeah, I kinda wonder what her point is too.
Not liking something – the noise of a child making a ruckus on a plane – doesn’t mean it’s anybody’s fault. It’s part of life because children are part of everyone’s life, as much as certain over-zealous flight attendants would like to pretend they are not. I really admire Kate Harding (really really) but reading that post made me want to tell her to shut up. I mean… get over it, move on, nothing to see here. No one ever died from sharing a confined space with a noisy toddler. I should know, I do it every day and it hasn’t killed me yet.
I have been on two sides of this (as many of us probably have been).
I have been the mom with the inconsolable child. The noisy child. The one who gets louder and louder with any attempt to request that he or she lowers the noise level. I have left many places because of that. But you cannot just leave a plane mid-flight.
I have also been on a plane with a mom who let her toddler cry it out on the airplane. She buckled him in and covered him with a blanket (but not enough to smother him) and ignored him while he cried and cried until he eventually dozed off. Not sure if this was their usual bedtime routine in a different place or if a child who is otherwise cooperative at bedtime was having difficulty because of the new surroundings. Either way, I was uncomfortable. I was squirming in my seat. I WANTED TO GET OFF THAT PLANE.
This, to me, was different from an exuberantly loud child. This was not a child having fun and making lots of noise while doing so. This was not a child anxious for the plane to get moving (something the mother could not realistically do something about). This was a child reaching out to his mother. Expressing a need to his mother. But being ignored. I know it happens in other peoples’ homes all the time, but witnessing it was extremely distressing to me.
Sorry…long rant. The topic gave me an opening to let out a situation that long bothered me. Not sure what my point is in relation to this article. Just expressing how I felt in that situation.
[…] Blue Milk: The free pass for judging parents […]
About two years ago, when our twins were about 10 months old, we took them on an overseas trip. It was a long trip with a couple of connections; yet overall they did very well with no major episodes of crying. Still, I remember a fellow passenger right behind us complaining silently to his companion about my son’s initial crying as we got on the plane in New York.
It was going to be a long trip I said to myself.
When dinner was served, I told the air hostess to give my free wine to the “gentleman” sitting behind me. I had a headache anyway and I try not to drink much alcohol on long flights. I figured he would need the wine more than me if my son cried during the night!
I did not hear a single complaint afterwards!
Although it would be nice if others treated us with compassion and sympathy especially as we try to cope with our small children, I am not surprised when they don’t. Self absorbed as we all are with our own lives, it is probably natural for them to react that way.
It was a very small gesture on my part; didn’t cost me a thing. I would like to think this person felt I looked at the situation from his point of view even though I was busy trying to attend to my child.
[…] by Lynn Harris is essential reading as it says pretty much everything there is to say about the animosity running hot right now towards mothers, well the middle-class ones anyway*. They’re usually […]
[…] but see how highlighting your ‘tolerance’ for certain people (in this case children) always seems to send the exact opposite message to the world. The nastiness that has come out in the comments could be seen as a message to the […]