• Welcome to OGBoards 10.0, keep in mind that we will be making LOTS of changes to smooth out the experience here and make it as close as possible functionally to the old software, but feel free to drop suggestions or requests in the Tech Support subforum!

On An Airplane Next To A Fat Guy

We adopted our son from Russia when he was six months old. I wasn't taking a cruise ship home.

Exactly...depending on where we end up adopting from, even in the States, a plane ride will almost definitely be a requirement.
 
As long as you can admit you are being selfish.

I have no problem admitting that in this situation. You get 2 hours with him. I live with him for 18 years, if not more. I'm trying to minimize the collateral damage and get whatever little enjoyment I can obtain from the trip under the circumstances. People annoy me on a daily basis, this is one of the few times where I openly admit I will risk annoying others.
 
Last edited:
The important thing is how you react in that 10% situation. Obviously your options are limited on an airplane, but both of my kids have been removed from a restaurant when they were barely three years old and forced to sit in the car with one parent while everyone else finished their dinner. It wasn't fun for anyone, but my daughter got the message after one episode. My son is a little more obstinate, but he understands that there are unhappy consequences if he keeps it up.

Exactly... this is what I'm talking about, great post.
 
I think it would be interesting if you archived that quote and revisited it 2 or 3 years after you have kids. I used to feel the same way, but no longer. The main point being, the kid may be perfectly fine 90% of the time in public, but you have absolutely no control over when and where the other 10% will occur. So you either deal with it as it arises or live in fear like a hermit. We don't take our kid to Morton's, but if he goes apeshit in Chili's 10% of the time, that isn't enough to stop me from taking him out to eat. If he is really bad I will take him outside, but if he just yells once in a while I really don't give a fuck. People's kids bothered me every so often in a restaurant, so I don't care too much if mine bothers them on occasion.

As far as flying, our son is about 2 and he has been on about 10 plane flights. Out of those 10, there was 1 where he screamed a lot. It sucked, but there isn't anything you can do about it. And you can't not fly on the other 9 flights because of the 1 that may or may not occur.

Great post. I'm not subjecting my child to a parade of seven-hour car rides until he's four or five simply because of the 1-in-10 chance he might really lose it on an airplane. So far he's two, has flown about 12 times, and had one bad trip. I'm okay with those odds, and okay with subjecting the public to those odds. If that one trip bothers another traveler inordinately, whatever. Gain some perspective in your life, guy too cheap not to fly coach. You haven't earned the absolute right to never be inconvenienced by another person having a hard time with their child on airplane.

And I get almost giddy at the thought of someone saying something like, "can you control your child?" to me on airplane because he's crying or occasionally bumping their seat. (Frankly, I can't imagine the jackass who would say something like this, and can say that I've yet to encounter such a person in any place I've ever taken my son, who is admittedly pretty well-behaved.) I do everything in my power to correct bad behavior, but sometimes kids just flip out. And if a guy in front of me can't understand that, and has the nerve to say something to me about it, I'll give him some adult opinions he can understand. It probably be a nice stress reliever for me.
 
Last edited:
As long as you can admit you are being selfish.

Selfish? I'm not subjecting my son to confinement in a car seat for ten hours to protect a group of random adults from the possibility of an unpleasant two-hour flight. My son's comfort and happiness trumps self-absorbed air travelers trying to do Sudoku.

Who doesn't have headphones ready if a kid starts crying on a plane?
 
Last edited:
And I get almost giddy at the thought of someone saying something like, "can you control your child?" to me on airplane because he's crying or occasionally bumping their seat. (Frankly, I can't imagine the jackass who would say something like this, and can say that I've yet to encounter such a person in any place I've ever taken my son, who is admittedly pretty well-behaved.) I do everything in my power to correct bad behavior, but sometimes kids just flip out. And if a guy in front of me can't understand that, I'll give him some adult opinions he can understand.

Occasionally bumping seat is one thing. Constant kicking is another.

I can't find a single website that mentions it's okay etiquette for parents to let their 15 month old kick the seat. Every single one puts the onus on the parent to stop the behavior. You guys are unique.
 
Selfish? I'm not subjecting my son to confinement in a car seat for ten hours to protect a group of random adults from the possibility of an unpleasant two-hour flight. My son's comfort and happiness trumps self-absorbed air travelers trying to do Sudoku.

Who doesn't have headphones ready if a kid starts crying on a plane?

Me. My iPod is broken.

:firstworldproblems:
 
I can't find a single website that mentions it's okay etiquette for parents to let their 15 month old kick the seat. Every single one puts the onus on the parent to stop the behavior. You guys are unique.

The websites have spoken. :internets:
 
Occasionally bumping seat is one thing. Constant kicking is another.

I can't find a single website that mentions it's okay etiquette for parents to let their 15 month old kick the seat. Every single one puts the onus on the parent to stop the behavior. You guys are unique.

So what is your solution? How do you get a 15 month old to stop kicking the seat?
 
I'm with Louie CK about air travel. You really have nothing to complain about. You are flying in the air across the country in a few hours. So you have to listen to a baby cry or get your seat kicked, you are saving literally days worth of travel time.
 
Selfish? I'm not subjecting my son to confinement in a car seat for ten hours to protect a group of random adults from the possibility of an unpleasant two-hour flight. My son's comfort and happiness trumps self-absorbed air travelers trying to do Sudoku.

Who doesn't have headphones ready if a kid starts crying on a plane?

Who doesn't have a baby Benadryl ready to calm their crying kid down?
 
It's not okay, and you of course try to stop it. That's a given, and part of the reason why I don't need the aggrieved traveler's input on the matter during the flight. But a child's feet in a carseat are going to bump the seat in front of them from time to time, because that's where they hang. If he's straight-up kicking it, I'd remove him to calm him down and tell him that's not okay. But if he's bumping it unintentionally, no more than periodically, and you turn around and pop off after the third contact, as you claimed you would earlier, that chat isn't going to go well for you if you're impolite.

Gain some perspective. If a kid's acting up, the parent is having as worse time than you, believe me, but everyone has to make do with the constraints of coach air travel. Simply forgoing flying with your kids for years on end is not a realistic option.

Almost everyone understands this, as the one time I experienced an in-air meltdown, everyone around me could not have been more sympathetic and helpful. If a seat gets kicked, the most usual reaction is for the person to tell me not to worry about it when I apologize, or even to play peek-a-boo with my son. One guy handed me his iPad so my son could read a Pat the Bunny app he happened to have for his kids. Everyone gets it, usually.

I'd call your irritation and confrontation approach to be pretty unique.

ETA: I'm not drugging a 15 month old for a two-hour flight. If I'm flying to Hawaii, Benadryl it is. But not to Chicago.
 
Last edited:
It's not okay, and you of course try to stop it. That's a given, and part of the reason why I don't need the aggrieved traveler's input on the matter during the flight. But a child's feet in a carseat are going to bump the seat in front of them from time to time, because that's where they hang. If he's straight-up kicking it, I'd remove him to calm him down and tell him that's not okay. But if he's bumping it unintentionally, no more than periodically, and you turn around and pop off after the third contact, as you claimed you would earlier, that chat isn't going to go well for you if you're impolite.

Gain some perspective. If a kid's acting up, the parent is having as worse time than you, believe me, but everyone has to make do with the constraints of coach air travel. Simply forgoing flying with your kids for years on end is not a realistic option.

Almost everyone understands this, as the one time I experienced an in-air meltdown, everyone around me could not have been more sympathetic and helpful. If a seat gets kicked, the most usual reaction is for the person to tell me not to worry about it when I apologize, or even to play peek-a-boo with my son. One guy handed me his iPad so my son could read a Pat the Bunny app he happened to have for his kids. Everyone gets it, usually.

I'd call your irritation and confrontation approach to be pretty unique.

ETA: I'm not drugging a 15 month old for a two-hour flight. If I'm flying to Hawaii, Benadryl it is. But not to Chicago.

It's cool. Most parents are selfish. Their little darling can do no wrong. The rest of us will just suffer along, event though there are many viable solutions that would make the situation more tolerable to everyone.
 
It's cool. Most parents are selfish. Their little darling can do no wrong. The rest of us will just suffer along, event though there are many viable solutions that would make the situation more tolerable to everyone.

If you're that on edge, maybe you should be the one taking the drugs before the flight.
 
Back
Top