This works nicely until the guy in the window seat gets up to pee. He runs into, or tugs on, the seat back that is in his way as he tries to exit the row, annoying the occupant of that seat.
It may not work. It may take some reiteration. The parents may politely explain a learning disability in which you just engage with them. The parents may give you a stinkeye. Oh well, kids need to learn how to interact with the rest of their world, and the parents who you seem to be most worried about are probably the ones whose kids need it the most.
Usually I find that parents are reasonable and appreciate other adults treating their children like small, learning humans rather than tiny monsters.
The point was a far smaller one, that writing off poor public behavior as "well, autism is increasingly common now" is a pathetic cop-out, which does no favors for those who are actually autistic.
It's rare that one knows more about how to handle children than their caregivers, and "reminders" from strangers are often wrong, besides being insulting.
When I purchase an airline ticket, my arrangement is with the airline, not with their other passengers. They owe me nothing. It is not a public space. I can no more shush their children (or such-by-proxy) than I can call up another customer of my internet provider and ask them to use less bandwidth so that I get more.
I can ask the flight attendant to speak to the parents about the kid kicking the seat, but if the flight attendant declines to fix my problem, my ire is best directed at the airline declining to provide me with a comfortable environment.
They could institute a no-children rule, or a "your children must behave or you will be banned from flying our airline" rule, just as Hacker News chooses what kind of behaviour to moderate and what to allow. But the airlines openly tolerate this behaviour for their own reasons, and I choose to do business with them.
I strongly suspect that although they are tactful about it, what they would like to say if I complain is, "If you will just give me your credit card, Sir, I will upgrade your ticket to first class. Come this way, I will pour you a flute of champagne."
We celebrate naked capitalism at the expense of customers here. It turns out, airlines do as well.
I don’t think anyone in this thread is saying that travelers should be entitled to shush other people’s children, which would be incredibly rude. You’re perfectly entitled to go through the intermediary of the airline, but I think polite engagement along the lines of what GP suggested would be a positive feature of society.
[0]: https://www.dol.gov/agencies/oasam/regulatory/statutes/age-d...
Conclusion: Sharing an environment with other people's children statistically sucks. We may win some victories here and there with tact, diplomacy, and/or luck, but that's the reality.
And I am especially sensitive to this, as when I fly to Europe and am stuck in this cacophony for six to eight hours, I usually have a presentation or essay I'm working on and could really use a distraction-free environment.
So I'm both irritated and feeling stressed that I can't work effectively. This is suboptimal personally and professionally. So what are my options?
I chose to fly economy. I could have gotten rich and bought my own plane, but no. I could have spent money flying first class (which filters a LOT of families out). But no. I chose to fly economy, where the price of my ticket was low PRECISELY because families are also flying economy, subsidizing my ticket.
If an airline offered an "Absolutely no kids allowed" flight for anything except a vacation charter, the seats would be more expensive. So instead, they offer first class, and "comfort economy," and if I want a seat not subsidized by unruly toddlers and crying infants, that's what I purchase.
It's harsh, but the universe is no more "fair" to me than it is to people who want affordable housing in San Francisco.
My personal bug-bear is neighbours spilling over my seat. Having wider seats would help but some people really do need to be using two seats not just one.
If I need to be comfortable, I upgrade to comfort economy. If I need to save money, I think about my cost saving and remind myself that these children (in Canada, at least) will grow up to pay for my health care.
The last thing I need is them growing up to think that old people are irritable and annoying to them!
i (try to) remind myself of this when i get annoyed with other people on both roads and walkways.
I usually reply with mild sarcasm, "Shame we both picked today to give our chauffeur the day off."
But for the most part, children being children are entertaining.
If they're American kids, on the other hand, prepare for hours of sheer misery as they have zero discipline and their parents refuse to curtail their horrible behavior.
I was merely hoping to correct a possible misreading of the article's (literal) contents, which I see in retrospect makes me to inadvertently appear be the subject of xkcd 386 :)
That's a pretty weird statement. It's not really abnormal to want to go to the toilet every 1-2 hours.