Airlines offer no-crying sections
marketwatch.com
marketwatch.com
As a parent who has had the dubious pleasure of flying with children of my own and experiencing the children of others, here's a far more important takeaway:
As shitty as it is for you to experience a miniature crying human, it is ten times shittier for the parents. The emotion you should be reaching for is pity—for the child that can't communicate its desires, and the parents who are desperately trying to divine what baby wants before dying under the weight of every. single. person. staring. at. them.
As for the parents who apparently "ignore" their misbehaving kids—there are no lack of poor parents out there, but more often than not, ignoring is the fastest path to ending a tantrum ("don't feed the trolls"). It's doubly difficult to do when a plane full of people are giving you the evil eye.
However....
Sometimes you just _have_ to fly somewhere. Anybody demanding that babies be banned from airplanes probably doesn't realize that this would be a severe discriminatory measure against women with small children that try to keep their career from dying.
My wife had an important once-every-few-years scientific conference when our daughter was one year old (and still breastfeeding). Being from Germany, it was bad luck for us that the conference happened to be in Korea. It was either don't go and miss out on countless opportunities or make two 12 hour flights with the baby.
In the end I went along as a babysitter and we flew to Korea, enduring some hours (fortunately not the entire flight time) of crying and stares.
Small children are a part of human life, and a noisy one to say the least. If you have them and still want to build a career, you cannot always go for the "I don't want to bother anyone" route.
I’ll happily pay up to $500 for guaranteed silence.
ps. Active noise cancellation might work; however you’re usually not allowed to use electronic devices during takeoff or landing. Speaking from my experience, babies don’t really cry when the plane is coasting, they’re triggered by jitters.
Belated material — Malaysia Airlines bans babies from first class outright [1].
[1] http://www.dailymail.co.uk/travel/article-2009386/Child-free...
Active noise cancellation might work; however you’re usually not allowed to use electronic devices during takeoff or landing.
I hear you loud and clear, though. It just didn't occur to me that this could be a problem for such a short period of the flight.
Maybe the low cost stated ($10-25) is because it's for such a short part of the flight where you get the benefit.
Assuming you've got a good fit, they act as -25dB earplugs with no music playing. Playing music at a moderate volume over that provides a huge masking effect[1] to external sound. Cranky babies, loud talkers, aircraft noise, etc. are all muted to nonexistent or at least very tolerable levels. About the only thing that gets through in my experience is the "bass effect" of a child kicking the back of my seat...
Other brands of in-ear monitors (IEMs) should work fine as well. The key is to ensure you use eartips that provide a good seal and comfortable fit. Most brands ship with different size tips, and you should make sure you can get replacements in your size. The eartips do wear out and need replacement with regular use. In my case, I mostly notice that they start getting oddly uncomfortable.
[1] As in "psychoacoustic masking principle", also leveraged to "hide" quantization noise in lossy audio codecs, ala MP3, AAC, etc.
Turn up the music/white noise to get past the ear plugs just a little bit.
No sounds get past this.
This is probably why the grand-old parent recommends earplugs in addition.
Ya. Exactly. The noise cancellation works great to remove the engine noise. But as soon as you turn them on, high-pitch sounds become a lot more apparent. Earplugs help alleviate that.
But mostly I get the impression that jerks like me did enough grumbling, and this is a way for the airline to seem like they give a crap, which of course they do not.
Society isn't intolerant of children, society sees that there is a market for increased comfort in airlines, and that "peace and quiet" is an integral part of comfort.
They aren't charging more for children to fly.
Even if it did reduce the number of children on board, that's a worse solution than the problem currently is. Children learn by doing, including manners on planes. Remove a generation of children from anything and you'll have a generation that has no idea how to behave during that activity.
My only idea is that children cries is a side-effect of their brain development.
Humans always lived in groups, so being loud and annoying has huge evolutionary advantages over being quiet.
Even today children crying gets them shaken violently in some cultres. I can't imagine pre-historic humans to be more well-tempered and tolerant than today. It doesn't make sense.
Hmm, I'm guessing you are child-free? In my experience, it's not normal for a baby to cry for no reason.
I'm only replying to present a diff. point of view in case people go away thinking it's normal for a baby to cry for no reason.
Not really, it's just that we find it difficult as adults to empathize enough to understand what's bothering them. Children cry because they're hungry, because they've got gas, because they're sick or uncomfortable, because they're overstimulated, or because they're bored. Since they eat every few hours, have developing digestive systems, have developing temperature regulation systems, and have no internal monologue and short attention spans, one of these things becomes a problem very frequently.
As they get older, they cry because they have no emotional regulation (something that isn't fully developed until after adolescence). If I snatch a candy bar out of your hand you were about to bite into, you feel that initial pang of loss but quickly your higher faculties regulates that emotion. If I grab a piece of "floor food" my 9 month old is about to put in her mouth, she feels that same emotional response, but there is nothing to regulate it.
Why don't kittens, baby rabbits or calves cry that loud that much? Instead they happily crawl around. What makes human babies so problematic and miserable?
I believe the theory I've heard goes something like: It was beneficial for humans to start walking upright, but that development puts selective pressure on having a narrower pelvis for increased stability. Having a narrower pelvis implies having a smaller birth canal, which in turn puts pressure on having a shorter gestation period.
Not knowing the reason is not the same as without reason. A child may cry for seemingly silly reasons (there's an excellent Tumblr blog "reasons my son is crying") but there's generally a reason.
This is false.
It is rare for a child under the age of 6 months to cry for no reason. Children under this age cry to communicate a need - they are in pain, they are hungry, they are cold, they are scared. Once the parent has met the need the child will stop crying.
It is incredibly traumatic for parents to have a crying child - the cries are evolved to be distressing to make parents assess the needs. Support groups exist for "cholic" (baby crying with no apparent reason).
Even over this age children usually have a reason to cry. They don't just cry for the sake of crying.
What is 10x more infuriating is a six year old screaming at the top of its lungs, with the parents either ignoring or smiling happily.
This method is also described in that flight magazine on page 53 or something. Should be on the cover.
Chewing/swallowing tends to accomplish the same thing, which is why it's recommended to give them a bottle during takeoff/landing.
It's a form of Eustacian tube dysfunction:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Eustachian_tube#Disorders
My ENT recommends taking a hit of Afrin nasal spray during takeoff and again just before descent.
That said, I'd be happy to be put in a "family friendly" part of the cabin, and leave other audibly sensitive travelers to their piece.
It surprises me how poorly airlines integrate lap infants into their booking process. Often with domestic carriers there's no way to indicate that you're bringing an infant with you until you get to the checkin counter. Seems like poor planning.
as a kid, and now as an adult I've had generic allergies that have caused eustachian tube disorder(s) throughout my life.
Airplane rides cause agonizing headaches for me for about an hour after landing, and there is little to be done about it other than waiting through it. It sucks. The first time I experienced such a thing I felt as if I was going to be permanently deaf or disabled due to it, it's that bad.
Why should the burden of the negative externality lie on the recipient and not the creator of said externality?
The market will sort it out. I would pay more, lots of people would pay more. The demand curve speaks louder than words.